Kings at Mavericks
The Dallas Mavericks are showing signs that they might be ready to break out of a season-long funk, but stringing together multiple wins still eludes the team. The Mavericks will try to end a two-game slide when they host the Sacramento Kings on Sunday.
Dallas held a 12-point lead against Detroit on Wednesday before falling at home 95-85 and overcame a 15-point deficit to tie in the final seconds at Utah on Friday only to fall 103-100 on a last-second 3-pointer. "It's extremely disappointing to battle the way we did and to have an opportunity to win the game but not to be able to come through," forward Harrison Barnes told reporters. "There's a lot of different things you can say why we didn't win, but at the end of the day we came up short. So, we have to learn from that and move on." The Kings are trying to complete a winning road trip after improving to 1-1 on the three-game excursion with a 96-92 triumph at Memphis on Friday. Sacramento is in the middle of a stretch of 11 of 14 on the road and already recorded one win at the Mavericks in that span - a 120-89 demolition on Dec. 7.
TV: 4 p.m. ET, NBATV, CSN California (Sacramento), FSN Southwest (Dallas)
ABOUT THE KINGS (10-16): Sacramento surrendered 132 points in a 34-point loss at Houston to kick off the three-game trip but was a different team at Memphis on Friday, when it held the Grizzlies to 37.7 percent shooting. Star C DeMarcus Cousins is in the middle of a controversy after he launched a profanity-laced tirade at a beat reporter earlier in the week but didn't let the incident become a distraction while collecting 22 points and nine rebounds in the win. Cousins was even better at Dallas on Dec. 7, when he scored 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting and added 14 rebounds, seven assists and three blocks in the easy win.
ABOUT THE MAVERICKS (6-20): Dallas coach Rick Carlisle took plenty of opportunities to go off on his team over the first quarter of the season but had kinder things to say after Friday's setback. "I'm real proud of the way the guys competed all night," Carlisle told reporters. "We were down a lot of the game, hung in, got even, and then had a chance to win. ... It just didn't happen, but there were a lot of tremendous positives that we've got to take with us and build on." One of those positives is the play of point guard Deron Williams, who collected 18 points and seven assists while committing just one turnover in his third straight game with at least 16 points.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Mavericks C Andrew Bogut (knee) sat out the last six games and remains out indefinitely.
2. Kings C Kosta Koufos recorded his first double-double (16 points, 13 rebounds) of the season on Friday
3. Sacramento took the last three in the series.