DALLAS -- As their best-of-seven first-round NBA Playoff series with the Houston Rockets shifts back to American Airlines Center on Friday night, the Dallas Mavericks sit in a rather precarious position, down 2-0.
However, Mavs head coach Rick Carlisle doesn't see the glass as half-empty. Instead, he sees being back in front of a home crowd as a huge plus for his team.
So it goes without saying that the mere possibility of Dallas being down 3-0 after tonight is something the veteran head coach hasn't even considered.
"We don't think about that. We think about what we need to do to play our best, (the) best way to get our home crowd engaged in the game," Carlisle said after shootaround on Friday morning. "Our job now is to hold court."
The Mavs will of course be without starting point guard Rajon Rondo (back) and Chandler Parsons (knee) as both have been ruled out for the remainder of the series, Parsons for the rest of the season as he is facing surgery.
But even with Rondo out, Carlisle feels good about his three-man rotation at the point of J.J. Barea, Raymond Felton and Devin Harris.
"The guys we have available are all experienced guys. Barea, Felton, Harris, these guys have all been in the league a long time. They've all been starters. They've all had a lot of responsibility and they've all played in a lot of playoff games, so we'll get the job done with those guys," Carlisle said.
Speaking of Harris, who missed Game 2 with a left toe issue, he has been practicing the last few days without issue and also went through shootaround with no further issues, so he will play in Game 3 and could even start if Carlisle chooses not to start Barea there in place of Rondo.
"He's doing better, doing better. We expect him to play," Carlisle said of Harris.
One thing Dallas needs to do better on Friday night is limit how much damage the Houston big men can do in the paint. Dwight Howard and Josh Smith combined for 32 of Houston's 60 points in the paint in Game 2, a number which over the past few days Carlisle has been devising ways to cut drastically.
"We've made some adjustments to some of the things that they've done. We're going to have to execute those things and be better," Carlisle said. "But a seven-game series, it's a long journey and for us, the important thing is now to get back home."
Carlisle of course also realizes that starting this game off in positive fashion will lead to the partisan crowd being into the game early on, energy which the Mavs could then feed off of.
And if Dallas is to accomplish that rather simple yet crucial goal later tonight, then drastically reducing or altogether eliminating the six first-quarter turnovers the Mavs had in Game 2 is imperative.
"Well, we got to be the aggressors, no doubt about it. We've got to do it without fouling and we've got to do it with efficiency. Ball security's a big part of it," Carlisle said. "Aggression wise, we got to get it to a higher level and execution wise, we just got to be better."
Carlisle might not talk about the possibility of being down 3-0 in the series after tonight, but Mavs big man Amar'e Stoudemire, signed just before the NBA Trade Deadline, is definitely well aware of that scenario, one the veteran big would rather avoid.
"Yeah, 3-0 definitely could be fatal. So tonight's a big thing for us, we got to get this win and get ready for Game 4," Stoudmire said.
