The final score on Friday night at American Airlines Center was the Dallas Mavericks 102 Los Angeles Lakers 98, but that four-point final margin was more than a bit deceiving.
That's because the Mavericks raced out to a 10-0 lead as the Lakers, who were without leading scorer Kobe Bryant, who was being rested for a third straight game, looked far from ready to play.
"I thought the first quarter we came out very lackadaisical, just didn't play well, just didn't seem very interested in the first quarter and then called a timeout told them they got two more minutes to get their act together or I'm going to clear the bench," Lakers head coach Byron Scott said postgame. "It's that simple. Then, we decided to play."
Dallas led 26-19 after one and after the Lakers won the second by a 23-22 margin, the Mavs held a six-point lead at the break at 48-42.
In the second half, Los Angeles outscored the Mavs 56-54 but thanks to Charlie Villanueva scoring 10 straight for Dallas, including connecting on three three-pointers, the Mavs went on a 12-2 run over a span of 1:50 to blow open what was a six-point game at 83-77 into their largest lead of the game, 16, at 95-79 with 3:56 remaining.
The Lakers showed great mettle to finish the game on a 19-7 run, but it was too little too late as the Mavs prevailed by four, snapping their two-game winning streak.
Other than Dallas returning to the win column, the big story surrounding this game was Mavs franchise icon Dirk Nowitzki eclipsing another of the NBA's fellow all-time greats on the Association's career scoring list.
Early in the third, Nowitzki passed the Big E himself, Elvin Hayes, for eighth place on the NBA's all-time scoring list with 27,314 points. Dirk finished the game with 14 points and how has 27,322 for his incomparable career in Big D, putting him just 87 points behind Moses Malone, who currently ranks seventh with 27,409 points.
Seeing the Big German continue his ascension up the NBA scoring chart was one of the highlights of the evening for longtime Dallas head coach Rick Carlisle.
"It's hard to describe what we're seeing in real time," Carlisle said. "He's making it look sort of easy. It's not an accident. A lot of blood, a lot of sweat, a lot of guts go into a career like this."
Carlisle even went so far as to compare Nowitzki to Bryant, who clapped in appreciation from behind the visiting bench once Dirk eclipsed Hayes for eighth place.
"Kobe Bryant's the same kind of guy," Carlisle said. "These guys are once-a-generation type players. We're just fortunate we've even had a chance to watch it for an extended period of time."
Nowitzki even mentioned a conversation he had with Bryant before the game.
"I told him I was going to catch him. That's going to be tough," Nowitzki admitted.
And true to form, Dirk was his usual humble self when discussing his continuing climb up the League's career scoring list, giving much of the credit to his Mavs teammates.
"I've been fortunate to play, even this season, fortunate to have great teammates put me in positions to keep scoring," Nowitzki said. "Even though I'm older, it's been fun. Still competing at a high level and hopefully win a lot more games these last couple of years here, which really means more to me right now than all the points. It's definitely been a fun ride."
Besides seeing Nowitzki further cement his well-deserved and ever-growing stature among NBA royalty, another source of pride for the Mavs head coach was the stellar performance turned in by recently-acquired point guard Rajon Rondo, who finished with 21 points, eight rebounds and seven assists.
"He's doing better every game, getting used to the guys. The guys are getting used to him. We're making adjustments we need to make, so he's doing well," Carlisle said of Rondo. "I liked his aggression a lot tonight. I think it's important that he's a threat to score because that's going to open up more things. He did a good job of that tonight."
The Lakers showed much better for themselves on Friday evening compared to their last visit to the AAC, back on Nov. 21 when they lost 140-106.
On Friday, Los Angeles was led offensively by Carlos Boozer who chipped in 18 points off the bench as the Lakers second unit outscored the Mavs bench 46-25, but that was of little consolation to the visitors.
And since Bryant was unavailable again, the inevitable question was posed to Scott as one reporter asked him if he thought the game could have ended differently were the Black Mamba on the hardwood instead of the sidelines. Quite diplomatically, Scott took the high road in answering that question.
"No, I'm not going to allow myself to go there," Scott said. "Obviously, if we have him, that fourth quarter, that last three, four minutes where we got it to six points and then boom, they got it back to 14, 15 when we couldn't throw it in the ocean, obviously he's a guy that can help. No doubt about that, we would have went to him. There's no doubt about that. I don't think about that. When I decided to rest him, I don't think about what if."
Dallas returns to the floor on Sunday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, a game which will mark the 1000th career game as an NBA head coach for Carlisle.
