NBA champs Dallas disappoint again

NBA champions Dallas looked nothing like the team that lifted the trophy last June as they stumbled to a second defeat in as many nights, this time to the Denver Nuggets. Denver on Monday hammered the hapless Mavericks 115-93, a day after the Miami Heat routed them in their Christmas Day season-opener in a rematch of last season's championship series. Dallas trailed Denver 97-68 after three quarters and were down by as many as 33 points in the final period. "Obviously, we look old and slow and out of shape," said Dirk Nowitzki, the Most Valuable Player of the NBA finals. "That's a bad combination. I still think this team has a lot of potential. We just need to work." Coach Rick Carlisle shouldered much of the blame. "It's on all of us, but it's on me more than anybody, not having these guys ready to play," Carlisle said. "I've got to look at this very closely and then come Wednesday we've got to go back at it." The extended lockout that delayed the start of the season until December has every team struggling to hit their stride with little pre-season preparation. But Carlisle said that was no excuse for a performance that had fans booing their title-holding team. "I'm the head coach and it's my job to make sure that these guys are ready to play, and it's clear that they're not," Carlisle said. "Coach always tries to take the blame if some stuff doesn't go right," Nowitzki said. "But we got a lot of veteran guys. We got to keep on working and eventually turn the corner." The compressed 66-game schedule means each team faces a more demanding fixture list than normal. Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers are getting an early taste of that intensity with three games in as many days to open the season. They lost the first by one-point to Chicago, and the second a day later in a 100-91 defeat to the Kings in Sacramento. Now they must try to regroup for their home game on Tuesday against Utah. The Orlando Magic, beaten at Oklahoma City on Sunday, bounced back with a 104-95 home win over Houston. The Thunder notched their second win in as many nights, defeating Minnesota 104-100 to deny the Timberwolves' Spanish sensation Ricky Rubio a victory in his long-anticipated NBA debut. The 20-year-old Rubio, who made his Spanish league debut at the age of 14, was drafted by the Timberwolves in the 2009 NBA draft but had spent the last two years at Barcelona. Having finally arrived, Rubio looked confident and came off the bench to hand out six assists with five points and five rebounds in 26 minutes without a turnover. Minnesota edged ahead by a point three times in the fourth quarter, but couldn't hold off the Thunder's All-Star duo of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Even so, the Timberwolves were pleased with the energy on the court and among the standing-room-only crowd of 19,406 fans. "We didn't play our best game and we still had them down to the last minute," Minnesota's All-Star forward Kevin Love said. "We're happy with how things went. Obviously, we would have felt better with a win, but we just had a good feeling in the locker room after the game. We just said if we can play like that and give a good effort like that night in and night out, we can win a lot of ball-games."