Irving’s shot lifts Mavs over Nuggets
DALLAS — Kyrie Irving hit a running left-handed shot at the buzzer, capping a wild final 26 seconds and giving the Dallas Mavericks a 107-105 victory over the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
The Nuggets rallied from 13 points down midway through the fourth quarter and went ahead on Jamal Murray’s tiebreaking 3-pointer with 26 seconds remaining.
Luka Doncic answered almost immediately on the inbounds pass after a timeout, hitting from several feet behind the arc for a 105-105 tie.
After Murray missed an elbow jumper in the final seconds, Dallas called timeout with 2.8 seconds to go. The right-handed Irving took the inbounds pass, dribbled with his left hand as Nikola Jokic pursued and had to throw up the shot from 21 feet to beat the buzzer.
After it went in, Irving ran toward his teammates coming off the bench and was mobbed near midcourt as the defending champs walked by quietly on the way to the Denver locker room.
The Nuggets had a five-game road winning streak stopped. They had won all five by double digits, a first in franchise history. Denver is the only team this season with two road streaks of at least five victories.
Doncic scored 37 points and Irving had 24 as the up-and-down Mavericks (39-29) won for the fifth time in six games, answering a 1-5 stretch that followed a seven-game winning streak, their longest of the season. Dallas pulled even with Phoenix as part of a virtual three-way tie with Sacramento for the sixth and final guaranteed playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Denver (47-21) dropped a halfgame behind Oklahoma City for the West’s best record.
Murray scored 23 points for the Nuggets.