Making his first public comments this week, Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki said Thursday that he is “way better off” physically than he was a week ago, before he and the Mavericks jointly decided to hold him out of at least four games.

Nowitzki said he is still targeting his return for Sunday, when the Mavericks host San Antonio. Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said Nowitzki has made “significant progress,” but Carlisle said Nowitzki remains day-to-day and that a Sunday return isn’t guaranteed.

Either way, Nowitzki will not play Friday night, when the Mavericks host Utah.

“I feel better,” Nowitzki said. “I think it was definitely a good week for me to work on some stuff that I wasn’t able to work on when I had some trouble with my knee. So that’s definitely good.

“We lifted a lot, ran some, shot some, so I’m excited to get this week over with and be back out there with the guys.”

Prognosis for his return?

“Well, we were always shooting for Sunday, so we’ll just take it day by day and see how these next two days of training go and keep pushing myself, twice a day,” Nowitzki said. “But that’s where my head is, hopefully Sunday, and we’ll go from there.”

One thing Nowitzki took slight issue with Thursday was Carlisle’s statement that part of the reason Nowitzki needed a break from games is to work on his conditioning.

“No, I don’t know why Coach threw that out there,” Nowitzki said. “I didn’t have any problem with conditioning at all.

rss Read the Original Article Here: http://mavsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/01/dirk-still-targeting-sunday-return.html http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/?rss&listname=TopStories the feed url