Eat more chicken: Dirk’s routine shot

Dirk Nowitzki’s game-day routine is meticulously scripted once he gets to the arena at least 90 minutes before tip-off. (The locker room clock begins to count down from 90 minutes.)

It takes 5-10 minutes to get changed into warm-ups and he’s out on the floor taking shots. Back to the locker room somewhere between 55-60 minutes to stretch with strength-and-conditioning coach Robert Hackett. Ankles get taped in the 48-50 range.

“It’s always the same,” he said, “except when my pregame meal doesn’t show up.”

That happened Saturday night. Nowitzki skipped his shooting routine entirely because of a room-service screw-up at the team hotel. His pregame meal was never delivered.

He didn’t wait for it. So he ordered a grilled chicken sandwich at New Orleans Arena. The next problem led to Nowitzki skipping his shooting session. That’s never happened before as far as he or anyone else can remember.

“I just wanted to eat something before the game,” Nowitzki said. “I had a sandwich. They didn’t have anything grilled, only fried stuff, so I had to wait.

“Is this for the blog? You see everything. You’re good at what you do … not.”

Let me report that the routine is back to normal here in Chicago.