It was just a few weeks ago that TNT analyst Charles Barkley was deriding the Mavericks ? again ? saying they "can't win it all like they are now because you can't do it when your best player is as soft as tissue paper."

The NBA wishes to disagree with Barkley. The league thought Dirk Nowitzki was plenty tough at Utah on Wednesday.

His flagrant-one foul against Matt Harpring during the loss to the Jazz was upgraded by the league to a flagrant-two, NBA and Mavericks officials said Saturday.

The league uses a points system to dole out suspensions for flagrant fouls. When a player reaches five points, an automatic one-game suspension is invoked. Nowitzki now has two points, instead of one.

A flagrant-two is described in the NBA rulebook as being unnecessary and aggressive.

The Spurs were jokingly pulling for harsher punishment of Nowitzki during their morning shootaround Saturday.

"He didn't get suspended for that stuff?" yelled Nick Van Exel in the direction of a longtime Mavericks employee. "That's crazy."