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OKLAHOMA CITY – The Mavs will not make the drastic move of switching defensive stopper Shawn Marion’s assignment in an attempt to slow down Russell Westbrook.

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At least, not at the beginning of Game 3.

“I’ve got the same assignment,” Marion said before Thursday morning’s shootaround. “It ain’t changed.”

That means Marion will continue to defend three-time NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant, who has averaged 25.5 points but shot only 31.4 percent from the floor as the Thunder opened a 2-0 lead in the series. Delonte West has opened the first two games defending Westbrook.

Coach Rick Carlisle left open the possibility of using Marion on Westbrook (28.5 points on 52.3 percent shooting) at points in the game.

“Possibly, but look, you’re talking about taking your best defender and a guy that was a real candidate for Defensive Player of the Year off of a guy off of a guy that he’s doing a great job on to put him on another guy,” Carlisle said. “We can look at it at different times of the games, but let’s not forget how great Durant is. He’s in the MVP conversation.

“They present a lot of problems, and we’re looking at solutions.”

DALLAS -- The young and athletically gifted Oklahoma City Thunder lead the old-and-slow Dallas Mavericks 2-zip in this best-of-7 series, but it's not as if these baby ballers have stomped their Nikes on the throats of the Geritol gang.

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"At this level and this time of the year, age, I think, it is also a plus. Experience is definitely something that counts," said Thunder shooting guard Thabo Sefolosha, a virtual old-timer on this squad at age 28. "But at the same time we want to pick the pace up and keep running, getting some stops and getting some easy baskets."

As the series shifts to the American Airlines Center for tonight's Game 3, the Mavs will seek a bit of karma-turning luck. In Game 1, Kevin Durant hit a 15-foot, off-balance shot over Shawn Marion to win it with 1.4 seconds to go. In Game 2, the Mavs rallied from a 16-point hole in the second quarter, but couldn't complete the comeback when Dirk Nowitzki's baseline jumper bounced around the rim and off.

The No. 2 seed Thunder could easily have found themselves in a hole as they hit the road, but coach Scott Brooks said he's not concerned that that his team, whose four best players are under the age of 24, wasn't more dominant on its home floor and in front of one of the loudest crowds in the league.

"We don't look at them as old guys. We're looking at them as a very good team, the defending champions," Brooks said. "I don't know how many guys they have from their championship team, but I know they've got their top four or five guys -- you have Dirk (Nowitzki), you have Jason (Kidd), (Jason) Terry, Shawn Marion, (Brendan) Haywood -- and that's a good basketball team. I don't look at them as a seventh seed, I look at them as the defending champs that are going to continue to fight.

"Every game has been down to the last couple of minutes and I expect that to happen the rest of the series."

DALLAS -- Mavericks point guard Jason Kidd won the 2011-12 NBA Sportsmanship award, the league announced Thursday morning.

The award, designed to honor a player who best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court, is voted on by NBA players. Kidd was selected as a regional finalist last month along with leveland’s Antawn Jamison, the Los Angeles Clippers’ Chris Paul, Miami’s Shane Battier, Minnesota’s Luke Ridnour and New York’s Jeremy Lin.

Former NBA players Greg Anthony, John Crotty, Antonio Davis, Eddie Johnson and Kenny Smith selected the six divisional winners from a pool of 30 team nominees. Each team nominated one of its players for this award.

The annual award reflects the ideals of sportsmanship -- ethical behavior, fair play and integrity -- in amateur and professional basketball, a key focus of the league’s NBA Cares program efforts.

Kidd, in his 18th season, won the award for the first time.

ALL-TIME NBA SPORTSMANSHIP AWARD WINNERS
Inaugural: Joe Dumars (1996)
1996-97: Terrell Brandon, Cleveland
1997-98: Avery Johnson, San Antonio
1998-99: Hersey Hawkins, Seattle
1999-00: Eric Snow, Philadelphia
2000-01: David Robinson, San Antonio
2001-02: Steve Smith, San Antonio
2002-03: Ray Allen, Seattle
2003-04: P.J. Brown, New Orleans
2004-05: Grant Hill, Orlando
2005-06: Elton Brand, Los Angeles Clippers
2006-07: Luol Deng, Chicago
2007-08: Grant Hill, Phoenix Suns
2008-09: Chauncey Billups, Denver Nuggets
2009-10: Grant Hill, Phoenix Suns
2010-11: Stephen Curry, Golden State
2011-12: Jason Kidd, Dallas Mavericks

DALLAS – Oklahoma City’s four best players are all younger than Rodrigue Beaubois.

That fact puts into perspective just how much room the Thunder have to grow if the core of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Serge Ibaka sticks together. And it indicates just how unlikely it is that Roddy B. ever develops into the star the Mavs once expected him to be.

At this point, it’s probably time to stop talking about Beaubois’ potential.

“Roddy’s made a lot of improvement this year,” coach Rick Carlisle said, “so I’m not sure what you’re suggesting.”

I’m suggesting that, in his third season, Beaubois is a player who has stepped foot on the court for a grand total of five minutes so far this series. If the Mavs aren’t ready to rely on him now, why believe he’ll ever be anything better than a role player?

Carlisle countered by saying that Beaubois “did OK when he was in there,” adding that the Mavs cut into the Thunder’s lead with Beaubois on the floor. Sorry, but it’s a stretch to believe that had much to do with the missed field goal and foul that were the only stats he registered while Dirk Nowitzki was dominating in that second-quarter stretch.

Beaubois, touted on billboards put up by the team last year as a superstar in the making, shouldn’t be considered a kid who needs to be coddled. He’s seven months older than Durant, a three-time NBA scoring champion. He’s 10 months older than Westbrook, a two-time All-Star who has been the best player in this series. He’s 18 months older than Harden, an easy selection for Sixth Man of the Year. And he’s 19 months older than Ibaka, who finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting.

Meanwhile, Beaubois averaged 8.9 points, 2.9 assists and 2.8 rebounds while bouncing in and out of the rotation. There were brief flashes of brilliance, usually against lottery-bound teams, but never enough sustained success to provide any realistic hope that he can be a future foundation piece.

“I don’t look at the situation quite the same way you do,” Carlisle said. “I like the progress that Roddy’s made, and when he has opportunities in this series, he’s got to give us what he can give us in terms of his quickness, his energy off the bench. His length is something that’s a positive factor for us. We want him to be aggressive and play his game.”

Beaubois has to get off the bench first, and that only happened once in the first two games of the series. That’s a far cry from what the Mavs expected when Mark Cuban declared a couple of years ago that the kid was close to untradeable.

And his age isn’t an excuse, as evidenced by the young bucks beating the Mavs.

DALLAS -- The Oklahoma City Thunder's ultra-dynamic All-Star duo of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook raised their shooting percentages this season to career highs.

Durant hit for 49.6 percent; Westbrook for 45.7. In seizing a 2-0 first-round series lead over the Dallas Mavericks, Durant has stumbled to 34.1 percent; Westbrook has rocketed to 52.3.

An explanation?

There's one: The Matrix.

Mavs small forward Shawn Marion is again applying defensive clamps to one of the league's top scorers -- in fact, the No. 1 scorer the past three seasons. The 6-foot-7 Marion might give up four good inches to the incredibly long-limbed Durant, and a decade-plus on the birth certificate, but there's nothing old about the game Marion is delivering in this series.

He has been so good in forcing Durant into 15-of-44 shooting -- which to Marion's frustration includes, as he put it, the "tough-ass shot, lucky bounce" Game 1 winner that overshadowed Durant's 10-of-27 night -- that Mavs coach Rick Carlisle hasn't ruled out shifting Marion at times onto the explosive Westbrook during Thursday's Game 3 in Dallas.

Read the full story here.

DALLAS – For the most part, the Mavericks have done a decent job executing their defensive strategy on Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook.

He’s lit them up anyway, averaging 28.5 points on 52.3 percent shooting in the first two games of this series.

The question now is whether the Mavs make significant strategic adjustments or just hope Westbrook stops making so many midrange jump shots.

According to NBA.com’s advanced statistics, Westbrook is 14-of-26 on midrange jumpers in the series and only 5-of-11 on shots from inside the restricted area. By comparison, Westbrook shot 41.4 percent from midrange and 58.6 percent from inside the restricted area during the regular season, attempting virtually the same amount of shots from the two zones.

“You’ve got to pick your poison,” said Delonte West, who has started both games on Westbrook. “He’s got an explosive first step. He’s not an All-Star for no reason. Based on the past, you can live with him shooting contested jump shots. What you don’t want to do is open up the lane and give him driving lanes where he can score, pass, get fouled and get some momentum plays.

“I’ll guess we’ll live and die with contested jump shots.”

The problem is it’s tough for a guard like West or Jason Kidd to contest Westbrook’s shot because the freakishly athletic 23-year-old gets up so high. As expected, coach Rick Carlisle is playing any potential adjustments close to the vest, but he acknowledges that one possibility is using 6-foot-7 defensive stopper Shawn Marion on Westbrook more often.

That, of course, would open up a whole other set of problems with NBA scoring leader Kevin Durant, who the Mavs have held to 34.1 percent shooting in the series with Marion doing most of the dirty work.

Would Vince Carter start instead of West and defend Durant? Stick with the same lineup and ask Kidd to guard a superstar who is listed at 5 inches taller and 16 years younger?

“We’ve got to find a way to make him a little more uncomfortable,” Dirk Nowitzki said. “He’s just dribbling up and raising up at the foul line. There’s nothing you can do, because if you guard him with smaller guys – with Kidd or West – he jumps like 40 inches on his shot and you can’t touch it. He just raises up over them and gets it in.

“Yeah, it’s tough. But we’ve got to do a better job of making him a little uncomfortable.”

And hope Westbrook reverts to form from midrange.

DALLAS -- Vince Carter has looked for his shot; he just hasn't made many of them. Coach Rick Carlisle told him to keep looking.

"He's just got to stay aggressive," Carlisle said. "In Game 1 he drove the ball very aggressively. Game 2 he didn't get it into the paint as much, but those opportunities have to be there for guys to drive. We don't want him to just run over a guy just because, hey, it's time to drive the ball because you're in a playoff series. He's got to read the situations that are there, but we want to keep the ball moving so we get chances to attack them."

Carter is 7-of-23 (30.4 percent) from the floor in the series, and 0-of-4 on 3-pointers. The cold snap comes on the heels of a significant offensive surge to close the regular season. In the final five games, Carter averaged 16.2 points on 25-of-50 shooting. The Mavs could use as a special kind of night out of Carter the way the Thunder benefited in Game 1 from Serge Ibaka's season-high 22 points and Derek Fisher's 5-of-6 shooting in Game 2.

"That always helps," Carter said of a big night from an unexpected source. "I still think everybody needs just to play their game and be who they are and we need that. I think we've shown we've done well in that aspect, but at the same time when you can get somebody to play a phenomenal game of basketball and have a phenomenal night, that's going to help. So, in other words, every player should just come ready to give us something special.

"I don't think we should put in our mind, oh somebody has to come out there; no, come out there and play your game, but we could definitely use something special from anyone."

Knicks center Tyson Chandler won the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year award Wednesday after finishing third in voting a year ago with the Mavericks.

Shawn Marion, whom the Mavs trumpeted as a legitimate candidate for the better part of the season, finished in eighth place, garnering two first-place votes, two seconds and one third. Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka, far-and-away the league leader in blocks, placed second with 41 first-place votes, just four fewer than Chandler.

Injured Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard saw his three-year run come to an end. He finished third.

DALLAS – The defending NBA champion Dallas Mavericks have reached a point of desperation after just two playoff games.

Sixth man Jason Terry, the longtime voice of the Mavs’ locker room, made that clear as he exited the team’s practice court Wednesday, stopping halfway up the staircase to make a sole statement to the media.

“Game 3 is like Game 7,” Terry said. “Thank you very much.”

The Mavs find themselves in this position after failing to close out the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first two games of the series. The Thunder, who were eliminated by the Mavs in five games in last season’s Western Conference finals, won Games 1 and 2 by at Chesapeake Energy Arena by a combined four points.

The Mavs’ hopes go from slim to virtually none if they fail to win Game 3 at the American Airlines Center. No team has ever come back from an 0-3 deficit in an NBA playoff series. There are 99 teams that have tried and failed in best-of-7 series.

Mavs point guard Jason Kidd attempted to downplay the team’s concern about the situation, but the two longest-tenured Mavericks acknowledged that it’s a win-or-else approach for Thursday night’s game.

“I think that the odds are obviously very stacked against you,” Dirk Nowitzki said when asked if he agreed with Terry’s statement. “It’s definitely a big game if we want to have a chance to make this a series.

“We’re looking forward to a great home crowd. We’ve had two days off to get some rest and look at some stuff and get better today. Hopefully, we’ll play our best game yet and execute a little better down the stretch and squeeze one out and put some pressure on them and make it a series.”

Teams that fall behind 0-2 are only 14-226 in best-of-7 series in NBA history. However, Terry and Nowitzki have experience on both sides of those rare comebacks.

The Mavs rallied from an 0-2 deficit to defeat the Houston Rockets in the 2005 first round, when Terry was the hero of the series. The Mavs lost the 2006 Finals to the Miami Heat after winning the first two games, a crushing defeat they avenged by clinching last season’s title in Miami.

Nowitzki was also part of a comeback from an 0-2 hole in a best-of-5 series, when the Mavs beat the Jazz in the first playoff series of his career.

As far as coach Rick Carlisle is concerned, the Mavs’ mission is to return to Oklahoma City with the series deadlocked.

“We need to win two games,” Carlisle said. “That’s our job now that we’re back home. Game 3 is very important. There’s no denying that.”

DALLAS -- Tyson Chandler is the league's Defensive Player of the Year. Shawn Marion is not.

"I thought Marion was deserving, yeah," said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, who spent the better part of the second half of the season campaigning on his versatile small forward's behalf. "But hey, Tyson did a terrific job for New York and really helped change a lot of what they were doing, so defensively he’s deserving. There were a lot of guys deserving of consideration, but I felt Marion, because of the diversity of which he’s been doing it all year, guarding four, five positions, should have been in the conversation."

The Knicks last season ranked 22nd in defensive efficiency, a measure of points allowed per 100 possessions. With Chandler, obtained via a three-team sign-and-trade from the Mavs in the offseason, the Knicks surged to fifth in defensive efficiency, thanks largely to Chandler.

The Mavs credited the 7-foot-1 Chandler with changing the franchise's defensive culture, arguably the biggest key to winning last season's championship.

"Happy for him," said Dirk Nowitzki, who was so quick last season to tab Chandler as the team's MVP. "He deserves all the credit he gets. Last year what he did here, turning the team around and clog up all the holes that me and Jet (Jason Terry) create on defense, he did a great job for us and he was a big part of winning it all, so I’m happy for him and we wish him nothing but the best."

When the voting is announced it will be seen if Marion strong season in which he guarded virtually every position on the floor and is always tasked with guarding the opponent's top scorer. Through two first-round playoff games against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Marion has limited league scoring champ Kevin Durant to 35-percent shooting.

The Mavs maintained their strong defensive ratings for much of this season and Carlisle has largely credited Marion's stellar play for keeping it there despite Chandler moving on.

"I thought he had a great case," Nowitzki said of Marion's DPOY credentials. "You never say this guy is going to win this and this, it just doesn't happen this way in this league, but 'Trix is an all-around defensive weapon. He’s guarded 1s, 2s, 3s and 4s this year. He’s long, he can move his feet, contest shots, he's strong enough to guard some 4s. So, to us, he’s definitely our defensive player of the year."

DALLAS – Brendan Haywood is still the Mavericks’ starting center.

Coach Rick Carlisle made it clear that Haywood’s benching for the start of the second half in Game 2 is not a trend that will continue. Carlisle typically refuses to reveal his starting lineup until required by the league 16 minutes before tip-off, but he said Haywood would remain the Mavs’ starting center for Game 2.

“He’s started every game all year that he’s been available,” Carlisle said. “We’re not going to change that now. The second half the other night, it’s an outlier situation. It was a gut feel and I went with it, but tomorrow night Wood’s going to be our guy again.”

The 7-foot, 263-pound Haywood, who took over as the starter after Tyson Chandler’s departure in free agency, played only 9:54 in Game 2. He finished with the game with two points, one blocked shot and no rebounds.

Oklahoma City starting center Kendrick Perkins, who is usually not a scoring threat, had seven of his 13 points in the first quarter.

“I played nine minutes last game, so the impact is going to be minimal that game,” said Haywood, who had four points, seven rebounds and a blocked shot in 19 minutes in Game 1. “My whole thing is just to do the same thing. I'm not trying to get out of character. Perkins got open early last time when we had some switches, he switched on Dirk [Nowitzki] a couple times and was able to take advantage. But we're trying to win the game; we're not trying to win any individual matchup.”

After Game 2, Carlisle cited energy and quickness as reasons that influenced his gut feeling to start Ian Mahinmi for the second half. Asked if Haywood needed to play with more energy in Game 3, Carlisle said: “I just think that guys need to do things that they’re capable of doing. When Brendan is out there, we need him to play his game and give us what he can.”

Haywood has taken a professional approach when asked about his playing time.

“I'm fine, that's a coach's decision,” Haywood said. “This is the playoffs; you might play nine minutes, you might play 29. Be ready either way.”

With Tyson Chandler being named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year today, it’s difficult not to wonder how things might be different if he stayed in Dallas.

The Mavs won’t waste any mental energy on the subject, but it’s impossible for fans and media to ignore.

Here’s all you need to know about how much Dallas misses Chandler: The Mavs’ starting center for the rest of this series is somewhat of a mystery after Brendan Haywood was benched for the beginning of the second half in Monday’s Game 2 loss.

Haywood hasn’t been on the floor for the last few minutes in either of the down-to-the-wire finishes in the first two games of the series. Coach Rick Carlisle, whose team is down 0-2 to Oklahoma City as the series shifts to Dallas, cited quickness and energy as two reasons Haywood has played so little against the Thunder (29 minutes in two games).

There aren’t many centers quicker than Chandler. There aren’t any with more energy.

Chandler averaged 8.0 points, 10.6 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game in last season’s West finals, when Dallas dismissed the Thunder in five games. The Mavs’ three-headed monster, as they call their center trio of Haywood, Ian Mahinmi and Brandan Wright, has combined to put up slightly better numbers (11.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.0 blocks) with a heck of a lot less presence in this series.

Would the Mavs be better off with Chandler serving as the emotional leader/defensive anchor and a three-headed backup monster? For right now, that answer is obvious.

That doesn’t make the decision to let Chandler go any more illogical. Mark Cuban made what he considered a serious attempt to keep Chandler while maintaining financial flexibility, offering him a one-year, $20 million deal.

Chandler considered it a no-brainer to take long-term security, choosing a four-year, $58 million deal from the Knicks. As divorces go, it was an amicable one.

Chandler went to a big-market team with star power. The Mavs moved on, flipping a trade exception acquired in his sign-and-trade deal for the reigning Sixth Man of the Year. Lamar Odom arrived in Dallas with a team-friendly contract, but he also brought team-wrecking baggage. Swing and a miss for strike one.

The Mavs still had dreams of pulling off a Heat-like free-agency bonanza, landing Dwight Howard and Deron Williams this summer. That’s no longer possible, with Howard opting to commit (contractually, at least) to the Magic for one more season. Strike two.

If Williams doesn’t come to Dallas this summer, the decision to kiss Chandler goodbye can be considered one of the great strikeouts of Cuban’s ownership tenure.

We can’t completely judge that decision until July. For now, the Mavs have the hands full trying to fight their way into a series without the big man from their championship run.

It's only two games and with a little late-game luck the Dallas Mavericks' 0-2 hole might have been a 2-0 cushion with the series shifting to Dallas for Thursday's Game 3.

Late-game luck isn't the only difference in a postseason rematch with the Oklahoma City Thunder that threatens to make the Mavs the first defending champs since the 2007 Miami Heat to go down in the first round. Dallas needs more of the unexpected, more of what the Thunder have received to take control of the series.

The unexpected?

Serge Ibaka's 22 points in Game 1 was a season high. The last time he scored 20 in a game? Try Jan. 27.

Derek Fisher's 11 points on 5-of-6 shooting in Game 2 -- after being invisible in Game 1 -- was his most efficient outing in 22 games with Oklahoma City and it tied his second-highest point total.

Kendrick Perkins' 4-of-5 shooting in Game 2 was the first time he had done that since Feb. 22, and he hadn't topped the 13 points he scored since March 25 with 16, his only game of the season with more than 13. Keep in mind that OKC's two wins have come by a total of four points.

The unexpected.

"They’ve gotten better, no doubt about that," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said, comparing this Thunder team to the won Dallas disposed of in five games in last year's Western Conference finals. "You've got to give them credit for the plays they made in this series and for the year that they’ve had. At the same time, we’re right there and we've got to make the plays coming back home."

The Mavs have received nothing out of the ordinary. Remember the championship run when a different Mavs player seemed to step up every night with something different? Whether it was Corey Brewer for eight minutes against the Lakers, or J.J. Barea putting up consecutive 20-point games -- one against the Thunder -- or DeShawn Stevenson twice dropping three 3-pointers in the Finals or Peja Stojakovic scoring 21, 21 and 15 points in the opening two series, it's the unexpected performances that carry teams to unexpected results.

The Mavs will need to get some punch-quiet sources on their home floor over the next two games to stay alive.

The most likely candidate for a breakout is Vince Carter. He's 7-of-23 from the floor. Delonte West had 13 points in Game 2 but is 7-of-17 from the floor and has yet to make a dent with the type of feisty defense he's known for, that the Mavs are counting on. Starting center Brendan Haywood has seven rebounds and two blocked shots in 30 minutes and was benched to start the second half of Game 2.

Fan favorite Brandan Wright has so far shown that the playoff pressure might be too big in his first postseason. In logging less than 13 total minutes, he hasn't come close to one of his patented dunks and had a case of butterfingers in five awful minutes in Game 2.

If the Mavs are going to survive, the expected performances from Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion that have enabled Dallas to have a chance late must be met by unexpected ones.

Just ask the Thunder.

In this ESPNNY.com story, Nets general manager Billy King expressed confidence in retaining guard Deron Williams, who will be a free-agent target of the Mavs in the offseason.

This excerpt from the story explains King's thinking on the matter:

"I feel pretty good [about being able to keep him]," King said. "I think I haven't wavered all year in my thought process.

"Our goal is to win. I consider him the best point guard in the league."

Williams hasn't ruled out signing a max contract extension with the Nets, assuming they put the right players around him. He's said the Nets need to add more veteran pieces to the roster.

That should be easier now, with the team slated to move into the $1 billion Barclays Center before the start of next season. While King said his greatest asset going into free agency was "money," he obviously was quick to mention the new arena and the new borough as well.

"We have cap space, and the potential to add more cap space," King said.

The Mavs will also have cap space to make a run at the former The Colony High School star.

The Dallas Mavericks are down 2-0 to the Oklahoma City Thunder in the teams' best-of-7 first round series.

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Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said the series' physical brand of play will continue, but his team needs to move on from the first two games and worry about Game 3.

"Right now, we've got to win four out of five to win the series," Carlisle said. "That's our mindset and what’s done is done. A playoff series is a major test of perseverance and you've got to overcome a lot of things. Right now, we've got to overcome the shotmaking that they’ve thrown at us, we’ve got to overcome some errors in officiating and we've got to overcome being in situations where we had opportunities to win those two games and came up short. It’s got to strengthen our resolve for Game 3."