Mavs Stay Alive vs Houston
{fshare id=6221}
DALLAS — Monta Ellis pointed to heart as the reason the Dallas Mavericks are headed back to Houston.
“It was 100 percent,” the Mavericks guard said. “We weren’t ready to go home.”
Ellis scored a game-high 31 points, and Dallas got a big lift from two new starters to stave off elimination by blasting the Houston Rockets 121-109 Sunday night at American Airlines Center.
Needing a win to keep their postseason alive, the Mavericks responded in a big way in Game 4 of the Western Conference first-round series. The Rockets, up 3-1, are still in position to close out the best-of-seven Tuesday night back in Houston.
Ellis backed up a 34-point performance Friday with 31 points on 13-of-21 shooting two nights later. He scored 12 points in the third quarter as the Mavs blew the game open by running out to a 24-point lead.
Guard J.J. Barea, starting for the first time in the series, provided the kind of effort that Dallas hoped to get from banished point guard Rajon Rondo. Barea scored 17 points — 12 in the first half — and dished out 13 assists.
“I’m trying to win,” Barea said. “I’m trying to play hard. We live to fight another day.”
Small forward Al-Farouq Aminu, the Mavs’ other new starter, also
contributed a double-double with 16 points and 12 rebounds. He also was instrumental in slowing star Rockets guard James Harden.
Dallas power forward Dirk Nowitzki had 16 points, and backup center Amar’e Stoudemire scored 12. Starting center Tyson Chandler finished with 14 rebounds and 10 points.
“It was a total team effort all the way down to the last man on the bench,” Ellis said. “We all came together. Even when we got down 10, we were all able to keep our composure.”
Harden scored a team-high 24 points, but he didn’t have near the impact he made while going off for 42 points in Game 3. The MVP candidate, guarded for large stretches by Aminu, made just seven of 15 shots from the floor, including one of seven from beyond the 3-point arc.
The Rockets lost their way offensively after a strong start. Houston missed 17 consecutive shots at one point.
Rockets center Dwight Howard mirrored the drop-off and helped fuel Dallas’ surge with his struggles at the line. Howard (13 points) misfired on 10 of 13 free throws and grabbed only seven boards after corralling a playoff career-high 26 in Game 3.
“We need to let this one go,” Howard said. “We need to put it behind us. It was an ugly game.”
Houston’s bench got 23 from forward Josh Smith and 22 points from guard Corey Brewer.
“We didn’t play very well tonight,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “We scored early in the game, and then we started having bad shots. They played harder than we did. You could tell.
“They beat us on the boards bad. They had 20 points off of offensive rebounds, and we had four. We couldn’t get Barea stopped at all. Our coverages were really loose. And they just played harder than us. That is the bottom line. They played with more desperation.”
Dallas outrebounded Houston, much to the delight of Mavs coach Rick Carlisle.
“We really felt we needed as much rebounding as possible in the game to start,” he said. “And the difference tonight was 52-38 on the boards for us, and that’s the game, so we’ve got to keep rebounding.”
Dallas, which snapped a four-game home playoff losing streak, still faces an uphill climb. No team in NBA history ever won four straight after being down 3-0 in a series.
Houston, trying to get out of the first round for only the second time since 1997, closed within nine points on several occasions in the fourth quarter only to watch the Mavs answer.
