Denver, which has lost five in a row and nine of 10, had a chance to win, but Nick Van Exel's 3-pointer just before the buzzer barely grazed the net. The loss was the Nuggets' 10th straight road defeat.
Trailing 84-77 after Greg Buckner's basket with 6:49 remaining, Denver went on an 11-0 run that was capped by a jumper by Raef LaFrentz with 2:53 to go.
LaFrentz scored in the paint to give Denver a 92-87 lead with 1:16 left, but Eduardo Najera made a basket in traffic and Nowitzki hit a 3-pointer to tie the game with 33 seconds left.
 Dirk Nowitzki got Ryan Bowen in the air for the hoop, the harm, and the final three points of the game. Glenn James /NBAE/Getty Images |
"(Bowen is) smaller than me so I knew I could shoot over him," Nowitzki said. "I gave a little pump fake. He went for it and I'm just lucky the ball went in."
"We sort of left Ryan alone in that situation," Van Exel said. "That's tough, him and Dirk down in the post. We should have come and doubled and gotten the ball out of his hands, and make (Adrian) Griffin or (Greg) Buckner shoot."
Juwan Howard added 15 points and nine rebounds and Steve Nash chipped in 10 and eight assists for Dallas, which has won 10 of its last 12 contests.
Denver took a 30-29 lead on a pair of free throws from Johnson with 10:06 left in the second quarter, but Dallas used a zone defense to go on a 13-0 run. Tim Hardaway capped the burst with a 3-pointer with 5:01 left in the half and Dallas remained up by 12 at the half, 52-40.
"We put in a matchup zone defense yesterday in practice," Dallas coach Don Nelson said. "It was beautiful, they hardly scored against it. I was just uncomfortable doing it in the second half because I didn't want it to cost us the ballgame, but it really did work well in the quarter."
Dallas, which placed All-Star guard Michael Finley on the injured list for the first time in his career on Tuesday with a strained left hamstring, defeated Denver at home for the 10th straight time. The Mavericks have not lost to the Nuggets in Dallas since April 19, 1997.
"We didn't get a very good performance from a lot of people," Nelson said. "There will be some adjusting, there is no question, while Mike is out, which we will have to work our way through. But we really thought that we would do a better job and be crisper than we were tonight."
"We were lucky," Nowitzki said. "They were the better team over a lot of the time. It was an ugly win, but we'll take the win and move on."
Denver was paced by Van Exel, who scored 15 of his 31 points in the fourth quarter. LaFrentz added 24 points and 11 rebounds, but no other Nuggets reached double figures.
"It's kind of a season theme for us, but we played a lot better than we did last night (a 14-point loss to Charlotte) as a team," LaFrentz said. "We played well, but down the stretch it was the same old story."
Neither time shot well from 3-point range. Denver made just 5-of-18 from the arc, while Dallas converted 5-of-17.
Denver matched its longest losing streak of the season set between December 4-11. The Nuggets are 3-13 since the beginning of that skid and 4-18 since an overtime win over New Jersey on November 19.
"We got the ball where we wanted (on the last play)," Denver coach Mike Evans said. "It was perfect, except for the finish."