Rick Carlisle loves defense, but he had no trouble going on the offensive when it came to an exchange between president and general manager Donnie Nelson and shooting guard Wesley Matthews after Friday's loss to New York.

Carlisle said the conversation, which started in public view, ended up including Carlisle behind closed doors. Before taking questions after Sunday's practice, he addressed the situation.

"I want to talk about a report that came out about a 'heated conversation' between Wes Matthews and my president and general manager, Donnie Nelson," Carlisle said. "Wes approached Donnie and talked to him about anything that he could possibly do to help our team win more games. I ended up in on that conversation in Donnie's office afterward.

"It was nothing but positive and constructive. Any notion or implication that it was anything negative or 'heated' is completely false. I just wanted to make sure everybody understood that."

Matthews has been one of the Mavericks' best players early in the season, averaging 17.6 points and typically guarding the opponent's best wing player.

However, the Mavericks' 2-7 start has pushed everybody's frustration level to the red line, and emotions have been difficult to control.

"Unfortunately for a lot of us here, we've been through some rough times," Harrison Barnes said, referring to the last two seasons. "This is nothing that we haven't seen before. But we obviously had higher hopes for this season to begin with. There's still a lot of time left, and I think we're confident we can turn this thing around."

Sticking together is going to be paramount if that's going to happen. Losing teams have a tendency to fray.

"It's important that emotions are generated and channeled the right way," Carlisle said. "They've got to be channeled into our collective competitiveness. That can at times be challenging. But I loved our practice today. I loved everybody's approach. I loved everybody's attitude. There was an edge to it. And that's how we've got to proceed going forward."