The Mavericks got good news about Dirk Nowitzki's left knee, but the rash of injuries continues to mount elsewhere on the team.
An MRI on Monday revealed no serious damage to the knee Nowitzki injured Friday against the Los Angeles Lakers. He missed his second consecutive game, sitting out Monday's meeting with Toronto after he took some jump shots beforehand and did not feel well enough to play.
"I'm feeling better," Nowitzki said. "The swelling went down, and I'm hopeful for [playing] Thursday."
The Lakers visit Thursday, and everybody in the organization heaved a sigh of relief that Nowitzki's injury is not serious.
"We want to make sure everybody gets healthy before they play again," coach Don Nelson said. "Maintaining our position right now is the most important thing, staying at No. 4 [in the Western Conference]. We're still vulnerable there. But I think when we get a full squad, we'll be able to get back to a high winning percentage.
"With the two days off, we should have both Dirk and Mike [Finley] back for the next game."
Finley has missed three games with a left calf contusion.
Not all the news was good, however. Jerry Stackhouse re-injured his strained right groin muscle and was ruled out for an indefinite amount of time. Stackhouse missed eight games in February with the same injury.
Said Stackhouse: "It's hard to know when to come back, especially when it starts feeling OK and I get itchy to come back. But this time, we're going to wait until it gets right, then we'll wait some more."
Nelson said the main concern with the sixth man is that he's healthy by next month, when the playoffs start.