Mavericks: Dallas Gets First Home Win Against Pelicans

98. 69. 107. 79. Final

The Dallas Mavericks improved to .500 following a 107-98 win at American Airlines Center against the winless New Orleans Pelicans.

Following back-to-back losses to begin the home schedule at American Airlines Center, the Dallas Mavericks got their first win at home on Saturday night against the New Orleans Pelicans. While a victory is always nice, this one didn’t come without some difficulties.

New Orleans is one banged up team, only suiting up nine players for last night’s game.

Power forward Dirk Nowitzki scored 5 quick points in the opening minutes and the Mavericks stayed in the game throughout the first half. But then the big German, along with the rest of the Mavs offense, suffered another one of the team’s infamous scoring droughts.

For four minutes in the 2nd period, Dallas failed to score, which allowed this drastically undermanned New Orleans squad to tie the game at 40.

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Even worse, a 15-2 run by New Orleans to close the first half actually put the Mavericks at a disadvantage at intermission by a score of 48-42.

To the relief of the Mavericks crowd at AAC, Dallas would charge in the second half, beginning with a 12-3 run that gave Dallas the lead again coming out of halftime. The Mavs would score at least 30 points in each the 3rd and 4th quarters in eventually pulling away for a 107-98 win.

As Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News points out, all we really know about the Mavericks, to this point, is that they can beat teams that are .500 or lower, but cannot take down a team that’s above average.

"The Mavericks are 3-3 with wins against 0-6 New Orleans, the 1-4 Los Angeles Lakers and 3-3 Phoenix. They remain winless against teams over .500, having lost to the Los Angeles Clippers and Toronto. They also lost to 2-4 Charlotte."

Obviously the Mavericks are a relatively new team that’s still trying to find rhythm and also trying to get fully healthy.

Small forward Chandler Parsons played in only the second half against the Charlotte Hornets last Thursday, but played only the first half against New Orleans on Saturday night. Without Parsons fully able to contribute – although he did look much better against the Pelicans with a couple driving dunks – like he normally can, Dallas simply has to rely on working with just a bit less.

Nowitzki showed his former self with a strong 4th quarter. He got back on track down the stretch in dropping nine of his 18 points in the final period in helping the Mavericks pull away.

Point guard Deron Williams took off in the second half as he scored 16 of his 19 points after intermission.