Amar'e Stoudemire is not impressed by the Mavericks

Amar'e Stoudemire did not sign up for a crummy Dallas Mavericks team. Especially not after leaving a crummy New York Knicks team.

Stoudemire chastised his team after the Mavericks were blown out at home to the Cleveland Cavaliers 127-94 on Tuesday.

"I came here to win, and we're (4 1/2) games out of being out of the playoffs, which is unacceptable," Stoudemire told reporters after the game. "This is something we can't accept. We've got to find a way to refocus. We've got to key into the details of the game of basketball.

"We can't cheat the game. We can't screw around in games and practices and joke around all the time and figure we're going to win games. This is the pros. It's the highest level of basketball. We've got to act that way."

Stoudemire has a right to be upset. Dallas is 5-6 since the center joined the team following his buyout with the Knicks. The Mavericks are also seventh in the Western Conference at 41-25, with Oklahoma City and New Orleans making a charge behind them.

No one expected Stoudemire to be the season-changing acquisition for the Mavs. That spotlight has been on Rajon Rondo, who has had difficulty playing in the team's offense. 

For his own part, Stoudemire has averaged 11.4 points and 3.5 rebounds in 17.5 minutes off the bench for Dallas. It sounds like he expected to be watching a better team from the pine.

"We should be a much better team than what we showed out there," he said. "This is a team that's competing for a championship that we played against. We should have stepped up to the challenge of competing with these guys and we backed down."