SAN ANTONIO -- Donnie Nelson says his dad's bag of tricks is not empty.

"We like to save our best stuff for last, and he's got a couple more up his sleeve," the younger Nelson said yesterday as the Dallas Mavericks, holding a 1-0 lead in the Western Conference final, prepared to play the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 tonight.

The Dallas coach did something wacky in Game 1, a move that was not as crucial as the Mavs' 49-for-50 free throw shooting, but an important one nonetheless.

After the Spurs had dominated the first 18 minutes, leading by as many as 18 points, Dallas got the deficit to 10. Steve Nash of Victoria then committed an ordinary foul against Bruce Bowen and Bowen went to the line and missed both shots.

The light bulb went off in Nellie's noggin: Time for Hack-a-Bruce.

"He did it to me in once in Dallas and he did it again. It's more or less of a mind game type of thing, I guess," said Bowen, who is shooting 51 per cent from three-point range and 42 per cent from the foul line during the playoffs.

Dallas intentionally fouled Bowen away from the ball on four of the next six possessions. The game slowed to a crawl. The once-rabid crowd quieted down.

Bowen made five of eight free throws during that span, and Dallas only reduced its deficit by one. But something else had happened.

The game had turned weird and the Spurs were a bit stunned. Dallas eventually found a way to win.

"It took the crowd out, that kind of thing, stopped momentum," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich grudgingly conceded yesterday.

"I don't really agree with it, but you kind of commend him in a way because he's doing what he has to do to help his team win," said Spurs forward Malik Rose.

During the stretch when they were fouling Bowen, the Mavs were keeping him guessing, too. On the other two possessions, Mavs players feigned and darted at Bowen -- only to back off at the last second and avoid contact.

"With the stakes being as high as they are, we were hoping not to pull that card as early as we did. But we needed a momentum buster or something because we were running out of tourniquets there," said the younger Nelson, a Mavericks assistant coach. "It's one small technique that some people would say had no neutralizing effect, but it did the things that we wanted."

In a league in which the majority of the teams run slight variations of the same offensive and defensive strategies, Nelson has always tried to break from the norm during his 26 seasons with the Bucks, Warriors, Knicks and Mavericks.