On their 11th day away from home, the Lakers fell to 1-5 on their trip, with one game left tonight in Houston, at which point they could be caught by Utah for the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference.

By then, Brown might no longer be a starter even though Chris Mihm could still be out because of a sprained right shoulder. Brown went scoreless and had four rebounds and four fouls in 14 minutes against Dallas, enough to incur the wrath of Jackson afterward.

"That's awful," Jackson said. "He gave us a terrible game tonight. I had a short meeting with him the other day and told him I really valued the opportunity he was getting and he just didn't give us any productive minutes at all."