Dirk: Time to regroup

Dirk Nowitzki turned philosophical when asked about where his team stands after two washout games in the Big Easy.

“Not a great spot to be in right now,” he said. “We definitely wanted to get one there and come here with a tied series. In basketball and life, it doesn’t always work out the way you want it to, so just a disappointing effort.

“So we’ve got to come out and establish ourselves early, be a little more physical, have a lot more presence about ourselves on both ends of the floor. Hopefully the crowd will carry us through. We need to get on the board to make it a series. So Friday is a biggie.”

Nowitzki knows, as does everyone else, that he can’t do it alone. The contributions from Josh Howard, Jason Terry and Jason Kidd haven’t matched Nowitzki’s efforts.

“We all know if we want to win this series, if we want to accomplish something in these playoffs, we have to play at a high level, we have to play together at both ends of the floor,” he said. “We have to play in attack mode. There will always be nights when somebody’s shot isn’t there, they don’t have a great rhythm, but you’ve got to keep playing hard, keep plying together as a team.

“It didn’t look great there yesterday, but hopefully these two days will help us regroup a little bit and get everybody fired up again, get our heads up. It’s not the time to give in now. It’s time to come out swinging. Hopefully we’ll have a great effort Friday, get on the board and make it a series.”