Dirk says goodbye to Oracle in style
OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA —Dirk Nowitzki added one more memorable game in his final visit to Oracle Arena, scoring a season-high 21 points and insisting he couldn’t remember whether it was a chair or a trash can that he threw into a wall opposite the visitors’ locker room at one of his favorite arenas.
Luka Doncic had a triple-double and the Dallas Mavericks capitalized on Stephen Curry’s absence to beat the Golden State Warriors, 126-91, on Saturday night.
Nowitzki, 40, who is in his 21st and perhaps final season with the Mavericks, got a rare start and a rousing ovation from the Oracle crowd. He came out and torched the Warriors with 10 points in the game’s first four minutes, and the Mavs jumped out to a 22-7 lead. They never trailed in the game.
“The last few games I didn’t have a good shooting rhythm,” Nowitzki said. “Today, I had it early and often.”
Golden State dropped out of the top seed in the Western Conference to a half-game behind Denver. With Curry resting, Kevin Durant had 25 points and DeMar- cus Cousins scored 19. But the Warriors were 4 for 30 from 3point range, while the Mavs went 21 of 49 from behind the arc.
“We just couldn’t pull together after that slow start and we never could get any traction in the game,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “So we just kind of flush this one down the toilet and move on to tomorrow, not much else to do.”
Doncic had 23 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists and Dallas ended a 12-game losing streak in Oakland, where it last won in April 2012.
Nowitzki scored his first NBA basket at Oracle Arena, which is closing after this season, and some of his career highs and lows also came in Oakland. In 2007, the Warriors shocked the 67-win Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs—prompting Nowitzki to throw something through the wall. The hole has never been repaired.
“Great memories, bad memories here,” he said. “This has always been a fun building, a fun atmosphere to play. I’ll always remember this building.”