Dirk Nowitzki
Nice way to end this stretch of five games in seven nights.
Yeah, it's been a lot of games so we haven't really had time to practice much which is good. We got a lot of rest. Tough road trip coming up. Especially after the game in New Orleans we needed to get this win, get some confidence. A lot of heavy weight battles here on the West coast. We're going to take another day off tomorrow, come in Monday, get some work done and go on the big trip.
Your mindset not knowing what's going on with Josh.
Yeah, it's a tough situation. He's been injury troubled all season long. You know, he's out early for three weeks with the same ankle, and then he's out a week with the wrist, and now he's got ankle problems again. JET was out for two or three weeks. So it's been an injury troubled season, but every team goes through it. It's a long season and we've got to find a way to make up for it. Hopefully, Josh will be back soon. He had the boot on today, but we'll see how fast he can recover. We need him. We've got like 19 or 20 games here to make the playoff push and we need every weapon we can get.
Are you confident the effort won't be a problem the rest of the season?
Yeah, I mean it shouldn't be. We've made the playoffs for so many years so it's important. We could still move up too. There are teams in reach. So if we start playing well, playing together, we'll be right there. Tough loss in New Orleans. Tough second half, couldn't score enough. Couldn't stop them, they had some some transition baskets. We had to get that one out of our minds and focus on Washington. They had some dangerous players and made it tough on us but we were able to pull away there in the third and fourth. Now we can get some rest and get ready for the road trip.
Rick Carlisle
Look, we have Jason Terry coming off the bench. If we had him starting we could probably bank on quicker starts, but we had a lineup very similar to this for 10 or 12 game stretches during the year and we held our own. This is what we're doing. It may change from time to time. It may not. I don't know. It's going to depend. It's a 48 minute game.
That team has two All-Stars on it. One guy that hadn't played in three games was out here three hours early in a froth ready to play against us. Despite their record, they have high quality talent and are very capable. I'm not surprised it was a difficult game.
Something about Josh Howard.
Yeah, it helps to have him, but when we don't have him we are probably going to have to play a little differently. It's a different kind of challenge for us. We aren't exactly sure what the time table is for his return, but we are going to have to win games without him if it's going to be a while.
It was uptempo game, but the defense will have to play better on the upcoming road trip?
Well, we'll have to play better than we did in the first half for sure. I mean we gave up 55% shooting in the first and second quarter and that's not going to be good enough. In fairness, they hit some tough shots. I don't want to take anything away from them. They're a group of guys who are very capable. There is going to be a formula for us without Josh that is going to be a little different. It's going to start with stops and being able to be efficient offensively.
James Singleton
Nice to end the stretch of five in seven with a win.
Yeah, it feels good to close things out before the road trip.
Can you pinpoint the struggles on the road recently?
You can't really pinpoint something like that. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose whether you're at home or on the road. I just know we are going to have come together on this road trip.
How important is it for you to step up without Josh.
It's going to be extremely important. When we lost JET we had guys on the bench step up. I'm going to put it upon myself, and I know Brandon and JJ will too, to the cover loss of Josh well.