Dirk leads Mavs over Lee, Warriors

BOX SCORE
Mavericks 112, Warriors 103Player of the game: Dirk Nowitzki scored a team-high 27 points to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a victory over the Warriors at Oracle. Nowitzki went 10-for-23 from the floor, but made the big shots to stave off a Warriors rally in the fourth quarter.If you want to nit-pick Nowitzkis game, consider this: He had only one rebound.Halftime I was disappointed in our effort, Warriors coach Mark Jackson said. It was our seventh game in 12 days. Physically I can understand we were drained but thats no excuse. For some reason we were a step behind on every play defensively.Thompsons night: Warriors rookie shooting guard Klay Thompson finished with 24 points, eight assists and seven rebounds. The assists and rebounds were career-highs.It was impressive, him crashing the boards, Jackson said. His size and athletic abilityI thought he started out battling but his feet were in quicksand. But he bounced back and had a great all-around game.Key stretch: The Warriors, who had trailed by as many as 19 points, made a big-time second half run and pulled within 89-86 with nine minutes remaining.But Dallas promptly went on a 10-2 run to re-establish control, and wound up winning going away.Turnover issues: Sixteen turnovers may not seem like a lotand in the grand scheme of things might not bebut it was too many on this night.It wasnt just the turnovers, its what they subsequently led toDallas buckets. The Mavericks turned those miscues into 24 points for the game.Forward David Lee had five of those turnovers, continuing a recent trend of a touch of carelessness. Lee has 33 turnovers in his past eight games.Lee did lead the Warriors with 30 points and eight rebounds.Everybody is in: The Mavericks led the Warriors 63-49 at halftime and it was difficult to find a Dallas player who wasnt in on it. Ten Mavericks scored in the first half, and they were led by Dirk Nowtizki with 13 points.Rodrigue Beaubois added 11 first-half points.Wright on: Former Warrior Brandan Wright has a nice role with the Mavericks and he showed it off at Oracle.Wright entered Thursdays game averaging 6.7 points and 3.2 rebounds in 15.8 minutes per game. Wright played more minutes than that against the Warriors, and it was easy to see why.Wright played 14 first-half minutes and had 12 points and six rebounds in that time.Wright finished with 16 points and nine rebounds in 33 minutes.Bollywood night: The Warriors held their second annual Bollywood night on Thursday, a celebration of Indian culture and tradition. Warriors vice chairman Vivek Ranadive was responsible for putting evening together.Ranadive is the only Indian owner of an NBA team.