Mavericks face elimination today

DALLAS (AP) — A loss away from being knocked out of the playoffs, the Dallas Mavericks spouted all the expected cliches Thursday. There were lines about being hungry, playing with desperation and needing a greater sense of urgency.

Blah, blah, blah — right? Not necessarily.

The Mavs have been in the type of dire situations that prompt those phrases as many as four times this postseason, and every time they’ve backed it up with a win. That bodes well for them going into Game 6 of their second-round series against Phoenix tonight, with the Suns leading 3-2.

Tip-off will be at 8 p.m.

“Our mental approach is not looking at it as an elimination game,” Dallas swingman Jerry Stackhouse said. “We’re looking at it as a stepping stone to Game 7. There’s some pressure on us, but we’ve got to look at it as healthy pressure, as controlled fear.”

If fear doesn’t work, how about intimidation?

Consider what Phoenix big man Amare Stoudemire said Thursday when told about the resilience the Mavericks showed during the first round against Houston.

“That’s fine, but they didn’t play the Suns,” he said. “I don’t think they can come back from a 3-2 (deficit).”

Dallas nearly didn’t have to. The Mavs led by a point going into the fourth quarter of Game 5, then the Suns rallied to win by six. Phoenix went ahead for good with Steve Nash on the bench, then had no trouble protecting the lead once he returned.

Nash has been phenomenal this series, backing up the league MVP award he received at the start of this series and providing the ultimate rebuttal to Dallas owner Mark Cuban’s decision not to re-sign him last summer.

In the last three games, Nash has set career playoff highs for assists (17), points (48) and rebounds (13), in that order. Since each tops something he did with the Mavericks, it’s as though he’s cutting more ties to the organization.

Dallas used a defend-everyone-but-him theory the last two games, but it backfired the last game as Nash posted a triple-double. The Mavs say their biggest flaw was backing away from him even on short shots, so they’re vowing to come up with another approach for Game 6.

“He’s seen every kind of defense thrown at him,” Suns coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s the best playmaker in the league. You can’t duplicate that. I don’t care how smart you are on the sidelines, you can’t get on the court and do it and do it the way he does it.”

Behind Nash’s leadership, the Suns are averaging 114.4 points per game, four more than their regular-season average that was the NBA’s highest in 10 years.

Also, Phoenix has done it with third-leading scorer Joe Johnson missing the last three games because of an eye injury. There’s a chance he could return for the game after this one, which his teammates hope will be the opener of the Western Conference finals.

If there’s a Game 7, it would be Sunday in Phoenix.

This series has been back and forth. The Mavericks won Game 2 after losing the opener by 25 and hearing about Phoenix’s superiority. They won Game 4 by shutting down Stoudemire after he came out of Game 3 looking unstoppable.

“We’ve kind of been all over the place — one game we’ve been on, and one game we’ve been off,” Dallas coach Avery Johnson said. “Hopefully (this) will be the ‘on’ game.”