HOUSTON _ Somehow, you knew Dirk Nowitzki wasn't himself when J.J. Barea was giving him an earful of razzing in a shooting game Sunday morning.
And Nowitzki had no comeback.
When he's on his game, Nowitzki is always on the offensive when it comes to giving his teammates grief about their shot or, in Barea's case, simply being short.
But Nowitzki looked like his energy was sapped and that clearly was the case when he was a late scratch for Sunday's game at Houston, which the Mavericks would go on to lose, 93-92, dropping them to 0-3.
Nowitzki missed both games against the Rockets, which clearly made life tougher on the Mavericks.
After the morning shootaround, Nowitzki said he was not 100 percent _ in more ways than one. Not only was his stomach still doing cartwheels, but he was battling a sore Achilles.
He could have played with the Achilles. But not with the tummy troubles.
"I couldn't keep anything down, and I wasn't really in position to compete," Nowitzki said about his absence Friday. "I was sad not being out there for the (home) opener. It's always a special game for the fans, for the players. It was unfortunate."
Asked what happened to make his system go haywire, he said: "I'm not sure. Obviously, the kids bring all sorts of stuff home from school. That's normal."
In the long term, the stomach issue probably isn't all that concerning, even though it's made the early portion of the schedule all that more difficult for the Mavericks.
The Achilles, however, could be more concerning. Nowitzki said only "that ain't great, either," earlier Sunday. He said he would pop some Advils and fight through it.
That soreness could have been a product of playing more than 38 minutes in the season opener, which went to overtime.
Coach Rick Carlisle said he was going to be cautious with Nowitzki's minutes, which turned out to be a moot point when Nowitzki was ruled out of any minutes at all.
"The Achilles thing is considered not serious, but anytime you hear 'Achilles anything,' you got to be careful with it," Carlisle said.
"I don't know the exact description of it. It's just something that's a bother right now. And he's been working hard on it _ exercise, treatment and all that. He's going to keep working through it. And we'll watch him closely."
These early season aches and pains make it fair to wonder whether Nowitzki is going to be managed a little differently this season. Carlisle has said he hopes to keep the No. 6 all-time scorer in NBA history to fewer than 30 minutes per night.
That obviously went out the window in the opener.
And Nowitzki may be paying the price for it.
"I didn't come out too good, apparently," he said of the heavy minutes load.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said he knows there are going to be times when Nowitzki has to be rested or have a minutes restriction. It's just a fact of playing a young man's game at the ripe old age of 38.
"It depends," Cuban said. "If Harrison (Barnes) rises to that role of being the go-to guy, Dirk will find his way to where he wants to be. If we can get things from everybody else, Dirk will be fine. Once we get an identity, Dirk's job will get easier. Everybody's job will get easier."
It's going to be hard to find that identity until Nowitzki can regain his health.
