San Antonio Is Awakened From Sweep Dreams

When the buzzer sounded, Dirk Nowitzki walked off the court gently touching his bloodied mouth.

Although his front right tooth was missing, Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks hadn’t felt this good in more than a week.

Nowitzki led a team-wide break from a series-long shooting slump, scoring 30 points as the Mavericks defeated the San Antonio Spurs, 112-108, Saturday to avoid being swept from the second-round Western Conference series. Game 5 is Monday night in San Antonio.

Dallas, which had lost the first three games by at least 14 points each, improved to 4-0 in elimination games this postseason. Nowitzki has been the leading scorer in three of them.

This time, the third-year forward from Germany did it three days after needing two IVs to play through food poisoning and despite being elbowed in the mouth by Terry Porter with 4:52 left.

“A lot of things have happened to me lately; I don’t know what the deal is,” Nowitzki said. “As long as we win a couple of games, I’ll be all right.”

Nowitzki missed only 33 seconds of game time while getting some gauze to stop the bleeding. He made two free throws with 6.1 seconds left to help secure the victory.

“What a gutsy guy,” Dallas Coach Don Nelson said. “Our whole team kind of rallied around that, I think, and everybody played at a high level.”

After shooting horribly through three games, the Mavericks made nearly half their shots (45 of 93) and their leading men--Nowitzki, Michael Finley, Juwan Howard and Steve Nash--all came up big.

The outburst produced the most points in regulation against the Spurs all season and it was 19 more than they had given up in eight postseason games.

Finley had 25 points and 10 assists. His two free throws with 1.7 seconds left secured the victory, after his missed free throw with 15.7 seconds remaining kept San Antonio’s hopes alive.

Howard had 17 points and eight rebounds. Three of his baskets came during a 9-0 run early in the fourth quarter that put Dallas ahead for good.

Nash had 10 points and 14 assists as the Mavericks returned to the up-tempo, jump-shooting style to take a 17-point lead in the second quarter.

San Antonio answered with a 19-4 run that made it a two-point game at halftime. The Spurs led by three early in the fourth quarter and kept making clutch shots every time Dallas tried putting them away.

“Usually when you get that momentum back and you get the game tied or go ahead, you think you’re going to get the game,” said the Spurs’ David Robinson, who had 25 points and 13 rebounds. “Even into the last few seconds I thought we were going to get the game.”

San Antonio closed to 108-107 on a dunk by Antonio Daniels. Then Nowitzki made his two clutch free throws, again leaving San Antonio within a three-point basket of tying the score.

But Nowitzki fouled Tim Duncan with 5.1 seconds left and the poor foul shooter made only the first one.

After Duncan’s miss was nearly tipped in by Malik Rose, Sean Elliott got the rebound, only to have the ball popped away by Greg Buckner, Dallas’ defensive specialist. Finley wound up with it, leading to the game-securing free throws.

The Spurs might have won had they been better from the free-throw line. They were 29 of 41, with five misses in the fourth quarter, while Dallas was 18 of 19.

“I missed eight free throws and we lost by three--that’s the difference right there,” said Duncan, who led San Antonio with 29 points and 18 rebounds.

Nowitzki lost his tooth while trying to get the ball from Porter. Porter’s elbow clipped Nowitzki in the mouth and he immediately ran to the locker room, blood dripping from his lip. The Mavericks led, 103-97, at the time.

Nowitzki said the tooth had been loosened last summer and is glad it’s gone so he can get a fake one.

“He looks like a hockey player,” Howard said. “He’s no longer a sex symbol to the ladies like he was before.”