• If we learned anything today, it's that it is going to be hard to win when Josh Howard doesn't play and Jason Terry misses his first eleven shots.  Hard, but not impossible because Dallas was still in position to win the game.
• Gerald Green doesn't appear to be much of a defensive liability so far. He did well to draw a charge against Thornton in the first quarter and had 10 defensive rebounds (12 total - a new career high).
• First Impression Alert:  Shawne Williams finally saw the court.  His first 'contribution'... a failure to inbounds the ball or call a timeout resulting in a five second violation.  Oops!
• Barea was certainly active in his 8 minutes.  He scored 6 points and it could/should have been nine had he not missed three free throws.  His quickness resulted in him being fouled four times.
• Here's why I love the Ortegel/Followill combination.  After Barea dribbled all over the court and made a layup Followill said "he looked like Hot Sauce."  Ortegel immediately started talking about Chipotle.
• During a five minute stretch at the end of the second and the beginning of the third, Dirk scored all thirteen of the Mavs points. Dirk finished with 33 -- the third time he's reached 30 this season.
• When asked about the road trip after the Cleveland game, Dirk called this game "very winnable".  That's one of the reason he was not happy after the game: "We've got to compete.  That's on the players, on every single one of us.  We're not good enough to coast, as you saw tonight.''
• The bad side of the center tandem: Dampier and Diop were a complete mess offensively. Technically they went a combined 4-9, but it easily could have been 9-9.
  
• The good side: After Carlisle pulled Dampier and Diop with seven minutes left in the game, the defense couldn't get any stops so the offense really didn't matter.  Actually that's not any different than the rest of the game.  Nevermind.

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