Mavs down, not out

DALLAS — That young up-andcoming Oklahoma City team that made things so difficult on the Dallas Mavericks in the playoffs last year may not even let the defending NBA champions get out of the first round this time.

Even though Kevin Durant has struggled with his shot, and each of the first two games in this openinground series has gone down to the closing seconds, the Thunder certainly aren’t in awe of Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavericks.

Oklahoma City has a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-seven series that shifts to Dallas for Game 3 tonight.

“Game 3 is Game 7,” Mavericks guard Jason Terry said Wednesday.

“We’ve played very well the first two games but we come away empty because we just haven’t been able to make one extra play,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “We’ve got to turn that in Game 3, and it’s not as simple as coming home and it’s just going to happen. We have to make it happen.”

“We haven’t played bad basketball. We’ve been right there,” Nowitzki said. “It’s been frustrating . . . But we’re not going to pack it in. We’re going to keep coming.”