Jerry Stackhouse knows there are pitfalls when picking target dates for coming back from injury, but he's ready to pencil in a return.

Dec. 23 at Seattle is the date. And the logic for making his season debut then makes perfect sense. The Mavericks have two days off after that game, host Indiana on Dec. 26, then have three more days off.

It's a good spot in the schedule to ease back into game action with plenty of built-in recovery time for his troublesome right knee.

"I'm not really having any pain," Stackhouse said Tuesday after going through a full practice for the first time since early October. "I feel like the worst days are over. Now I'm trying to get back into a rhythm of playing basketball and in some sort of basketball shape.

"I'm hoping to use these days to get some work, then maybe be ready to dance a little bit."