Mavericks 97, Nuggets 88
DENVER -- J.J. Barea had 18 points and 11 assists, Dwight Powell had a career-high 16 points and the Dallas Mavericks beat the Denver Nuggets 97-88 on Monday night.
Wesley Matthews scored 14 for the Mavericks (36-38), who snapped a three-game skid and moved into a tie with Houston for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They are one behind seventh-place Utah with eight games left.
Dallas had lost 10 of 12 since the first week of March to fall behind the Rockets but still control its postseason fate. The Mavericks play Houston at home on April 6 and face the Jazz in Utah on April 11.
Nuggets guard Will Barton came off the bench scored a game-high 23 points and grabbed eight rebounds. Emmanuel Mudiay had 16 points, seven assists and six rebounds for Denver.
The Nuggets (31-44) welcomed back Kenneth Faried and Jameer Nelson to help with the depth on the second game of a back-to-back. Faried, who missed the last four games with low back soreness, finished with nine points and 11 rebounds.
Nelson missed eight games in early February with a sprained left wrist and then sat the next 16 after the acquisition of D.J. Augustin. He played just seven minutes and missed his only shot attempt.
Dirk Nowitzki had 10 points on 4-for-17 shooting but the Mavericks ended the third quarter on an 8-3 run to take a 72-66 lead.
The lead was four when Powell got rolling. He cut to the basket for a dunk, hit a jumper, had another dunk off of an offensive rebound and finished the flurry with a 13-foot jumper to increase Dallas' lead to 89-79 with 4:23 left.
Barea's 3-pointer gave Dallas a 92-81 lead, its largest of the night, with 3:18 left. It was the Mavericks' last basket but the Nuggets got no closer than six.
NOTES: Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said he doesn't know how long PG Deron Williams will be out with his left adductor/groin strain. "There's no timetable," Carlisle said. "We hope it's not serious, but it's uncertain because of the nature of the injury. I'd like to be optimistic and that he's going to be back soon but I don't know that to be the case. We hope that it's not serious. ... Nuggets C Jusuf Nurkic did not play because of an illness. Nurkic, who has played just 27 games because of injury and coach's decisions, scored a career-high 19 points against the Clippers on Sunday. ... Dallas had eight players score in double figures in the loss at Sacramento on Sunday. ... Former Denver GM Vince Boryla passed away Sunday. He was Denver's GM in 1984 and orchestrated a blockbuster deal that landed Wayne Cooper, Lafayette Lever and Calvin Natt from Portland.