The Dallas Mavericks survived a fourth quarter rally and rose above the Washington Wizards 107-101.
Dallas moves to 5-4 while Washington remains 0-7.
Washington rallied back from being down 18 to start the fourth-bringing Dallas as close as three points.
Forward Cartier Martin and guard Jordan Crawford led the charge combining for four 3-pointers to go with center Kevin Seraphin’s six points during the comeback.
The 18-3 run forced head coach Rick Carlisle to call a timeout in attempt to slow down the Wizards attack.
With 4:52 left in the game O.J. Mayo made a 3-pointer to extend the lead to 98-92, but Seraphin answered with a turn-around jumper to bring it within four at 98-94.
Then, Vince Carter drove into the paint drawing contact before pulling up for a jumper.
He turned the three-point play and put the Mavericks up 101-94.
The game appeared to be over, but back-to-back buckets from Seraphin cut the lead to three.
With 1:38 left in the game the Mavericks recorded three rebounds and the team was able to whittle the clock down to 34 seconds left, prompting Washington to foul and send Dallas to the line.
“We just didn’t do what we were supposed to do,” Dallas center Chris Kaman said.
“Sometimes that’s part of basketball-guys get hot and go on little streaks and you got to do your best to slow them down. They had a nice fourth quarter – part of that is us and the other part is them.”
During the second quarter, the Mavs did what the team was supposed to do-putting together a 26-12 run to close out the half and gain a comfortable 63-45 lead.
Kaman started for the second time this year and responded with 23 points and eight rebounds.
In both of his starts he hit 20 or more points with eight boards.
“You can do a study on centers and who the best guys are,” Carlisle said. “[Kaman] will be in the top ten.”
The Mavericks beat Washington on the boards 40-34, and outshot the Wizards 50 percent to 48 percent.
Mayo had 25 points in 38 minutes, which gave him six games this year with 20 or more points.
He is ranked seventh in the league in scoring with 21.8 points per game.
Dallas will face Portland on Friday and Cleveland on Saturday as part of a two game road trip.