"One thing the addition of Peja Stojakovic has given the Dallas Mavericks is more flexibility.

As the starting small forward, the 6-10 Stojakovic represents one more tall body the Mavs can plug into their rotation. But even before Stojakovic arrived last month via free agency, coach Rick Carlisle said:

"We have a flexible team. We have an infinite number of combinations we can use. We haven't used [Shawn] Marion at [center] but two or three times this year in small stints. We did it a lot last year.''

Still, it's no question that if Stojakovic is ringing up numbers like he did when he scored 22 points last Saturday against Houston, the Mavs are going to be a very tough out once the playoffs roll around.

"It was a timely performance for us,'' Carlisle said of Stojakovic. "He put in 10 days of practice, then we had three games in a row in a short period of time and then a day off, and then the fourth game things clicked, which was great.

"I'm sure that he's relieved to kind of get that rhythm going.''

Stojakovic was just 5 of 20 from the field and scored only 16 points in his first three games with the Mavs before erupting against the Rockets. He converted 8 of 12 shots against Houston, including 4 of 6 buckets from 3-point range."