DALLAS _ Sometimes, you just know it's going to be a rough night at the office.
The Mavericks were missing Dirk Nowitzki, who was home with an illness, and the Houston Rockets were every bit as desperate for a win as were the Mavericks in their home opener.
Both teams had lost on the road to open the season.
A return home did not go the way the Mavericks would have scripted.
Without their lead horse, the Mavericks could not keep pace with the Rockets, who didn't have their best machine-gun style game working, but still overran the Mavericks 106-98 Friday in the home opener.
The Mavericks fell to 0-2 and now face a return engagement against the Rockets Sunday in Houston, which will be the Rockets' home opener. The Mavericks need a win to avoid an 0-3 start and then go to Utah for Game 4.
Clearly, the concerns about a stout early portion of the schedule were legitimate.
But there was more to it than that for coach Rick Carlisle.
"Without Dirk out there, it's very hard on offense," he said. "And we knew that. But it shouldn't take away from how tough we play and how we play defensively. I liked our aggression up until about three minutes to go in the third. From there on, the game changed. And we didn't adapt to the way the game changed.
"Dirk's not going to be around here forever. We're going to be sitting him some this year. The other guys got to step up. And I'm one of them. When he's not on the floor, a lot of things are different."
And the Mavericks are going to have to learn how to deal with those differences.
Apart from a nine-point outburst in the final 2:26 of the third quarter, Harden was mostly contained by a Mavericks' defense built around Wesley Matthews.
What the Mavericks couldn't do was find Trevor Ariza, a frequent thorn in their side in the past. Ariza hit 5-of-7 3-pointers and finished with 27 points.
The Rockets aren't exactly the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons of a generation ago when it comes to playing defense, but the Mavericks made it easy on them.
They didn't get their 10th assist until less than four minutes remained. There was far too much dribbling going on. The Rockets' defense was allowed to play conservatively and the Mavericks had trouble getting good looks in the second half because the ball wasn't moving like Carlisle would like to see whipped around the court.
The lone bright spot was that Harrison Barnes continued his hot start to the regular season after poor-shooting exhibition season.
Barnes had a career-best 31 points, but the Mavericks didn't have enough punch to support him.
Harden finished with just 26 points, which is a reasonable number from a Maverick perspective. But Ariza continually pestered the Mavericks, as did newcomer Eric Gordon, who had 18 points.
The Mavericks did a commendable job on Harden most of the night. Matthews drew the hazard-pay assignment of guarding Harden, who merely had 34 points and 17 assists in the Rockets' season-opening loss at the Los Angeles Lakers.
But he had help. Lots of help. In the third quarter, Harden was called for an offensive foul when Andrew Bogut stepped in to take an obvious charge.
Harden was shooting terribly and while he was getting his assists and rebounds, he was not hurting the Mavericks on the scoreboard.
That's what made for some tense times for the Mavericks' sellout crowd.
Harden wasn't hurting the home team, yet the Rockets were up 67-65 late in the third.
That's when Harden happened.
He hit consecutive 3-pointers and dropped in another one moments later as the Rockets finished the third quarter on a 10-2 blitz to go ahead 77-67 heading into the final 12 minutes.
