Inside Report: Warriors-Mavericks recap — Mavs clinch 11th straight playoff spot with rout of Warriors

Earl K. Sneed recaps the action from the Mavericks' runaway win over the Warriors Sunday night, as the Dallas squad clinched a playoff spot in style.

DALLAS — Blowouts are nice, but Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle will just take a win.

After watching his team drop five out of eight games coming into Sunday night’s matchup with the Golden State Warriors, Carlisle confessed that he was less concerned with the final tally on the scoreboard and more so focused on claiming another notch in the win column. And after two wins by a combined 11 points over the Warriors earlier in the season — including last Wednesday night’s 112-106 victory in ORACLE Arena in which the Mavs overcame an 18-point first-half deficit — Carlisle reiterated that point to his players.

“I don’t think you talk about a certain kind of win at any time,” Carlisle said before the game. “I think, for us, the important thing is the process. You’re getting ahead of yourself if you’re talking about [blowouts], and that doesn’t make sense for us. We’ve got to work each minute of the game to our best ability, and if we do then we’ll potentially put ourselves in a position to win like we feel we can. So, that’s more in my thought process than the end result.”

But even Carlisle had to be impressed with the final result on Sunday night, as the Mavericks handled the Warriors with ease, sprinting to a 101-73 victory and clinching a playoff spot in the process. The Mavericks also surrendered a season-low point total to their opponent in the win, claiming their largest margin of victory of the 2010-11 campaign as well.

Collecting a third win over the Warriors was expected be especially difficult for the Mavericks without versatile forward Shawn Marion available, after the four-time All-Star suffered a sprained right wrist in the first half of Friday night’s 97-91 loss to San Antonio. Marion is officially listed as day-to-day, but he says he expects to return sooner rather than later, sporting a brace on the wrist before Sunday night’s game.

“I’ll be alright,” Marion said. “I think Tuesday we’re gonna practice and I’m gonna suit up and get through it this week and I’ll be fine.”

Fortunately for the Mavericks, while they may have lost one former All-Star they gained another in exchange, as sharpshooter Peja Stojakovic returned to the lineup after missing six games with a stiff neck.

Even with Stojakovic available it would be DeShawn Stevenson who got the start at the 3 for the second straight game, as the Mavs looked to get back on track two days after dropping the season series to the Spurs. But the opening quarter this time around would play out much differently than it did Wednesday night, as the Mavericks easily sprinted to a 31-23 advantage after 12 minutes of play.

The Mavs hit on 11-for-18 from the floor in the period, just bettering the Warriors’ 10-of-19 at the other end.

But the best was yet to come.

The second quarter would begin in spectacular finish for the Mavericks, as Stojakovic announced his return empathically with back-to-back-to-back 3-pointers to lift his team to a 17-point lead.

“He has nights where he just can’t miss,” center Tyson Chandler said of his teammate. “Everybody knows who Peja Stojakovic is in this league.”

Mavericks leading scorer Dirk Nowitzki took over the scoring duties from there, but the Warriors would fight their way back into the game, trimming the Dallas advantage to 51-43 heading into the locker room at the intermission.

“Where we got into trouble was the second quarter, where we started throwing it around and turning it over. [The lead] went from 17 to 6 or 8, and that wasn’t good,” Carlisle explained.

But not even that could put a downer on the halftime ring presentation for Chandler and head athletic trainer Casey Smith for their roles on a gold-medal winning Team USA squad in this past summer’s FIBA World Championship in Istanbul, Turkey. And after Nowitzki’s 12 first-half points and Stojakovic’s 11 bested the Warriors’ big men duo of David Lee and Ekpe Udoh — who combined to score 18 in the first two quarters — the Mavericks headed into the break outshooting the Warriors, 47 percent to 41 percent.

“We’ve been allowing teams to get out to great starts lately, but tonight I felt that we did a great job of challenging shots,” Chandler said.

But after a strong second period the turnover bug would bite the Mavs in the third quarter, and the Warriors’ backcourt of Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry would capitalize off Dallas’ giveaways. The Mavericks would respond, however, after the Warriors climbed to within four, as Nowitzki and second-year guard Rodrigue Beaubois opened up some space between the two squads. And with Chandler and fellow center Ian Mahinmi grabbing virtually every rebound off the glass, the Mavericks were able to take a comfortable 76-63 edge into the final period.

That’s when the Mavericks looked to put the game away, with Stojakovic swishing in his fifth 3-pointer of the night to help his team once again spurge ahead by 17.

“Some guys that have this experience have the capability to get it going like this,” Carlisle said of Stojakovic’s explosion in his return. ”If you think about it, he’s been shooting the ball at that level for 20 years. If you look at 20 years, 10 days is not that much. You can tell that he’s been working to keep his conditioning. It was big for us tonight. We needed it.”

Stojakovic would then sit and rest, and it was Beaubois’ turn to rejoin the scoring action, drilling a 3-pointer of his own and penetrating to the rim to lift the Mavericks to a lead as large as 29. A highlight reel, behind-the-back finish by Beaubois would then finish the Warriors off for the night.

“I tried to be more aggressive, more focused, because at the beginning of the game I wasn’t focused enough,” Beaubois said of his play down the stretch. “I have to be aggressive, that’s my game. I have to be aggressive all the time.”

“That’s [Beaubois'] game, I don’t think he even knows what he’s going to do next,” Nowitzki joked.

With the win, the Mavericks clinched their 11th straight playoff appearance.

Playing just over 31 minutes, Nowitzki finished with a game-high 20 points on 9-of-15 shooting. Off the bench, Stojakovic hit six of his 11 shots, including 5-of-8 from 3-point range.

“As always, when you come off the bench you have to be aggressive. I knew that I would be coming off the bench early on and I was lucky that I was put in position to make the shots that I did,” Stojakovic said when summing up his night.

Beaubois added 13 points.

Ellis led three Warriors in double figures with 18 points on 7-of-18 from the floor.

Meanwhile, behind Chandler’s 17 rebounds — one shy of his season-high — and Mahinmi’s career-best 13 boards, the Mavericks would finish the game with a 51-39 rebounding edge, leading to transition opportunities and a 27-12 advantage in fast-break points.

“Tonight we got stops, rebounded the ball and were able to get out and run,” Chandler said.

“Tyson was big [inside], Ian came off the bench and gave us big rebounds, and that definitely won us the game,” Nowitzki added.

The Mavericks also outshot the Warriors, 42.5 percent to 35.1 percent, feasting off Golden State’s 18 turnovers en route to scoring 22 points off their opponent’s miscues. And at the other end of the floor the Warriors turned 16 Dallas turnovers into just eight points.

Thanks to Stojakovic’s big night, the Mavericks connected on 12-of-34 from 3-point range, while also holding the Warriors to 5-of-20 from long range at the other end. The three-time All-Star sharpshooter also led the way as the Mavericks’ bench outscored the Warriors’ reserves, 43-20.

“It’s important to win. It’s important to play our game as well as we can play it,” Carlisle said after the postseason-clinching victory. “Tonight, it’s a 30-win team on the one hand, so nobody’s gonna get too excited about this score. On the other hand, it’s a team that’s very skilled and is averaging 103 [points]. So, the fact that we were able to hold them to a good number is something to build on.”

The Mavericks will look to build upon the win after taking Monday off, returning to the practice court Tuesday to fine-tune things in time to welcome the Minnesota Timberwolves back to Big D for a second time this season. The Dallas team will be looking to conclude its three-game homestand by moving to 3-0 in the season series with the Wolves on Thursday night, after escaping with a 108-105 road victory on March 7.

Note: The Timberwolves-Mavericks matchup will tip off at 7:30 p.m. CT, airing locally on Fox Sports Southwest. Great seats are still available and tickets can be purchased by visiting the American Airlines Center box office, logging on to Mavs.com or by calling 214-747-MAVS (6287).

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