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Captain_Obvious wrote:Is Billups playing?

Dallas Mavericks eye consistency tonight in Denver

After four games, Dirk Nowitzki ranked ninth among NBA scorers with a 23.8 average.

Average in this case, however, looks like a graph of recent movement in the stock market. Nowitzki began with 36 points in the Dallas Mavericks’ season opener against Houston, and has followed with games of 21, 8 and 30 points.

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said that pattern, believe it or not, has not been a matter of Nowitzki being erratic. Instead, it’s a reflection of inconsistent play by the rest of the team.

"It comes from not guarding well," Carlisle said. "When we guard, he’s gotten shots that are going to come out of flow and transition. We certainly have executed better in the two wins, and we weren’t playing from behind. We didn’t get in a hole. [In the losses] we had to make haste at certain times of the game, and we put up bad shots to try and get back into it."

Nowitzki admits that the team is still adjusting to Carlisle’s new system, which features an up-tempo game on offense and a defense that has to react quickly when the ball changes hands.

"It’s getting better," Nowitzki said. "It doesn’t really matter what offense you run. If you don’t cut hard, if you don’t play hard ... it really doesn’t matter. We’ve got to run hard to get some easy looks. We’ve got to execute our offense."

The Mavericks will continue their on-the-job adapting at 9:30 tonight when they meet the Nuggets in Denver. The game will be televised on ESPN and FSN Southwest.

Thus far, the road has been good to Dallas. The Mavericks’ two victories have come in Minnesota and San Antonio, with both losses at home. But Nowitzki points out that home games against Houston and Cleveland have featured tougher opponents.

"I don’t think we want to overstate these wins we have," Nowitzki said. "We played Minnesota, a young team which is up and coming. San Antonio is without [Manu] Ginobili and they hadn’t won a game until [defeating Minnesota on the road Wednesday.] We haven’t played any great teams on the road yet."

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