Mavs Defeat Nuggets
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DENVER — It sure didn’t seem like a meaningless game.
Two teams that are locked into their postseason positions as the regular season nears its conclusion played a classic double-overtime game Friday night that didn’t end until an unlikely hero came through.
Raymond Felton’s driving layup with 1.5 seconds left gave the Dallas Mavericks a 144-143 double-overtime victory over the Denver Nuggets. Denver’s Kenneth Faried missed a hook shot in the lane over Felton as time expired in the second overtime.
Dallas is locked into the Western Conference’s seventh seed, and Denver won’t be in the postseason. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle seemed amused by how things unfolded.
“What a great game,” he said. “It’s the most interesting meaningless game I’ve ever seen. But it wasn’t really meaningless.
“There were a lot of good things that happened out there tonight. There’s no one more deserving of the game-winning shot than Ray Felton. The guy has been through an epic year. … Our whole team couldn’t be happier for him.”
Felton’s epic year includes a high ankle sprain that cost him 26 games and a
four-game suspension for pleading guilty to a gun possession charge.
“The biggest thing for me is to get a win, feel good, to get that shot, to see my teammates excited and happy for me,” Felton said. “That was more appealing and more exciting to see the guys get that excited for me.”
Equally exciting was Carlisle’s tactics late. At the start of the second overtime, he pulled four starters — Dirk Nowitzki, Richard Jefferson, Tyson Chandler and Monta Ellis — leaving only Felton in with four reserves. They didn’t return. Starting guard Rajon Rondo didn’t play all night so he could rest.
With Dallas’ aging roster and the playoffs looming, Carlisle figured enough was enough.
“It was tempting to do it before the first one, but they wanted to play,” Carlisle said. “We’re trying to get better, we’re trying to win. We want to be in competitive situations, so I understood. And I really felt we could win the guys off the bench because they had played well in the game.”
Denver coach Melvin Hunt said if he had it to do again, he’d run the same play at the end of the second overtime that he did Friday.
“Kenneth knew he had 1.4 seconds left and we got what we wanted,” Hunt said. “He just didn’t convert.”
Denver’s Danilo Gallinari scored a career-high 47 points, including 17 in the two overtimes. It was the most by a Nugget since Carmelo Anthony had 50 on Feb. 7, 2011.
“It would have been more fun if we won,” Gallinari said.
Six Nuggets scored in double figures, as did seven Mavericks. Dallas set the previous high for points in an NBA game this year with 140 against the Lakers in November.
Nowitzki scored 25 points and Jefferson added a season-high 24 as Dallas withstood Denver’s furious second-half rally. The Nuggets played lethargically in the first half, allowing Dallas to score 73 points and shoot 63 percent from the field. The Mavericks led by 21, 73-52 at the break.
Dallas led by as many as 23 points late in the second quarter before Denver awakened in the third quarter. The Nuggets used a 22-5 run in the quarter and pulled to within 93-89 by its end.
It was the first double-overtime game in Denver since December 20, 2007, when the Nuggets beat Houston.
Denver (29-50) has reached 50 losses in a season for the first time since going 17-65 in 2002-03. The Nuggets chose Anthony in the first round of the 2003 draft and improved to 43-39 the next season.
“Wow, the guys played their tails off,” Hunt said. “It was an incredible game.”
