ESPN

DALLAS – Say farewell to another streak for this proud franchise.

The Mavericks’ 11-year run of 50-win campaigns ended last season, when their winning percentage during the lockout-compressed scheduled meant no asterisk was necessary.

The 12-year playoff streak, which was the longest active streak north of San Antonio, was snapped last week.

And now the Mavs are assured of not having a winning season for the first time in a dozen years. The Memphis Grizzlies handed the Mavs loss No. 41 on Monday night.

“It’s disappointing,” Elton Brand said. “Playoffs is one thing, but you could have hung your hat on, ‘Hey, we had a winning season at least.’ Now, that’s impossible. The goal is now not to have a losing season.”

Added Vince Carter: “It definitely is tough, but 50 percent is not bad, either. It’s not losing, you know what I’m saying? We definitely want to go out there and get a win and accomplish that.”

And coach Rick Carlisle: “I’m just disappointed for our fans. I’m disappointed for my owner. I’m disappointed for our vets.”

It was an especially difficult pill for Dirk Nowitzki to swallow. As the lone constant on the roster during the dozen-year run, Nowitzki put a lot of pride into trying to at least salvage a winning record out of this season.

Nowitzki is now resigned to shooting for .500 in Wednesday’s season finale against the New Orleans Hornets.

“I feel like we should have competed a lot better there in the second half,” said Nowitzki, who scored a game-high 26 points. “Disappointing, but now we’ve got to make the best out of it. We’ve got one more game Wednesday and somehow crawl out a win.”

1. Carter passes Clyde the Glide: With a pretty reverse layup in the first quarter, Vince Carter moved past Clyde Drexler into 27th place on the NBA’s all-time scoring list. Drexler joined Hal Greer, Larry Bird and Gary Payton as Hall of Famers that Carter has passed this season.

“You accomplish something like that and you don’t pull out the win, it’s always tough,” said Carter, who had 22 points on 8-of-11 shooting, giving him 22,214 points in his career. “But I’m very thankful for the milestone. It’s just amazing. You just think of the names of the people you’ve passed that you’ve looked up to, played against, consider legends, so on and so forth.

“It’s just like, ‘Wow.’ To even hear your name passing those people is very humbling.”

2. Grown-ups’ table: Carlisle arrived in Dallas with a reputation as a coach who was hesitant to play young players. With a handful of under-25 players in the rotation, this has been a trying season for Carlisle’s patience.

“Look, I know Nowitzki is going to compete on every possession,” Carlisle said. “I know that Marion and Carter and Brand, those guys are going to show. I mean, that’s what they’ve done for a lot of years.

“But you know, beyond that, they’ve got to want it as much as everybody else wants it for them. That’s been the issue. Some of our younger guys have had the opportunity to sit at the grown-ups’ table this year and see what it’s like to have more responsibility. It can be a daunting thing.

“A lot of guys say they want it. If they want it, then how they show up, there’s got to be more presence. I think that’s a great word. A guy can have a bad shooting night, but he can still have great presence in the game. That’s what this franchise is looking for.”

3. One last stand: Carlisle’s expectations for the season finale are very simple.

“I am all about enthusiasm this year, really, and I’ve been very consistent with that,” Carlisle said. “But, you know, if you’re not going to compete, don’t show up at all.”

 

DALLAS -- Rick Carlisle bolted a couple of steps onto the court, right in the path of O.J. Mayo dribbling up the sideline, to frantically call a timeout midway through the fourth quarter.

After the referee blew the whistle, Carlisle shot a disgusted stare toward Mayo. The Dallas Mavericks coach appeared to resist the urge to rip the ball away from his 25-year-old shooting guard, who had two sloppy turnovers and a weak foul on a made layup in the minute and a half before that uncomfortable moment.

“I called that timeout just to get you out of the game!” Carlisle screamed at Mayo in the huddle, according to one player.

Just in case Mayo didn’t get the message, Carlisle made his criticism loud and clear during his postgame news conference after the Mavs’ 103-97 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. Mayo had a miserable performance against his former team, scoring only two points on 1-of-6 shooting and committing four turnovers before watching crunch time from the pine.

“I just want to see him show up,” said Carlisle, who was as harsh publicly with a player as he’s been since calling out Lamar Odom at the end of Mavs short-timer's strange midseason sabbatical. “I just want to see him show up and compete. He didn’t compete tonight.

“And I tell you, with all the time we’ve put into helping him develop and bringing him along, in the biggest game of the year -- an opportunity to be a winning team -- for him to show up like he did tonight, I was shocked.

PODCAST
Rick Carlisle joins Galloway & Company to discuss the Mavericks playing after being eliminated from playoff contention, who he wants to keep for next season and much more. Listen

"Look, sometimes guys have bad nights, so make sure to put that in there, too.”

The trouble is that Mayo tends to have bad nights against the West’s best teams. He has averaged only 10.6 points while shooting 38.2 percent from the floor and 19.0 percent from 3-point range against the conference’s top five seeds. Not coincidentally, the Mavs were 3-15 in those games.

Mayo was especially poor all season against the Grizzlies, a team that tried to trade the former No. 3 overall pick repeatedly and showed no interest in re-signing him last summer. He averaged only 8.5 points and had more turnovers (15) than assists (11) against Memphis this season.

“He just had a bad night,” Carlisle said after making a point to mention that the coaches showed Mayo film at halftime “where he was virtually just standing around defensively” and essentially implored him to mentally check into the game. “I guess I’ll write it off to that.

“But I tell you what, if I was playing against my former team, I’d come out ready to go. I’d come out ready to go at them. But that’s me. You know, that’s me.”

The bad nights have come in bunches for Mayo lately. His production has plummeted since the All-Star break, when he was averaging a team-high 17.9 points per game with the best shooting percentages of his career. His numbers have tailed off drastically in the last month and a half, averaging 11.8 points in March and only 9.0 in April.

Mayo’s good games, such as his 20-point, six-assist outing in last week’s upset of the Denver Nuggets, have been the exception recently. The poor performances are increasingly becoming the norm.

“Well,” Carlisle said, “the good news is there’s only an opportunity for one more.”

Just one more game before the Mavs begin the franchise’s longest offseason in a dozen years. And that wasn’t exactly a case of Carlisle, who had previously stated that he thought Mayo could be a starter on a contending team, welcoming Mayo back next season.

It’s been widely expected that Mayo, who has a player option in his contract for a $4.2 million salary next season, would decide to test the free agency market again this summer. However, Mayo recently told ESPNDallas.com that he hasn’t made a decision on whether to exercise his option to return to Dallas next season instead of looking for a long-term deal.

How many millions has Mayo lost in the last month and a half? At this point, it might make sense for him to try to put together a consistently solid season before testing the market again.

Mayo apparently didn’t have anything to say after Monday night’s loss. He dressed and left the locker room by the time the media was allowed to enter.

“I don’t know. You’ve got to ask O.J,” Dirk Nowitzki when asked about Mayo’s performance, considering Carlisle’s comments. “There are some nights where your jumper’s not going. We all go through it. You have to compete and play hard on both ends of the floor and impact obviously the game on other levels. That’s really all I can say about it.”

Carlisle can live with off-shooting nights. In fact, he made a point to heap praise on Mayo after his worst shooting game of the season, raving about the shooting guard’s hustle, toughness and all-around performance after Mayo was 1-of-13 from the floor while playing with an injured left shoulder in the March 30 comeback win over the Chicago Bulls.

But Carlisle can’t stand a lack of effort and lackluster focus. He’s given Mayo a lot of tough love in practices and film sessions this season. Carlisle let the world hear that criticism Monday night.

Carlisle didn’t single out Mayo when he talked about the daunting experience of young Mavs who have had the “opportunity to sit at the grown-ups’ table this year and see what it’s like to have more responsibility.” It was clear, though, that Mayo was the prime example.

“Look, he’s not the only guy that stunk tonight,” Carlisle said. “I stunk, too. I’ll readily admit that, and I’ve been admitting it all year. But I’m passionate about not wanting to stink.

“That’s where I have trouble reconciling things.”

At the moment, that makes it hard to envision Mayo continuing his career in Dallas.

How it happened: The Dallas Mavericks got overpowered at home by one of the NBA’s most physical teams.

The Memphis Grizzlies dominated the glass in the second half, allowing Memphis to overcome a slow start and come back to beat the Mavs. The Griz had a 28-16 rebounding advantage after halftime, when they trailed by eight points.

Memphis opened the second half with a 13-4 run to take their first lead of the game. The Grizzlies took the lead for good with a 13-4 run in the fourth quarter, when they held the Mavs without a field goal for a span of 3:41.

Dallas didn’t allow Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, one of the league’s elite center-power forward duos, to do much damage. Gasol had only six points and seven rebounds; Randolph had nine points and seven rebounds.

It was Memphis backup power forward Ed Davis (11 points, 11 rebounds) who made his presence felt during the critical stretch of the game. Davis, who arrived in Memphis as part of Rudy Gay midseason deal, had seven points and eight rebounds in the fourth quarter.

Dirk Nowitzki scored 15 of his game-high 26 points in the fourth quarter, but he didn’t get enough help from his Mavs teammates in the final frame.

It was an especially tough night for O.J. Mayo, who had four turnovers and only two points against his former team and got benched midway through the fourth quarter.

What it means: The Mavs’ 12-year run of winning records is over. The best they can do is finish 41-41. They failed to go over .500 for the first time since they were 7-6 in November. The Grizzlies (55-26) picked up a critical win in their fight for homecourt advantage in the first round.

Play of the game: Vince Carter/Brandan Wright pick-and-rolls tend to make pretty highlights. Wright’s slam dunk early in the fourth quarter certainly fit the bill. The finish was nice, but Carter’s fastball bounce pass made it possible. Carter had to put zip on the ball to squeeze it through a tight window to Wright in the middle of the lane.

Stat of the night: Carter passed Clyde Drexler for 27th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list with a reverse layup in the first quarter. Carter, who now has 22,214 career points after scoring 22 against the Grizzlies, has bumped four Hall of Famers down a spot this season, passing Hal Greer, Larry Bird, Gary Payton and Drexler. Elgin Baylor, Adrian Dantley and Robert Parish could be within Carter’s reach next season.

DALLAS -- The Mavericks are a much better-looking team Monday.

The .500 beards aren’t all gone, but they’re much better manicured, at least in most cases. Center Chris Kaman is the exception, as is often the case. He didn’t shave a single hair on his face, saying he intends to grow a Duck Dynasty-style beard.

“People are complaining about it,” Kaman said. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my beard.”

Dirk Nowitzki was the lone Mav to shave immediately after Sunday’s win in New Orleans. The majority of the bearded Mavs waited for Omar the barber’s American Airlines Center visit Monday afternoon. Vince Carter, O.J. Mayo and Jae Crowder got their beards trimmed and lined up. Bernard James, a late addition to the pact, went with a Fu Manchu that features a long goatee.

Elton Brand apparently didn’t get the memo about Omar’s house call. He went with a do-it-yourself Fu Manchu, leaving some scraggly sideburns.

“I didn’t know he was coming today,” Brand said. “I didn’t want to be the only one [who didn’t shave]. I actually thought about bringing it into the summer, keeping it to remind me about being under .500, make me work harder.”

DALLAS -- There will be extra security measures taken at the American Airlines Center for Monday's Mavericks-Grizzlies game, a Dallas Mavericks spokesperson said.

The extra measures are a precaution in response to the bombings at the Boston Marathon that killed two people and injured dozens of others.

"It's just sickening, tragic," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle of the Boston incident. Carlisle lived on Commonwealth Avenue along the marathon route when he played for the Celtics.

NEW ORLEANS – After arriving in the NBA, Dirk Nowitzki didn’t know whether he could survive 25 games, much less score 25,000 points.

Here he is, 15 years later, one of 17 members of the league’s exclusive 25,000-point club.

“And as he showed tonight, he’s still got a lot left in the tank,” coach Rick Carlisle said after Nowitzki scored 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting in 27 minutes while surpassing a major milestone in Sunday’s win over the New Orleans Hornets.

Enough left to reach 30,000 points, something accomplished by only five men in NBA history?

“That’s tough,” Nowitzki said. “I don’t know how much time it takes for me to get (5,000 points), but I’m going to be around.”

He certainly isn’t ruling out a run at 30K. Nowitzki has verbally committed to re-signing with the Mavs for two or three more years after his contract expires in the summer of 2014.

If Nowitzki can stay relatively healthy, 30,000 points seems well within his reach. Figure he averages 1,300 points per season for the rest of his career – around 17 per game, figuring he sits out a handful of nights each year – and he can join the 30K club if he sticks around four more seasons.

“Yeah, I mean, it would sound nice, but I don’t know that would be something that would keep me going on one leg at 41 if it’s not fun anymore,” Nowitzki said. “Just to drag it around to get to (30,000), I don’t think that’s what I’m about. If it comes in the next couple of years, that would be great. If not, that’s fine, too. I play to win.”

The way Nowitzki feels now, he’s confident he can contribute to a winning team for at least the next few years. He readily admits he was questioning that midway through the season, after he missed 27 games while recovering from a preseason scope of his right knee and struggled upon his return.

But Nowitzki believes his performance since the All-Star break (18.8 ppg, 50.9 FG%, 44.6 3%) is an indication of what’s to come over the next few years. He’ll have a precautionary MRI on his left knee next week, making sure he doesn’t need to get that one scoped, too, and is already thinking about conditioning during what will literally be the longest summer of his NBA career.

The plan: Put in the work to be in peak form at the beginning of next season.

If Nowitzki can maintain that kind of hunger, why not project him to hit 30,000 points?

“A lot of being successful like this is being true to each individual day,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “I think it’s very hard to look ahead and say, yeah, this guy can play for four or five or six more years. In this league, it’s so competitive and it’s so uncertain, you’ve got to go day to day with it. That’s what Dirk has done for 15 years.

“I think that’s the reason he was able to reach this milestone. That’s the reason he was able to become one of the best ever to play this game. I think it gives him a chance to play for an extended period of time, but he’ll never look ahead.”

A few more notes from the win that finally bumped the Mavs’ back to .500:

1. Carter climbing all-time scorers’ list: Vince Carter will most likely hit a scoring milestone of his own Monday night.

Carter has 22,192 career points after scoring 16 Sunday, putting him four behind Clyde Drexler for 27th in NBA history. Carter has already surpassed Hall of Famers Hal Greer, Larry Bird and Gary Payton this season.

2. Marion’s monster night: It was overshadowed by Nowitzki’s milestone night, but Shawn Marion led the Mavs with 21 points, seven rebounds, six assists and two steals.

In a typical Mavs season, Marion would be peaking just in time for the playoffs. The 14-year veteran has been phenomenal in the last five games, averaging 20.6 points and 8.4 rebounds.

3. Stitches for Wright: Brandan Wright paid a price for his 16-point, 8-of-13 performance. He needed three stitches to close a cut on his left cheek, courtesy of an accidental elbow by New Orleans forward Al-Farouq Aminu.

Wright also caught an elbow from Aminu during a visit to New Orleans Arena last season, suffering a concussion in that case.

“I’ve got to watch out for him next time,” Wright kidded.

NEW ORLEANS -- It took the Dallas Mavericks 121 days to get back to .500.

It took Dirk Nowitzki maybe 90 seconds to get rid of the beard he has been growing for most of that time.

“That shave felt amazing,” Nowitzki said after a 107-89 victory over the New Orleans Hornets improved the Mavs’ record to 40-40. “There was some food caught in there from a few weeks ago.”

That’s a slight exaggeration, but Nowitzki’s forest of facial hair put the power of his electric razor to quite the test. Unlike the rest of the bearded Mavs, Nowitzki couldn’t wait for the morning to destroy the evidence from the pact they made in late January to not shave again until climbing back to .500.

After the final buzzer sounded, Nowitzki made a beeline for the Mavs’ locker room, picked up his razor and began bushwhacking. The beard was gone by the time coach Rick Carlisle addressed the team. After that meeting, Nowitzki and his trusty razor “cleaned up the rest on the neck and behind the ears and the nose hair a little bit.”

Said O.J. Mayo: “I need a barber to get mine. I’ve got to go see Omar the barber. I might get too trigger happy.”

Can you blame the Mavs' 25,000-point man for being in such a hurry to get rid of the beard? Never mind that he claims that his wife, Jessica, has refused to kiss him for a couple of months. It has been a long, tough climb back to .500 for a franchise accustomed to 50-win seasons.

The Mavs hit rock bottom in mid-January, when they dipped 10 games below .500 for the first time in a dozen years after a stretch of 13 losses in 15 games, with Nowitzki making his surgery-delayed season debut midway through that miserable run. Mayo hatched the beard pact a couple of weeks later, with Nowitzki, Vince Carter, Elton Brand, Jae Crowder, Chris Kaman and the since-traded Dahntay Jones taking part.

The hope was that they’d shave off the beards before resembling the Duck Dynasty dudes -- and en route to the franchise’s 13th consecutive playoff berth. Alas, that isn’t the way it went down.

The Mavs are a more-than-respectable 27-17 since the season’s low point, which projects to a 50-win pace over the course of 82 games. But they dug themselves such a huge hole that near perfection was needed to reach the playoffs.

The final win needed to get back to .500 proved to be especially pesky. After Mayo mentioned Omar the barber would be in the building, the Indiana Pacers blew out the Mavs by 25 points. The Los Angeles Lakers whipped the Mavs by 20 the next time Dallas had a shot to shave, essentially dooming the Mavs’ playoff hopes. And the sorry Phoenix Suns somehow managed to snap a 10-game losing streak with an 11-point win over the Mavs during Wednesday’s potential break-even game.

“We had a chance and laid an egg every single time,” Nowitzki said.

No wonder Nowitzki had no patience when it came to his postgame shave.

Hitting .500 isn’t exactly the kind of feat the Mavs have celebrated during Nowitzki’s Hall of Fame career, but it is quite an accomplishment given the circumstances of this season. It was also a necessary step if they’re going to reach the new goal of finishing the season with a winning record, which would require beating the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday and the Hornets on Wednesday.

“This means a lot to this franchise,” Nowitzki said. “This franchise has been a winning team for a long, long time and now the playoff streak is officially over, but we can still make it a winning season and feel good about ourselves going into the summer, feeling good [about] what we did with eight, nine new guys and me being out for so long. I think we can still feel good about ourselves, what we’ve done since the All-Star break. We have a decent record, I think, after the All-Star break, so it’s been fun the last couple of months.

“Before that, there was some rough patches.”

Amazingly, there weren’t any patches left of Nowitzki’s beard by the time he met the media Sunday night. If the Mavs’ superstar actually had an agent, he just might land an endorsement deal with the company that makes his little electric razor.

The Dallas Mavericks’ final step of their grueling climb back to .500 ended up being a pretty easy one.

On a milestone night for Dirk Nowitzki, who joined the 25,000-point club, the Mavs led by double digits from late in the first quarter until the final buzzer. The lead swelled to as large as 27 points in the second quarter.

The Mavs scored with ease against the injury-depleted Hornets’ defense. Shawn Marion (21 points) and Nowitzki (19) led five Mavs in double figures, as Dallas shot 52.3 percent from the floor and committed only eight turnovers. Vince Carter and Brandan Wright added 16 points apiece off the bench.

It was the Mavs' largest margin of victory since March 10, when they won by 23 in Minnesota.

What it means: Those .500 beards can finally go after the Mavs took advantage of their fourth shot at shaving. They also kept alive their goal of finishing the season with a winning record. Dallas has won three of its past four games at New Orleans Arena, where they had lost 11 in a row before this recent run of success. The Hornets fell to 27-54.

Play of the game: This routine midrange jumper had great meaning. Nowitzki became the 17th member of the NBA’s 25,000-point club with his shot over Hornets center Robin Lopez with 6:44 remaining in the second quarter. Nowitzki knew it, too. After the shot swished, he put his right index finger in the air as the Mavs’ bench erupted in applause.

Stat of the night: The Mavs were under .500 for 121 consecutive days. By comparison, they were under .500 for a total of 56 days in the previous 12 seasons, never after the opening month of a season.

NEW ORLEANS -- Elton Brand, who never returned to peak form after tearing his left Achilles tendon during his prime, is betting on Kobe Bryant.

Brand believes the 34-year-old Bryant will regain his Hall of Fame form after going through the grueling rehabilitation process that will follow Saturday’s surgery to repair his torn left Achilles tendon.

“Everybody knows his work ethic,” Brand told ESPNDallas.com before the Mavericks’ Sunday game against the New Orleans Hornets. “I think he’ll be fine. I know they said there’s no way to come back to 100 percent from it, but if there’s anybody that could come close, he can.”

Brand knows firsthand that Bryant will be in good hands during his rehab. Brand credits Judy Seto, a physical therapist who now works for the Los Angeles Lakers, for helping him come back strong eight months after he tore his Achilles during a workout in August 2007.

Brand regrets not continuing to work with Seto the following summer, when he returned to his East Coast home instead of staying in Los Angeles after averaging 17.6 points and 8.0 rebounds for the Clippers in eight late games that season, giving him confidence that he had successfully completed his comeback. In hindsight, Brand wishes he also would have worked that summer with Tim Grover, a renowned personal trainer whose NBA clients include Bryant.

Working out on his own, Brand regressed, losing some of the strength and explosiveness in his left leg that he had worked so hard to regain. After scoring at least 20 points per game in the four seasons before his injury, Brand never averaged more than 15.0 points per game in a full season. He remained a productive player, but his rebounding and shot-blocking numbers also dipped significantly.

“I don’t think it had to, but it did because I lost the explosiveness,” said Brand, whose left calf is still noticeably smaller than his right. “I wasn’t the most explosive guy, but I lost some explosion, especially jumping off my left leg.

“But like I said, I don’t think he has to worry about that because of the people he’s working with. I think they’re going to have all the machines and all the technological advances to know how to get it solid. When I left, I was more on my own and didn’t have their expertise to fall back on.”

The word Brand uses most to describe the rehab process from a torn Achilles tendon is “tedious.” He describes it as a grind with a lot of two-a-day sessions, a lot of stretching, a lot of working to build back up muscles in the lower leg and a lot of pain.

Brand firmly believes that Bryant, one of the most ruthless competitors in NBA history, will be up to the challenge.

“Just be himself and attack it like he attacks life and sports,” Brand said. “He doesn’t need any advice. He’s driven from within. He’ll be fine.”

NEW ORLEANS – Maybe the fourth time will be the charm when it comes to breaking the Mavericks’ .500 failures.

Some call it the Curse of Omar the Barber, whom O.J. Mayo publicly welcomed to shave those scraggly .500 beards when the Mavs got their first shot at the break-even mark late last month. Believe what you want, but there’s no denying that the Mavs are 0-3 when they’ve had a chance to get to .500, and their performances in those games have been uglier than their facial hair.

The 39-40 Mavs have another shot to shave Sunday evening, when they’ll face the New Orleans Hornets in that franchise’s final home game before officially becoming the Pelicans.

“We’ve been chasing .500 for a long, long time,” said Dirk Nowitzki, the bearded face of the franchise and one of six Mavs participating in the pact. “Every time we’re right there, we take a big L. We have another chance Sunday and it’s a big, big game for us.”

The Mavs were 11-11 the last time they were .500, way back in mid-December when Nowitzki had yet to play a minute this season while recovering from arthroscopic knee surgery. They dipped as low as 10 games under .500 on Jan. 9, when they were 13-23 after a miserable stretch of 13 losses in 15 games. The .500 beards pact began at some point in late January.

For most of the last two and a half months, those beards have been a warm, fuzzy story. That ended March 28, when the Indiana Pacers blew out the Mavs by 25 points at the American Airlines Center and boasted about keeping Omar’s clippers from buzzing.

The Mavs’ second shot at shaving didn’t go much better. They let the Los Angeles Lakers blow them out by 20 at the Staples Center on April 2, all but ensuring that Dallas’ dozen-year playoff streak would end, which it did when they were officially eliminated eight nights later.

The third strike might have been the biggest embarrassment for the Mavs. The Phoenix Suns snapped a 10-game losing streak with an 11-point win Wednesday at the AAC, causing Shawn Marion to question his team’s effort and Vince Carter to admit the Mavs took such a terrible opponent for granted.

Well, there’s no better place to break a curse than the Big Easy. (That’s a voodoo reference, not a dig at the 27-53 Hornets. With a different kind of curse, coach Rick Carlisle warned that only an “f------ idiot” would take a Mavs win for granted the morning before the stinker against the Suns. We’ll only make that mistake once this week.)

But the Mavs at least have recent history of breaking a possible curse here. They’d lost 11 in a row at New Orleans Arena, dating the Hornets’ quick dismissal of Dallas in the 2008 first round, before winning two of their last three in this building.

If the Mavs can win Sunday evening, they can get rid of their beards and remain focused on the post-elimination goal of finishing with a winning record.

Another loss, and Omar’s invitation will rank right behind the city of Dallas’ 2006 parade plans among the Mavs’ most regretful premature celebration plans.

The Mavericks on Saturday announced they've signed guard Josh Akognon to a rest-of-the-season contract after Akognon's original 10-day deal expired Friday.

ESPNDallas.com has learned that Akognon's deal includes a team option for the 2013-14 season that will, at the very least, ensure he's a Maverick through the summer.

Akognon made his NBA debut in Wednesday's home loss to Phoenix and made his only shot in totaling two points and an assist in four minutes.

He's the third in a series of young guards that the Mavericks have auditioned on 10-day deals during the second half of the season, following Chris Wright and Justin Dentmon out of the D-League.

The 5-foot-11 combo guard was the Mavericks' final cut in training camp and spent the bulk of the season in China, leading the Chinese Basketball Association in scoring. The former Big West Conference Player of the Year went undrafted out of Cal State Fullerton in 2009 but led the Titans to their first NCAA Tournament berth in 30 years in 2008.

DALLAS – The O.J. Mayo clutch roller coaster can be one heck of a wild ride.

The Mavs survived the crazy twists and turns and highs and lows Friday night.

Start with Mayo drilling a tie-breaking 3-pointer from the right wing with 34.1 seconds remaining in regulation. If that leads holds up, Mayo is a relative hero.

Oh, but then that iffy basketball IQ owner Mark Cuban was discussing in team-wide terms popped up with less than 10 seconds on the clock. Mayo allowed Denver’s Andre Miller to strip the ball from behind, leading to an uncontested, game-tying layup by Corey Brewer with 3.9 seconds left.

Mayo had his chance to win it at the buzzer, driving down the lane for a finger roll … that rolled right off the rim.

“You’ve just got to understand that there’s still more game left,” Mayo said. “You can’t sit there and dwell on turning the ball over. Obviously, I didn’t mean to do it, but it happened, they got a layup and took the game into overtime.”

O.J. made it all good in OT.

Mayo scored the Mavs’ first two buckets of the extra frame, including a 3-pointer that gave them the lead for good with 2:40 to go. That put the finishing touches on his first 20-point performance in more than a month, prompting Dirk Nowitzki to declare that he was “proud” of Mayo.

“That’s what you look for with guys,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “Mistakes are going to happen, but who can make a mistake and then bounce right back and hit two or three shots in overtime, get a key deflection and just stay in it?

“That’s one of the things he’s learned; he’s learned about how to stick with it and how to keep going. I was really happy for him because it was a rough 10 seconds there at the end.”

A few more notes from the feisty Mavs’ win:

1. Dirk’s 25K delayed: Nowitzki scored 22 points, giving him 24,990 for his career. That left him thinking about Sunday’s win in Portland, when he scored only six points and didn’t play in the fourth quarter due to a minor ankle injury.

“Tonight would have been the night,” Nowitzki said. “Obviously, it would have been nicer to do it at home, but it is what it is. I think it’s a great milestone and eventually I’m going to get it.

“It’ll be a fun milestone to get, but more important to me is to finish the season strong, get a couple of wins and hopefully finish the season above .500.”

2. Collison’s closing touch: How confident were the Mavs when Darren Collison stepped to the line with 1.9 seconds left in overtime? Probably 100 percent.

That’s Collison’s free throw percentage in the final 30 seconds of games when the margin is within three points. He’s 15-of-15 in those situations, including 13-of-13 in the final 10 seconds under similar circumstances.

3. Brand back: Off-the-bench big man Elton Brand returned after missing the previous four games with a sore right calf. He had two points, four rebounds and two blocks in 14 minutes.

DALLAS -- Is it appropriate and accurate for Mark Cuban to shoulder all the accountability for the Mavericks missing the playoffs?

"Yeah, I mean, it’s not Tyson’s fault or the guys’ or J.J.’s," Dirk Nowitzki said. "Obviously, winning it all, they got a better deal somewhere else. You can’t fault the guys for going there where the money is. I guess that’s part of the business. We let the guys go and it is what it is.

"I said it all year long, that we can’t judge yet if it was a mistake or not. I think it’s going to depend on this offseason. If we end up empty-handed again, then maybe it was the wrong decision to let everybody go. But if we make a good move here with all this cap space, then maybe it wasn’t all bad. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what this summer brings."

While Nowitzki brought up the post-lockout decision not to make more than one-year offers to Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea and other free agents from the 2011 championship team, Cuban maintains that he doesn't regret those decisions. However, the Mavs have yet to reap the benefits of the salary cap space created as a result.

Nowitzki's initial reaction to Cuban blaming himself for the 12-year playoff streak ending was to wonder what might have been if he hadn't needed to undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in October, forcing him to miss the season's first 27 games.

"When we put this roster together, I thought we were solid," Nowitzki said. "I figured if I stayed healthy and didn’t need surgery, we would be fighting right around the playoffs, for a six, seven, eight, nine seed. I figured before the season that’s where we were going to end up. I didn’t think we were going to be a top four seed, but then obviously I needed surgery and missed almost two months and once I came back I wasn’t in the shape I really needed to be to be a factor out there. That’s where we’re at."

DALLAS -- All due respect to Dirk Nowitzki, but he’s not the Mavericks veteran owner Mark Cuban is most sympathetic toward after the team failed to qualify for the playoffs.

Cuban feels worse for Vince Carter, who signed a three-year deal worth a little more than $9 million with the then-defending champions because he desperately wanted a chance to compete for a championship near the end of his potential Hall of Fame career. The 36-year-old Carter has been a tremendous bargain for the Mavs, although he’ll enter the last season of his contract with a grand total of zero playoff wins in Dallas.

“Vince is a warrior,” Cuban said before Friday’s game. “All these things I’ve heard in the past about him being soft and not playing hard, f--- that. That dude comes out to deliver every f---ing night.”

Case in point: Carter’s spectacular outing in Dallas’ 108-105 overtime win over the Denver Nuggets. In the Mavs’ first game after being eliminated from playoff contention, Carter put up 22 points, 12 rebounds, seven assists, two blocked shots and a steal in 34 max-effort minutes.

It was a performance that epitomized the pride and professionalism that Carter, an eight-time All-Star who had a bad rap for being a bit of a prima donna before signing with the Mavs, has consistently displayed during his time in Dallas.

It’s the kind of performance that has Cuban convinced that Carter, whose .500 beard has several gray strands, is a keeper even after his contract expires next summer.

“He’s just a first-class guy who busts his ass every f---ing game," Cuban said. "You never look at Vince and say he’s taking a play off. He’s taking charges. ... You guys talk about doing it for Dirk; doing it for Vince is just as important.

“He just wants to compete and win, period, end of story. All the s--- I heard from the past, I don’t know where that came from. I’m proud that he’s on the Mavericks. The guy lays it out every time. I can’t put it any other way. He’s one of those guys I want to retire here.”

Carter, who is averaging 13.3 points per game and playing outstanding defense in his first season as a sixth man, broke into a big smile after being informed of Cuban’s comments, particularly the part about signing him to another contract.

“That’s why he’s my guy,” Carter said, laughing. “That’s why he’s my guy. I worked my butt off this summer for a lot of reasons, just to prove that I’m still capable at this tender age, and I think he appreciates that. He’s a fiery guy, very passionate about the game, as we all know. That’s what he looks for.

“Just coming in and seeing what he’s all about, he’s a great owner to work for, just for the simple fact that he just wants to win. That’s kind of how I approach the game. I just want to win. For the people who don’t know me or didn’t know me before, I think now they’re starting to understand.

“Yeah, I can put the ball in the basket or whatever, but I just want to win and see my team succeed. It’s just great that it’s appreciated by the top dog.”

When he came to Dallas, fresh off playing for three teams in three seasons, Carter had a lot to prove. He wanted to show he still had a lot of game at his advanced age, and he wanted to eliminate any doubt that winning was his top priority.

Carter promised to do whatever the Mavs needed him to do to help them win, regardless of position or role. He’s done that, accepting the sixth-man job and playing the majority of his minutes at small forward.

PODCAST
Rick Carlisle joins Galloway & Company to discuss the Mavericks playing after being eliminated from playoff contention, who he wants to keep for next season and much more. Listen

He promised to play as hard as possible every minute he was on the floor. He’s done that, as evidenced by his leading the team in charges drawn by a wide margin.

“I’ve prided myself on being one of the older guys that wanted to play every game possible and go harder than everybody out there,” Carter said. “They do go hard, but for me, I just want to compete at the same level as the younger guys and set the example. We want that to be the way of life around here.”

Carter has more than held up his end of the bargain for the past two seasons, disappointing as they’ve been from a team standpoint.

As far as Cuban is concerned, Carter has a bright future around here.

How it happened: Playing for nothing but pride, the Mavericks pulled out a down-to-the-wire win over the playoff-bound Nuggets.

a href="http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/3450/oj-mayo">O.J. Mayo hit a tie-breaking 3 with 34.1 seconds remaining in regulation, but he played a major role in the Nuggets' getting a shot at overtime.

Andre Miller stripped Mayo near midcourt and dished to Corey Brewer for the layup to even the score with 3.9 seconds to go. On the ensuing possession, Mayo drove down the lane but missed an open finger roll at the buzzer.

Mayo redeemed himself with five points in overtime, including a 3 that gave the Mavs the lead for good with 2:40 remaining. He finished with 20 points, the first time he's scored that many since March 8.

Darren Collison hit a couple of clutch free throws with 1.9 ticks on the clock. Andre Iguodala, who hit the game-winning layup against Dallas last week in Denver, missed a contested 30-footer at the buzzer to seal the win for the Mavs.

The Mavs got magnificent performances from the veteran trio that is the core of this team currently and for the immediate future. Vince Carter (22 points, 12 rebounds, 7 assists) and Dirk Nowitzki (22 points, 10 rebounds) had double-doubles, and Shawn Marion added 15 points and eight rebounds.

What it means: The Mavs (39-40) are back to within a win of getting rid of those .500 beards. Their post-playoff-elimination goal of finishing the season with a winning record is still alive. The Nuggets (54-25) are tied with the Memphis Grizzlies in the fight for the West’s third seed, with the loser destined to drop to No. 5 behind the Pacific Division champion Los Angeles Clippers.

Play of the game: Carter drew two Denver defenders on a fast break and lobbed the ball up to Brandan Wright, who soared high above the rim to finish with two hands. That North Carolina connection gave the Mavs a 69-63 with a little less than four minutes remaining in the third quarter.

Stat of the night: Nowitzki is 10 points shy of 25,000 for his career. He’ll be the 17th player in NBA history to hit that milestone.