QUOTEBOARD: Dallas Mavericks fall late to Miami Heat

Rick Carlisle

On LeBron's performance...

He was great. He was great in all areas. He is great and we know he is great. He scored a bundle of points on us last time and he was even better tonight. But, that's him and I thought we played extremely hard and our heart was in the right place all night. We just had some untimely misses, some untimely turnovers, and that really hurt us. They are a team that takes advantage of those and they make you pay an exponential price. That's what happened in the 4^th quarter. We have to regroup and we have to look forward. We have a very important trip coming up and from here we all know how important all of the games are.

On the Mavs' performance to start the game...

We played hard the whole night. We didn't shoot it great in the first half. We didn't defend as well as we did in the second half, for most of it at least. I felt we had a good run in us. We made a terrific run in the third quarter. We tried to keep it going and get some traction, but we had some untimely struggles. Let's just put it that way.

On the team's rebounding tonight...

Miami's rebounding numbers are never good because they play small. They are a minus 7 per game team that is winning at a 75% clip. They are a bit of an outlier that way. But they have great skill guys and they have LeBron James, who is as great as there is in this game today. I knew we had to earn a lot of boards, but the turnover situation is ultimately what got us. We had some opportunities for some shots during critical periods that didn't go down when they were real makeable and it just went the wrong way for us.

Shawn Marion

On the game as a whole...

We battled out there. They were able to capitalize on our turnovers. But for the most part, I thought we did the job out there. Everybody competed, helped each other and was communicating when we needed to. We just had some costly turnovers and they were able to hurt us.

On trying to stop LeBron tonight...

When we turned it off, he was gone. He's one of the fastest guys in the league in the open court. After his fourth open court dunk, the matchups started to get bigger on him. Then he started pulling up from threes and started hitting some. It just opened the game up.

On how to bounce back...

I think we're disappointed that we lost, but at the same time, we can keep our heads up and realized we were in it until the end. We were down to the last few minutes of the game, and we were right there. It was a game of runs, and they were able to get the last run and get the win. Right now we're going to shake it off by coming in before we go on this next road trip and get ready.

Dirk Nowitzki

On untimely turnovers....

They were really untimely; or timely for them. And we talked about it before the game, we've known that since 2011. A turnover against them is a dunk on their end. They're so fast. LeBron has another gear....I liked that we competed, played hard and gave ourselves a chance, just down the stretch not good enough. LeBron kept making plays, and they stepped up their defense a little bit and we couldn't score in the last four or five minutes. That's what separates a great team from a good team.

On LeBron saying the 2011 loss caused him to dig deeper....

Good for him.

On bouncing back...

We've got three in the East [against teams] under .500. But we're not good enough to coast. We showed that in Charlotte. We've got 2 days to sit on this one which is not bad - it was a physical game...by Thursday you've got to forget about this and move on...we lost today, and I looked at the standings, we fall from sixth to eighth...that's how close it is, everything from five to nine, ten. And one loss hurts.

On LeBron's game the past 2 years....

He looks in a groove. He's been the best player in the world the past two years. Carried them to championships. If he shoots the ball like that you can't guard him.

On what to take away from this game...

Maybe it was a wake up call...we have to be better, we have to be better defensively and work for each other. As hot as they were we just gave up too many rolls to the basket; too many dunks. So we got to rotate for each other; help each other and keep the ball in front of us.

Brandan Wright

On what hurt the team

Untimely turnovers. We didn't shoot the ball well tonight at all. It cost us.

On LeBron's performance

That's what he does. He's tough when he gets out in transition because he makes plays. He caught fire for two or three minutes, he was putting up 35-foot threes. That's why he's the best player in the league.

On positives to take out of this game

We're playing hard. We've just got to be more consistent. Overall, we've been playing well lately, we just can't get down on this one game. Got to be ready for another big Eastern road trip.

Heat coach Erik Spoelstra

On the win

Good road win. We have a lot of respect for what that team done this year, practically how they've been playing as of late. It's dizzy and the situation they put you in of pick and rolls, guys putting the ball on the floor, skilled veterans, well coached, and the personal fits. I think our guys got a read finally in the fourth quarter and made some real tough defensive multiple effort plays. We finished it off with a lot of assists going down the stretch in the fourth quarter. Obviously Lebron was fantastic offensively.

Did the fourth quarter tonight show business mentality from your team?

Yes, but we talked about the business mentality starting yesterday. It starts with your approach coming into practice to prepare to put yourself in a position to win. The effort and intensity yesterday was good. It took until the fourth quarter to get a handle on a lot of the actions they were running.

Lebron James 8-0 run in the fourth

At that point you're watching him make good plays. Throughout the course of the game he made a lot of two way impactful plays. Setting guys for easy baskets, scoring himself when he needed to, and at the other end he was guarding literally one through five tonight. He did it on both ends and that one stretch at the end gave us a lot of confidence going down the stretch.