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Howard scored 23 points and Dirk Nowitzki added 17 as the Mavericks survived a 12-point fourth quarter in a 93-91 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.
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Clippers-Mavericks: Play |
The Mavs were able to pick up their latest win despite making just 4-of-17 shots in the fourth quarter.
"We had a couple of miscues out there in the fourth quarter," Howard said. "Turning over the ball, not running the offense efficiently enough."
"You've got to play good defense for 48 minutes against good teams," Clippers guard Cuttino Mobley said. "Dallas is the best team in the West, at least they've got the best record. They are that for a reason. They utilize all of their players which I commend Avery (Johnson) for, and they're scrappy."
Recently acquired Vladimir Radmanovic nailed a 3-pointer with 1:36 remaining to cap a 7-0 surge and pull the Clippers within 92-91.
After the Mavericks came away with three empty possessions, Nowitzki's defense forced Sam Cassell to throw up an airball. Howard grabbed the rebound and was fouled with 3.9 seconds remaining.
Howard missed both free throws, but Jerry Stackhouse corralled the rebound and split a pair of free throws with 1.2 seconds to go for a 93-91 edge.
"It was a long tip, it came off hard and was really high," Mobley said. "They tipped it one way and the next thing you know Stack (Stackhouse) gets it."
The Clippers were unable to get a final shot off when Shaun Livingston threw away a pass intended for Elton Brand. Howard had switched off of Cassell and run over to Brand.
"They switched, they were small on him," Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy said. "Probably, I'm not complaining about the referees at all, you'll probably see that the guy (Brand) was held in the paint, but it's OK. At the end of a game maybe things aren't seen or things aren't called. It's not an issue. The pass was just, maybe he led him a little bit too much. I liked the idea. I liked the execution of it. We got the small matchup and we had the pass going in. If he catches that, he's going to score it and at 1.2 it was pretty good."
"A lot of times you just want to switch because you don't have time to really fight over screens," said Mavericks guard Adrian Griffin, who scored 13 points. "Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. We kind of got mixed up but we were fortunate that Josh made a great play of pushing Elton back a little bit so the ball could go over his head, because that was obviously a mismatch."
Howard made 9-of-11 shots, but just 5-of-11 free throws and grabbed seven rebounds. Nowitzki pulled down 10 boards.
"I guess that came from working out at Wake Forest when I was on break," said Howard of his shooting from the field. "I did a good job with that. I missed two big free throws, Stack missed one but when it came down to that last possession, we did a good job."
Brand had 20 points, eight rebounds and five steals. Mobley finished with 18 points and Cassell contributed 17 for the Clippers, who lost their fourth straight game.
"We don't take positives from losses," Brand said. "We feel we're a good team and we had a big chance to win. We wanted to win this game. They're a good team and they beat us, but we had some chances especially late."
In a well-shooting first half, the Mavericks grabbed a 55-50 lead. Dallas shot 56 percent (23-of-41), slightly better than Los Angeles' 54 percent (20-of-37).
Chris Kaman finished with 15 points - all in the first half - and 13 rebounds for the Clippers. "He (Kaman) did not get the ball enough in that second half," Dunleavy said. "I mean here's a guy who goes 6-for-7 in the first half and he gets two shots in the second half other than the free throws that he got. That's ridiculous. That's the message I told our team. What were we thinking about?"
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