Mavericks at Nuggets
The Dallas Mavericks are trying to hang onto the No. 6 spot in the Western Conference and can’t afford to suffer losses to teams behind them in the standings. The Mavericks will try to avoid a second consecutive loss to a sub-.500 team when they visit the Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
Dallas squandered a chance at a 5-1 homestand with a 104-101 loss to the Sacramento Kings on Thursday and are just a half-game ahead of the seventh-place Portland Trail Blazers in the West. “This is a team that we should beat,” Mavericks forward Chandler Parsons told reporters after Thursday’s setback. “We’re playing for something much bigger than they are. This is the kind of loss that bites you in the butt that you wish you could have back in a couple of weeks.” The Nuggets are coming off their own tough loss after falling 121-120 in overtime to the Brooklyn Nets on Friday. Denver looked like it had the win in hand before Brook Lopez’s tip with 0.4 seconds left dropped the Nuggets to 1-2 on their seven-game homestand.
TV: 5 p.m. ET, FSN Southwest (Dallas), Altitude (Denver)
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS (33-29): Parsons is on a tear over the last four games, continuing a trend that began in at the beginning of January. The veteran small forward was eased into the campaign after undergoing knee surgery but shot 51 percent from the field while playing all but one game in January and boosted that number to 52.3 percent while playing all 10 games in February. The upward trend is continuing in the first two games of March, and Parsons went 12-of-17 from the floor to finish with 28 points, nine rebounds and five assists in Thursday’s loss.
ABOUT THE NUGGETS (24-38): Denver won four of its last six games prior to the All-Star break but has managed only a 2-6 mark since the week-plus of vacation. The Nuggets lost leading scorer Danilo Gallinari likely for the rest of the season at Dallas on Feb. 26 while suffering a 122-116 loss, but finding points without him in the lineup has not been the biggest problem in the last three games. Denver allowed the struggling Nets to shoot 50.5 percent from the floor, including 13-of-22 from 3-point range, and sits in the bottom third of the league in opponent’s field-goal percentage (.46.2) on the season.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Nuggets G Emmanuel Mudiay is averaging 23.5 points in the last two games after failing to reach double figures in any of the previous three contests.
2. Mavericks F David Lee has recorded a pair of double-doubles in five games since joining the team.
3. Dallas has taken four straight in the series and earned a 144-143 double-overtime victory in its last trip to Denver on April 10.