OAKLAND — In the wake of four losses in five games, Dallas coach Rick Carlisle was hoping to use his team’s final two contests heading into the All-Star break to re-establish some momentum, especially at the defensive end.
It took three quarters of watching the Warriors shoot 54.7 percent from the floor, but Carlisle finally saw what he had been searching for. Dallas forced Golden State to miss 14 of its 21 attempts and outscored the Warriors by 18 points in the fourth quarter to secure a 127-117 victory.
“It’s an important start,” Carlisle said. “It’s been a tough 10-day stretch. This was a bit of a gut check for us tonight. It was a game we desperately needed and we fought hard for it. We fought like it was the deciding game in a playoff series to get it.”
Jason Terry scored 10 of his season-high 36 points in the fourth quarter to ensure that happened. Josh Howard (25) and Drew Gooden (24) each had season-highs as well to combine for 49 points off the bench, and the Mavericks caught a break when Warriors guard Monta Ellis, who dropped 46 against Dallas last week, was knocked out of the game with less than four minutes to go because of a sprained left knee.
Ellis was forced into three fourth-quarter turnovers before leaving the game with 27 points on 23 shots, and the Warriors had seven of their 15 turnovers as a team in the period. Dallas turned those mistakes into 13 points while winning the quarter 37-19.
“After a tough night of struggles — you give up 70 in the first half — and you’re still able to get stops when you need it, it speaks volumes about the leadership of this team,” Terry said. “This is just another step in the right direction.”
Dallas was able to change up its look in the fourth quarter, using its zone to knock the Warriors’ offense off-kilter, then roaring into the lead for the first time all night behind its man-to-man defense. Terry hit the last of his season-high six 3-pointers to put the Mavericks ahead for good with 5:35 left.
“Their zone kind of took us out of our rhythm, and then when they went back to their man, we couldn’t figure it out,” said Warriors rookie Stephen Curry, who finished with 25 points and nine assists.
The win nudged the Mavericks’ record since Dec. 18 just above .500. Dallas opened the season 19-7, but since then have been just 13-12.
“The key thing is, the five guys that are on the floor for the Mavericks have got to be playing at a high level of intensity,” Carlisle said. “They’ve got to have the right disposition and posture, from the standpoint of competing at both ends. You don’t often hear the phrase ‘compete’ on offense, but that comes down to things like cutting, screening, waiting for screens. And you’ve got to be great in all those areas to be a high-level basketball team.”
As trade rumors continue to identify Dallas as a potential buyer at the trade deadline — owner Mark Cuban did his best to try to dampen the chatter by declaring rookie guard Rodrigue Beaubois all but untouchable — Terry gave his endorsement to the Mavericks as currently constituted.
“When Mark put this team together this summer, it was with the intention of going to the Finals and winning it all,” Terry said. “We still have the key elements here.”
The Warriors, on the other hand, were missing yet more key elements Monday. The latest to join Golden State’s voluminous injury report was forward Corey Maggette, who sat out Monday and will also miss Wednesday’s pre-All-Star-break finale against the Clippers because of a dislocated left ring finger.
Anthony Morrow made sure Maggette’s 20.8 points-per-game average weren’t missed, going 5-for-9 on 3-point attempts to score a season-high 33 points. But he couldn’t do anything to prevent the Warriors’ fourth-quarter collapse, which sent them to a season-worst nine-game losing streak.
“It’s gonna snowball some anyway,” Warriors coach Don Nelson said of the streak. “You’ve just got to try to control it and just have your players understand that we’re going through hard times and things are going to get better as we go along. That’s the nature of life in the NBA: Bad teams get better.”
