High stakes for Mavs and Kings

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — One immensely talented team will be eliminated in the first round. One coaching staff could be finished. At least one fanatical owner will be hugely disappointed to see his millions wasted.

The stakes are enormous in the Sacramento Kings' playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks. Both teams began the season as Western Conference powerhouses with serious designs on a championship, but underwhelming regular seasons pushed the NBA's two highest-scoring teams into an early-round meeting for the third straight spring.

The losing team in this rubber match could be headed for sweeping changes, but only the Kings appear to feel the pressure.

The fifth-seeded Mavericks laughed and joked their way through a shootaround Saturday, with Mark Cuban holding court at Arco Arena while Don Nelson's army of assistant coaches watched over the Mavs' preparations for Sunday's opener.

"I've got no rabbits to pull out," Nelson said. "What I've got is what you've already seen. We're just going to try to play our style, and if that's not good enough, we're going home."

Across the parking lot at the Kings' training complex, Sacramento sweated through another day of tough workouts. While the Mavs hit their stride with a small-ball lineup in the final three weeks of the regular season, the Kings lost eight of their last 12 and blew the Pacific Division title with a loss to Golden State in the finale.

"We're looking for revenge," guard Mike Bibby said. "Everybody has picked us to lose. Everybody has given up on us. We're out to prove everybody wrong. I know I've got a little higher motivation than I did in the regular season."

The teams' previous postseason meetings have been tremendous exhibitions of full-court, up-tempo basketball — either the best or the worst of the NBA, depending on the observer's appetite for shameless offense. A few sample scores from the past two seasons: 125-119, 115-113, 124-113, 132-110 — and of course, the 141-137 double-overtime thriller in Game 3 last season.

"That's the way I always wanted to play," said Dallas forward Antawn Jamison, who arguably supplanted Sacramento's Bobby Jackson as the NBA's top sixth man after his arrival from the Warriors. "I saw them on TV last year, and that was great basketball. I hope we can do the same thing this year."