I’m not sure Nellie could tell me anything I don’t already know about Pop’s camps.

It’s been a pretty fierce competition at center. If today was the first regular-season game, he would be my first center off the bench.

We’re really striving to be the top dog in June, not February.

Both of those guys are out indefinitely. I trusted some different situations (before), but now I’ll bring them back when I want to.

We’re just calling him day-to-day. He’s close.

We had to get this game behind us for a lot of different reasons. We hadn’t played particularly well this year against this team.

Josh looked better today than he has in the last four or five days. But I still don’t know what that means for [tonight].

We’re all disappointed with this loss. You have a team that has a lot of character and they are very competitive. We are just disappointed with the way we finished the game.

Even the times we were in their face, they still seemed to make some shots. Our season is not over … but we know where we are going to finish now. The only thing that...

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

We kind of threw the first punch and kept on punching. We were fortunate enough to put together one of our better games of the (season).

We feel adding Doug Christie to our team is giving us the best chance to win a championship.

We are also thrilled to promote Rolando Blackman, one of the all-time Maverick and NBA greats, who brings five years of coaching experience on the player development side, … Ro also shares in our vision...

I would prefer to rest. Good rest and good practice, especially as much as we’ve been injured [is important].

He really shut down a lot of their penetration. I thought he was the reason we won the game. Hopefully, I can be saying that [tonight], Friday, Saturday. I’d like to mention his name on...

It’s been great. I’ve been able to smile. But in the back of my mind, I know I’ve got to watch some film on the Clippers because we play them coming out of the All-Star...

I really want to support them.

He wanted to play a little bit more tonight, but I told him we’re looking at the big picture.

Boy, the more you watch them on film, the scarier it gets. It’s going to be a very, very tough series.

He’s a scoring point guard. I want him to make the right pass at the right time and lead. But we need 18 points, too. No pressure. We just need him to be what he...

We came up short. They got to the free throw line more and they were the aggressors and they deserved the win. We had too many lethargic situations tonight and I need to address that.

In my opinion, looking at that game and looking at some of our recent All-Star games, the game was much more serious. Now, they still scored a lot of points. But the games were a...

I told the guys if they have any guts, they’ll pick Southern to get out of that region.

The reason we won the game tonight is because of the fans. They are the reason we won the game tonight. They stayed with us the whole game. Nobody was booing or questioning the players....

I thought Damp (Erick Dampier) really shut down a lot of their penetrations in the fourth quarter. He got a couple of blocks, rebounds and I thought he was the reason we won the game.

I don’t know what I am going to have to do to get this team charged up, but I am willing to do anything. … I’ll run around a track, bench press, whatever you want...

I still think this can be a special season, but right now we are sputtering.

When he’s on his game and he’s playing tough, hard-nosed defense and getting rebounds, getting some assists, guarding one of the better perimeter players and scoring, I’m a much better coach.

But we are trying to figure out how to take the next step. We’ve got a system in place now, and we’re trying to plug in the right pieces.

We’re much more mature than we were then. Obviously I think we’re better defensively. We’re much more physical than what we were last year. We move the ball a lot better. We’re tougher-minded.

Eight out of the 10 guys in our rotation were in a quote-unquote insurmountable situation last year when we played against Houston. For us, that’s something that’s sunk in, that we talk a lot about....

He’s a young David Robinson with a better jump shot.

This was a disgusting game for us tonight. We deserved to lose. Kobe was spectacular and we had no answer for him. You have to take your hat off to him.

We tried to bother him and make it hard on him. He’s been averaging 50 points on us and we didn’t want that to happen (again).

We’re excited to get out of here with a win. Those guys play physical, and they play hard.

He’s out for an extended period of time. We’ve lost an important part of our rotation.

I have been waiting for 79 games to get some internal leadership, and I haven’t gotten it yet. This is one of the most disappointing games that I’ve been a part of as Mavericks coach....

He just still doesn’t know all the ins and outs of the game. He started playing basketball so late in life that he’s still catching up.

Fifteen offensive rebounds…when did a Dallas team last do that. We put a lot of emphasis on that this year.

I just refuse to listen to any more lies. You hear them from FEMA, you hear them from Red Cross and I just didn’t want to hear it from him.

He’s our guy who penetrates and gets to the basket. We definitely don’t want any hesitancy there. The goal is to get him as healthy as we can for the playoffs.

We couldn’t be where we are had we not gotten those guys. There’s so many little ways, detail things, things that don’t show up on stat sheets. You need your stars. But their roles are...

He can’t seem to get it fully healed.

He’s definitely the best point guard in the history of the Spurs franchise.

I’m glad to get this series over. Obviously, we would have had four swings at it. I’m glad to get it on the first swing. Now it’s time for us to try to get some...

No question, this was a big win for us. I thought we showed a lot of mental toughness.

We just had to make some points about it. We’ve got to play our best basketball to win Game 1.

He had a little swelling. It’s nothing serious. It’s called old age. But we got to make sure we get that swelling down.

We just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. We’re still firm that they’re not going to come back until they’re ready. And they’re not ready. We probably won’t have them back...

They made some runs, but we weathered the storm.