Mavericks overcome J.J. Barea injury, cut playoff magic number to 1

The Dallas Mavericks inched so close to their 15th playoff berth in the past 16 years that they probably can taste it.

Dirk Nowitzki snapped out of a shooting slump and the Mavs overcame a first-half injury to guard J.J. Barea on Friday en route to winning their sixth straight game, 103-93, over the Memphis Grizzlies before a sellout crowd of 20,211 at American Airlines Center.

Heroes were plentiful for the Mavs (41-38), who will qualify for the playoffs the next time they win a game or the Houston Rockets lose a game. The Mavs also assured themselves of having a non-losing season for the 16th consecutive season.

Physicality was the name of Friday’s game as the Mavs had to overcome all that brute force the Grizzlies (42-37) brought to the court. And they also had to overcome an injury to the reigning Western Conference Player of the Week.

Barea left the game in the first quarter with a strained right groin, returned with 7:56 remaining in the second quarter, but left for good with 4:49 to go before halftime.

“Hopefully it’s not serious, but we don’t know a timetable,” coach Rick Carlisle said. “He did try to come back, but it was pretty clear he couldn’t finish the game.”

While Barea’s exit was cause for concern, Raymond Felton and Devin Harris more than picked up the slack. With the Grizzlies crowding them at every turn, Harris collected 16 points, and Felton added 11 and the most assists (14) by a Mavs player this season to give Dallas some much-needed relief.

“Like I’ve been in a fight or a boxing match, but I’m all right,” Felton said, when asked how he felt. “That’s the kind of team they are.

“You’ve got to do whatever it takes. Sometimes you’ve got to put your face in there in order to get a win, so that’s what we did tonight.”

The aggressive Grizzlies led 65-62 late in the third quarter. But the Mavs went on a 28-8 run, the last 25 of those points coming from the bench, to take a 90-73 lead with 7:29 left in the game.

Harris scored 13 straight points for the Mavs at one point during that surge. And rookie Justin Anderson kept providing the muscle as he collected his first career double-double by finishing with a career-high 19 points and a career-high tying 10 rebounds.

“Harris’ third quarter gave us some separation,” Carlisle said. “Pretty shot-making, great attacking to the rim, he got to the free-throw line.

“They’re a hard team, they grab, claw, push, shove, they’re very physical, and they try to disrupt your rhythm and they try to get you into emotional antics and stuff like that. But our guys stayed the course and in the end I thought our guys wanted it more than they did.”

Felton, just now overcoming a groin injury, found himself working his way out of being cornered by the Grizzlies. But he managed to stay afloat and help the Mavs to one of their more important wins of the season.

“I think Ray was going to be an important part of this game, because the last time we played them at their place, he had a really big second half and he’s one of our toughest, most physical guards, and you’ve got to be tough and disciplined against these guys,” Carlisle said. “He had the groin thing last week and he’s been trying to get this rhythm coming back out of it and its been a challenge.

“But tonight, after kind of a tough start, he just stayed with it and made huge plays in the second half.”

So did Nowitzki, whose jumper with 3:16 left gave Dallas a 92-81 lead. Carlisle acknowledged that it was a welcome sight to see Nowitzki snap out of a six-game shooting slump as he scored 21 points on 6-of-12 shooting.

“Dirk hit a couple of huge jumpers in the fourth quarter that really helped us pull away.”

This story was originally published April 8, 2016 at 11:39 PM with the headline "Mavericks overcome J.J. Barea injury, cut playoff magic number to 1."