There's a break in the action for the Mavericks, and when they lounged around the house on Sunday for a well-deserved day off, they couldn't help but like the neighborhood they're in. They especially like it considering they don't feel like they've come close to fixing up the place yet. "Nobody really except for Dirk [Nowitzki] has found a good rhythm," Jason Terry said. "I know for me, I'm still trying to find my way offensively, but I like where I am defensively. The shot will come." It's true. The Mavericks have climbed to 10-3 mostly on the strength of holding other teams down. The defense has been solid most of the time, excellent occasionally. So it gets them wondering just what this team could look like if some other offensive weapons besides Nowitzki start firing. "It's going to be awesome to see what we do when we put it together," Kris Humphries said. "I think we're probably one of the most explosive offenses in the league. What's great for us is when our offense has been slow, our defense has been great. If not, we'd have gotten blown out of some games. It's great to have some different options. "In the Utah game, we had a spectacular performance by Dirk, but also we were getting stops. We were stopping them. I think that gets overlooked at times." Nowitzki truly is the only Maverick who is playing his game offensively, although Jason Kidd hasn't been bad. He's run the offense well. But he can't make shots for everybody else. Beyond those two, Terry has slumped with his shot, Shawn Marion has been OK, but has missed the last two games and Josh Howard and Erick Dampier also are out. Drew Gooden has found a terrific stride the last few games in the rebounding department and had a couple of good offensive games. He followed them with 4-of-16 shooting against Sacramento Friday. "There's two frustrating things for me," Gooden said. "Knowing we don't have all our players and trying to get the chemistry to mesh is one thing. "And the other thing is we're winning these games, but only by two or three points and we're going to overtime. That's something you don't want to have. We have to start working to put teams away. Our record is nice, but a lot of our games have been nail-biters." Asked if that builds character, Gooden said: "You can say a lot of things, but what it's building is a lot of nervous energy on the bench and probably some more gray hairs for coach." Rick Carlisle willingly accepts the gray encroachment, as long as the wins pile up. "Stress is a relative term," he said. "You've always got to be very honest in evaluating your team and how you're playing, whether you're winning or losing. There were times last year when we were playing well and losing. We had to keep that in mind. "This year, in some of the games we're winning, we're not playing as well as I'd like. As far as keeping our eye on the ball, it's got to be about getting better. This is no time for complacency or feeling like we have anything solved because we really haven't."
