DALLAS _ After a 30,000-point celebration in the previous game, the Mavericks looked like they had a 30,000 beer hangover on Friday night.
That's how many cans of Bud Light the beer giant gave to Dirk Nowitzki, who forwarded them for free to fans before the Mavericks played Brooklyn.
The Mavericks didn't consume any, but you would have thought they were shaking off the morning-after cobwebs the way they played against the Nets, who own the NBA's worst record at 11-53.
The Mavericks recovered from a woozy first half to win their fourth game in a row on this homestand, 105-96 over the Nets, who were without center Brook Lopez.
The Mavericks trailed virtually the entire first half before Harrison Barnes ignited an 8-0 surge in the third quarter that tied the score at 56. The teams shadowed each other from there.
Then Nowitzki, who had passed 30,000 points Tuesday against the Los Angeles Lakers, came alive. He nailed consecutive 3-pointers to put the Mavericks up 80-75 early in the fourth quarter and it was a slow, steady march to the finish as the Mavericks tightened up on the defensive end.
Brooklyn went more than three minutes without scoring as the Mavericks inched out to a 96-81 lead with under 4 minutes to go. The fourth consecutive win ties their season-long winning streak.
And so, the 28-36 Mavericks remarkable resurgence continues.
Way back when, the Mavericks were 4-17 and everybody in the world had them penciled into a high lottery position with zero chance of making the playoffs.
And yet, they came into Friday's game with a chance to move within a half-game of the eighth-seeded Denver Nuggets. That didn't happen since Boston lost to the Nuggets, but the Mavericks did move within a half-game of ninth-place Portland.
It's been an amazing turnaround that took another good turn against the Nets with the return of J.J. Barea to the playing rotation, albeit on limited minutes after he missed the last 20 games with a left calf injury.
"I really believed we were going to dig our way out of it to some degree," coach Rick Carlisle said of the early hole the Mavericks were in. "Our schedule the first 15 games was by far the hardest schedule in the league at that time. We were 2-13. If we'd been completely healthy, I'm not sure we would have been above .500. It was just that difficult. And we had a group that was relatively new."
But Carlisle, as well as owner Mark Cuban and president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson, have been around the business a long time. They know that, while an NBA season goes by fast, it is a long, slow, arduous journey.
"We decided to stay the course," Carlisle said. "And clearly it was a year when the team needed to be transitioned to a younger state. With the beatings we were taking, (Dorian) Finney-Smith was getting better, Barnes was getting better and other younger guys were developing, too."
And through it all, they landed in a spot where games are meaningful in March.
"We appear to be in that position and now there's virtually zero margin for error," Carlisle said.
Despite a sluggish start Friday, their arrow continues to point upward.
