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Mavericks aim to get back on track vs. Spurs

Mar 23, 2008 - 10:19 AM San Antonio (46-23) at Dallas (44-25) 1:00 pm EDT

DALLAS (Ticker) - The Dallas Mavericks need to get things back on track or they could find themselves on the outside looking in.

The Mavericks will look to end their two-game slide when they take on the defending champion San Antonio Spurs on Sunday.

Josh Howard scored 24 points and Dirk Nowitzki added 22 and 19 rebounds, but Dallas still suffered a 94-90 setback to the Boston Celtics on Thursday.

The Mavericks fell to 10-6 since acquiring All-Star point guard Jason Kidd from the New Jersey Nets.

"We didn't know what to expect," Mavericks swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. "Nobody expects a trade at the deadline. If we had our druthers, we would have rather had the trade in December or January.

"We've got a month and a half to still try to get everything together. Because somebody feels that, 'All right, it's been two weeks of playing together, and we should be at the top of our game.' It doesn't always work out that way."

Dallas enters as the No. 7 seed and is 1 1/2 games ahead of the eighth-place Golden State Warriors (42-26) in the Western Conference postseason race with 13 games left on the season.

Tim Duncan had 21 points and 13 boards and Tony Parker scored 19 in San Antonio's 102-89 triumph over the Sacramento Kings on Friday at the AT&T Center.

The Spurs have captured two of the three meetings in this season's series against the Mavs, who own the top home record in the Western Conference.