The new Mavericks were on display for the first time at American Airlines Center and Marion wasted no time wowing the crowd.

Less than two minutes into the scrimmage, Jason Kidd lofted a pass toward the rim. In one motion, Marion rose above the crowd and flushed it to finish a fast break in rim-jarring fashion.

It was the kind of play Mavericks fans have seen Marion make many times before - always as an opponent. Before the 20-minute game was done, Marion would pick off a couple of passes, fly high for offensive rebounds and basically do all the things he was brought in to do.

As much as the crowd enjoyed it, Marion's coach probably liked it more.

"The things he was making happen were off his abilities as a natural Basketball player and a guy who has a great feel for playing the total game," Rick Carlisle said. "We ran very few plays for him, but he made a lot of things happen. He's going to help us a lot."

Owner Mark Cuban added: "He's going to be even better when he starts posting up more."

Marion stole the show, even tipping in a missed shot to tie the score at 42 with 7.5 seconds left. That's the way it ended, which was fitting.

No Mavericks lost.

Of course, if this were a marathon, the Mavericks would barely be starting pre-race stretching. But you have to start somewhere, so they showed some of their new athleticism in the scrimmage.

A few highlights: Jason Kidd and Roddy Beaubois were on the Blue team and spent considerable time on the floor together. Carlisle has said he will experiment with three smaller guards on the floor at the same time from the group of J.J. Barea, Jason Terry, Kidd and Beaubois.

Centers Drew Gooden and Erick Dampier took turns taking the ball at each other and both had their moments.

Defense was an afterthought for the first half, but Quinton Ross and Marion both had hustling steals in the second 10-minute period.

As is tradition, Jason Terry was a hit with pre-game introductions, referencing Kurt Rambis when announcing Matt Carroll, who is wearing goggles after Lasik surgery and referring to himself as "the back-to-back sixth man of the year."

His heart's in it: Nathan Jawai from Australia is trying to gain a foothold in training camp and one thing is clear: He has the heart for it. Jawai has seen heart specialists over the last year since a physical screening turned up a heart abnormality.

"Better safe than sorry. That's why I had it checked," Jawai said. He had it rechecked after the Mavericks' physicals last weekend and was cleared.

Day in camp

Friday: There was considerable talk about Dirk Nowitzki's 3-point shooting, which dipped to 170 attempts last season, the lowest since his lockout-shortened rookie year. "The last couple years, I made an emphasis not to shoot bad 3s," he said. "Teams know we only have a few shooters on this team. They do a good job of finding the guys who can shoot." The hope is that an athletic cutter like Shawn Marion, along with Josh Howard, will force the defense to make a choice between sticking close to Nowitzki on the perimeter or chasing Marion through seams to the basket. "It's either going to open things up for him or open things up for them," coach Rick Carlisle said.

Coming up: The Mavericks are done with twice-daily practices. They will have single workouts today and, probably, on Sunday. They host Orlando on Monday in the exhibition opener.