|
 Felton scored 10 of his 16 points on the final possession of the
fourth quarter and overtime. Dallas trailed by 23 points in the
second quarter, took the lead in the third only to fall behind by 14
points with more than eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter and
they trailed by nine points with less than two minutes left in
regulation.
Felton tied it 108-108 with 10.5 seconds left in regulation when
drove a wide-open lane for a layup as Denver's defense keyed on
Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, and nobody bothered to stick with
Felton.
Still, Denver had plenty of time to get a good look coming out of
the timeout, but forward Will Barton, who led Denver with 22 points
despite poor shooting, went one-on-one against Felton, took the
possession deep into the clock and then front-rimmed a long jumper.
The isolation sequence infuriated Nuggets coach Mike Malone and sent
the game into overtime.
"You're on the road, hostile environment--you need to have poise,
you need to slow down, execute the play," Malone said. "What happens
sometimes in those situations (is that) I think it's really
important that you trust each other, and I think a lot of our guys
think they need to make the play. And their heart's in the right
place, but that's when we need to trust each other on both ends of
the floor."
Felton, who Dallas coach Rick Carlisle inserted into the starting
lineup to open the second half for a small-ball look, then scored
eight of Dallas' 13 points and grabbed a key defensive rebound as
the veteran Mavericks (31-28) pulled a game it simply could not lose
to the lottery-bound Nuggets as the race at the bottom of the
Western Conference playoff chase tightens.
"I just had the will to not lose," Felton said. "We needed this win
and wanted to win. I was taking what the defense was giving me. With
a great guy like Dirk and being able to come off the screen with
everyone worried about him, it makes it so much easier for me to get
in the lane. I just tried to get in there and do a good job of
finishing and finding somebody."
NUGGETS BLOW IT
It was just Dallas' third win its last nine games, and the win came
two nights after a second-half stomping by the Oklahoma City
Thunder. Then, the Mavericks' sluggish start that saw them trail
55-32 with 3:15 to go had the sellout crowd in Dallas starting to
send down boos.
They were cheering at the end, however, after watching the Mavericks
pull off the fifth-largest home comeback in franchise history.
"To the fans that didn't boo, the fans that remained confident in
us, we appreciate that," said Mavs guard Wesley Matthews, who had 17
points, while knocking down four 3-pointers on seven attempts.
[to top of second column] |
Dallas forward Chandler Parsons paced Dallas with 27 points, forward
Dirk Nowitzki had 20 points, 13 rebounds and four assists. Forward
David Lee, in just his second game with Dallas, recorded 14 points
and 14 rebounds.
The Nuggets (23-36) will look back at this one and wonder how they
let it slip away. But like so many young teams in the league, it is
often much more difficult to hold a double-digit lead than it is to
build it.
And they had to do play a large chunk of the second half without
forward Danilo Gallinari, who left in the third quarter with a
sprained ankle after landing on a teammates' ankle.
The Nuggets' demise really started the moment they grabbed the
23-point lead. A late flurry saved the second quarter from being one
of the most abysmal 12 minutes of Dallas' season, and it very much
saved this game. Dallas missed 12 of its first 13 shots to start the
quarter and fell behind 55-32 with 3:15 to go.
The Mavericks, who were 7 of 21 from the floor in the second quarter
and 0 of 10 from 3-point range in the first half, closed the second
quarter on a 12-1 run to essentially cut the Nuggets' biggest lead
in half to go into halftime trailing by a far more manageable margin
of 56-44.
"We blew a 23-point lead which is unfortunate," Nuggets forward
Darrell Arthur said. "I thought we played decent for the majority of
the game. It was those couple minutes at the end of quarters where
we didn't close the quarters and they made plays. I give those guys
credit, they never gave up and executed their game plan."
Denver got a balanced scoring attack, but failed to get the
defensive stops it needed to protect its large leads throughout the
game. Forward Kenneth Faried had 20 points and 12 rebounds, guard
D.J. Augustin finished with 20 points and guard Gary Harris had 17.
(Compiled by Peter Rutherford)
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