As a big believer in doing all the little things that go into winning basketball games, Don Nelson will start with the three M's ? Mexican food, margaritas and mariachis. These things work, experience tells him.

Then he'll get to the other details ? like how to keep Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan from playing the hero's role. And how to save a series that started with so much promise but now looks like a no-hope proposition.

The Mavericks went to San Antonio after a light workout and video session on Memorial Day. They are in a 3-1 hole in the Western Conference finals. The San Antonio Spurs can end the Mavericks' season Tuesday night at the SBC Center.

Not if Nelson has anything to say about it, however. On the eve of the series opener last week, Nelson took his coaching staff and a sizeable entourage to a San Antonio tradition known as Mi Tierra's. The restaurant has been dishing out margaritas and saucy Mexican dishes for decades. Surely, the fact that the Mavericks got their only win of the series the day after that fiesta is pure coincidence, right?