You knew it would be different when Dirk Nowitzki addressed the crowd before the game in his diesel-driven German, apparently something about schnitzel or strudel, maybe.

You knew it'd be different when Tim Hardaway translated.

"Yeah," Tim Bug chirped into the microphone. "What he said."

At times Tuesday, you didn't know whether to laugh or salute in the Mavericks' official American Airlines Center debut.

One minute Nowitzki and Hardaway are playing like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

The next, the President of the United States is talking to an announced crowd of 19,200 in a taped message on the video screen, assuring a nation's sports fans about the importance of games in our culture and what they can teach us since the world changed Sept. 11.