DALLAS -- LeBron James is thinking about another spell on the bench.

Not tonight, when the Cavaliers begin another grueling, four-game road trip through Texas and Florida in Dallas. Not Thursday when Cleveland plays the San Antonio Spurs, and presumably not when James returns to South Beach Monday.

But James could sit for an extended period before Cleveland begins its playoff push in mid-April, sort of a condensed version of the two-week hiatus he took to rest nagging injuries in late December and January.

"It's um, game by game right now," James said, ahead of this morning's shootaround in preparation for the Mavericks. "Obviously this week is a good week for us to continue to get better. We'll see how we are toward the later stages. I would love to get some more rest, especially going into the playoffs and knowing how important those games are, and how physically taxing those games can be, mentally as well, so we'll see what happens."

James has already missed a career-high 11 games this year, and is averaging a career-low 36.3 minutes per game.

But last week was a rough one physically for him (and his teammates), slogging through four games in five nights, with two on the road.

James will almost surely go over 42,000 minutes in his 12-year NBA career Thursday (he's at 41,952 right now), and he's shown a positive response to rest. The most pronounced: averages of 28.8 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 6.7 assists in his first three weeks back after skipping those eight consecutive games about two months ago.

Defenders are getting more physical with James and it's taking a toll. When Atlanta's DeMarre Carroll whacked him on the way to the hoop Friday night, James got up clutching his lower back -- one of the injuries that forced him to the sidelines earlier this season.

James was asked this morning how he's feeling and he hesitated. "Uh, I mean, I'm all right. I'm ready to play," he said.

The Cavs have planned for weeks to rest him at some point in April, and maybe even sooner. It might be on a game-by-game basis instead of an extended period, or perhaps a combination.

Cleveland is in the final stages of a streak in which it will play 11 of 14 games on the road after the All-Star break. It ends Monday when the Cavs play the Heat in James' second game in Miami since leaving for Cleveland in July.

The Cavs still have another three-game road trip in March -- to Milwaukee, Memphis, and Brooklyn, all playoff contenders -- but none of those games is on consecutive nights.

Following the Orlando-Miami games on Sunday and Monday, Cleveland will only play one more set of back-to-back games, on April 12-13 in Boston and then at home against Detroit.

From March 29 through the end of the regular season on April 15, the Cavs will play just eight games, six at home.

Cleveland is 2-9 without James and is in the middle of a playoff push (currently in second place in the East), but the team seems to place health over seeding as a priority heading toward the postseason.

"We're going to get through this period, and then in April the schedule gets much lighter for us, in terms of the number of games in a short period of time," Cleveland coach David Blatt said. "We'll have more rest days and more practice days and we'll have more opportunity to give guys a chance to recover.

"I'll look as I have looked all season to try to keep (James) fresh and certainly healthy, that's always a consideration."