"The Mavericks have made the difficult decision to sit Dirk Nowitzki out of games for the next week and put him through a rigorous conditioning program to aid his balky right knee and his overall physical shape.

"We're going to shut Dirk down for four games, from game activity,'' coach Rick Carlisle said. "At this point, we feel he needs an uninterrupted eight days of work to resolve some physical issues and some conditioning issues. This is the decision of (athletic trainer) Casey Smith and me.

"If it were up to Dirk, he would play. But right now, we feel the right thing is to take this time, get some things resolved and hopefully by next Sunday, he'll be feeling a lot better and ready to go.''"