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Dallas Mavericks coach Don Nelson spoke with InsideHoops.com and other major media outlets in a teleconference. Here are the questions and answers:

Don Nelson's Opening Statement: We’ve had a terrific training camp. We feel real good about it. Everybody has worked hard and is in shape. We have a lot of veteran players out with injuries, nothing major – some pulls. But we haven’t been able to do what I wanted to do, which is in these preseason games play my normal rotation or what I anticipate to be my normal rotation. We have nine new players so it is quite a challenge to think together and it hasn’t been very successful as yet simply because we haven’t been able to sport a team that is going to play the regular season together because of these injuries. But we feel real good about our team and what we can become. But it will probably be a slow process to get better as the season goes on.

Q: Talk about Jason Terry. Compare him to Steve Nash.

Don Nelson: Well, they are not similar. They are different players. I think J.T. is a probably more of a two-one trying to learn the one position. Steve was just a natural one his whole career. So, they play a little bit differently, but we like Terry a lot. He is going to be my starting point guard. They just do things a little bit differently. It’s a learning process for Terry to run the team the way I want him to. It makes it a hard training camp for the coach not to have a point guard with him that’s been with him for six years. It’s just totally different. It’s a hard experience for both of us, but we are getting through it nicely. He’s learning. He’s better now than when he first got here and he understands the way I want him to play. It’s going to be a good marriage. I like him a lot and he’s a very, very nice man.

Q: Do you see the point guard duties transferred over to other players since Terry is more of a two?

Don Nelson: Well, Marquis Daniels has been out all year and the way that I assembled the team before training camp, they would play together. And either one could run the point. I’d like Daniels to run the point and for Terry to come off screens a little bit more because he has that ability; and go more point Daniels. But we haven’t been able to do that. We’ve had to make Terry just point guard and we haven’t been a real good passing team as yet. It’s been a little difficult that way without Marquis, but we expect to have Marquis at some point. I don’t know when, but hopefully by the opening game. But I’m not even sure about that.

Q: Now that Shaq is gone, size up the West?

Don Nelson: Well, I don’t think there is any favorite to win anything. It’s all up for grabs. I think the powerhouses will stay the same. Most of the teams like San Antonio, Minnesota, the stronger teams in our division, will continue to be strong unless they made major changes. Teams like ourselves that made major changes, we are still kind of up in the air where we are going to fit in to all of this. I would say that it’s a big jumble and we don’t know who is going to come out of it on top.

Q: Do you expect to play a slower pace this year?

Don Nelson: I’m a running coach and I am going to continue to run, but I would hope that we are better defensively. And after scores and free throws when you are going to play set, we’d like to go inside a little bit more than we have and use [Erick] Dampier’s scoring ability inside. But, we are going to be a high-scoring team and, hopefully, if we are better defensively, it will all work together nicely.