NBA Roundup : Dallas Survives Gervin’s 45 Points

Rolando Blackman silenced the boos Monday night from a home crowd disappointed with the Dallas Mavericks’ sub-.500 performance through the first half of the season.

Changing them to cheers, he says, was just a matter of business as usual.

“Only the result is different,” Blackman said after scoring 33 points to lead the Mavericks to a 124-116 victory over the Chicago Bulls. “You try to do the same things and take the same shots every night. Some nights it just works better than others.”

Dallas, however, had to overcome a 45-point performance by the Bulls’ George Gervin, who had 35 points in the first half--which is a record against the Mavericks.

But Blackman took over in the last three minutes, scoring Dallas’ last eight points.

The Mavericks got 20 points from Mark Aguirre, 18 from Sam Perkins and 15 from Brad Davis.

The Bulls have lost 18 of 23 road games.

Detroit 118, San Antonio 117--Kelly Tripucka scored 33 points, including two free throws with two seconds remaining, to hand the Spurs their third straight loss at home. Isiah Thomas added 30 points for the Pistons.

The Spurs were led by forward Mike Mitchell and Steve Johnson, who scored 36 and 28 respectively.

The topsy-turvy game could easily have gone into overtime. But Spur guard Alvin Robertson missed a short jump shot with five seconds left that would have tied the score.

Tripucka grabbed the rebound, was fouled and hit the two free throws to clinch the victory for Detroit.

Robertson then hit a desperation three-point shot at the buzzer to provide the final margin.

Milwaukee 127, Utah 103--At Salt Lake City, the Bucks built a 27-point lead at halftime, and, behind Sidney Moncrief’s 32 points, coasted to the 13th victory in their last 16 games.

Moncrief was 13 of 13 from the free-throw line.

Jerry Reynolds added 16 points for Milwaukee, and Paul Pressey finished with 14.

Utah was led by Adrian Dantley with 31 points. Karl Malone added 20 and Rickey Green 16 for the losers, who fell to 22-25.

Milwaukee (31-15) dominated the boards in the first half, outrebounding the Jazz, 35-15.

Denver 124, Cleveland 103--The Nuggets’ Lafayette Lever led all scorers with 23 points and handed out 11 assists at Denver.

Alex English added 22 points, and Bill Hanzlik 20 for the Nuggets. World B. Free led Cleveland with 19 points. Melvin Turpin and Roy Hinson each added 18.