NEW ORLEANS _ It wasn't as simple as the New Orleans Pelicans having a superstar and using him to beat the Mavericks, who don't possess a star of Anthony Davis' magnitude.
However, long before Davis scored seven points in the final 2:40 to plant a 111-104 defeat on the Mavericks that ended their modest (and season-long) two-game winning streak, two unheralded Pelicans left their mark on this game between two of the eight sub-.500 Western Conference teams that think they still have playoff hopes.
Langston Galloway knocked in five 3-pointers and had 17 points and E'Twaun Moore had 16 as the Mavericks' habit of giving up open 3-pointers continued to be a major problem.
Davis took care of business at the end. But the Mavericks didn't give up one of those monster nights that the big man is capable of. He scored 28 points, two under his average.
"He didn't have to (have a huge night)," Wesley Matthews said. "And that's our fault. We got to make the star players be star players and take care of the rest of them. It wasn't our best showing defensively."
Galloway and Moore were on the court earlier in the fourth quarter when the Mavericks actually lost ground when Davis was on the bench.
"You can't give Galloway and Moore (33) points," Dirk Nowitzki said. "That's just too many. But we made some mistakes on coverages. That was a huge stretch where AD wasn't even in the game. We just got to do better."
The game still was winnable at the end but Davis made numerous trips to the foul line and a 98-96 New Orleans lead went to 105-98 with Davis scoring all the Pelicans' points.
It finished the Mavericks' road trip that bridged Christmas at 2-2.The two games they won, they held the opponents under 96 points. The two losses? They gave up 117 and 111.
But the Mavericks, on top of knowing how they need to play to win, also know they have reasons to be optimistic with their roster getting healthier and having gone 5-5 in the last three weeks.
"We're not losing our morale," Matthews said. "We're good. We're fine. We're upset. We feel like we let one go. But I told the guys that this loss stinks, but we did it to ourselves and it stays here. It's a whole new day when we land (in Dallas)."
Monday's game was a vivid reminder that, the way things look with more than one-third of the season gone, one of the eight teams in the West with a sub-.500 record is going to make the playoffs.
"It's a long season," coach Rick Carlisle said. "And when you get off to a rough start, it can feel like it's the end of the world. But you just got to hang with it. In terms of the eight spot, I'm not looking at that myself right now, although the fact that the West is the way it is right now, there's plenty of motivation for everybody. But we're focused on daily improvement and getting our health better. If we can manage those two things, the results will take care of themselves."
The Mavericks, if nothing else, know they have to play at a certain pace to win games. They didn't get into a machine-gun style with the Pelicans, who like to run, but the execution on defense was lacking.
But this team must play defense to win and they know it.
"Our situation is a little bit obscured because of the injuries and because Dirk's been out so much," Carlisle said. "So we've gone kind of the opposite way. We've gotten to a defensive approach. But getting him back, we're going to have to adjust. We'll be better offensively and we'll have challenges elsewhere, but we'll figure it out. But as far as the West, it's wild and crazy."
