Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Mavericks score first 16 points of second half, beat Nuggets
DALLAS — Deron Williams scored 22 points, Zaza Pachulia added 16 points and 12 rebounds, and the Dallas Mavericks used a 16-0 run to begin the second half and beat the Denver Nuggets 9281 on Saturday night and snap a three-game losing streak.
The Nuggets began a fivegame road trip with their sixth straight loss.
Dallas has won five straight at home after losing its first two games of the season at American Airlines Center.
The Mavericks, trailing 5248 at halftime, scored the first 16 points of the third quarter and never trailed again. Denver missed its first 15 fieldgoal attempts in the opening 8:45 of the period and committed six turnovers before Kenneth Faried scored on a layup to leave Dallas ahead 64-54.
Darrell Arthur, who attended Dallas’ South Oak Cliff High, scored 16 points. Will Barton added 14 off the bench, 12 in the second half.
Dallas outscored Denver 25-5 in the third period, shooting 61.5 percent to the Nuggets’ 10.5 percent (2 for 19). The Nuggets committed seven turnovers in the quarter.
The Mavericks’ largest lead was 20 points, when a 3-pointer by Dirk Nowitzki put Dallas ahead 77-57 less than a minute into the fourth quarter.
Williams, who played his high school ball locally at The Colony, was 4 for 8 on 3-pointers. Signed during the offseason, Williams fell one short of his season high in points and added four assists and four rebounds.
Pachulia scored Dallas’ first seven points and followed a four-point, no-rebound effort in a loss at San Antonio on Wednesday night with his 10th double-double of the season.
Emmanuel Mudiay, the No. 7 draftee last summer after playing his high school ball in nearby Arlington, Texas and Dallas, scored 12 for the Nuggets on 5-for-15 shooting. Danilo Gallinari had 12 points, all in the first half. He shot 0 for 7 in the second half.
The Nuggets scored the game’s first seven points, shot 52.6 percent in the first half and led 52-48 at intermission. Denver outrebounded Dallas 25-15 in the half and limited Nowitzki, the Mavericks’ leading scorer at 17.4 points per game, to two field-goal attempts and two points.
Nowitzki finished with 13 points and seven rebounds. Raymond Felton added 12 points off the bench, eight in the first half.
Gary Harris, who started all of Denver’s first 16 games, sat out after sustaining a concussion in the Nuggets’ previous game against San Antonio on Wednesday.
Faried played 14 minutes off the bench after missing Denver’s previous three games with a left ankle sprain. He had 10 points and five rebounds.
This was the back end of Denver’s fourth back-to-back so far this season, all losses and all on the road.
J.J. Barea sat out with a sprained right ankle. He’s expected to miss three games.