Dirk plays center, scores 30 as Mavericks slip by Thunder

A few hours before the Dallas Mavericks eked out a 112-107 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night at American Airlines Center, coach Rick Carlisle was a bit restless.

As he laid his head on a pillow, Carlisle couldn’t make heads or tails of his uneasiness. But the Mavs coach was not in a comfort zone.

“I was taking a nap this afternoon and I had a weird nightmare about coaching against a Don Nelson team,” Carlisle said of the former Mavs coach. “And then I got up and I checked my phone and there’s a text from [head athletic trainer] Casey Smith saying Tyson’s [Chandler] out tonight.

“So it just got me thinking that we need to try something different against the Thunder, because athletically and strength-wise we just don’t match up. It was a bit of a whimsical thing, but I talked to Dirk [Nowitzki] about it, he was fine with it, and we just took a shot with it.’’

What the Mavs took a shot with was playing small ball, which is what Nelson was known for throughout his illustrious career.

With Chandler (back spasms) missing his first game of the season, Nowitzki made his first start of the season at center, and the Mavs started guards Monta Ellis, Rajon Rondo and J.J. Barea to go with Chandler Parsons, who moved from small forward to power forward.

“It was the most un-athletic front line we’ve ever had in the history of the NBA with [Nowitzki] at five and me at four,” said Parsons, who scored 26 points. “The biggest concern was who was going to do the jump ball. I said Monta.”

Whatever concerns the Mavs had, they overcame them while beating back an OKC squad that came in with 10 wins in their previous 13 games. With Rondo shadowing Russell Westbrook, the Mavs outscrambled the Thunder while beating them at their own gritty game.

“We were struggling at times to keep the guys in front of us,” said Nowitzki, who scored a season-high-tying 30 points and blocked two shots. “I thought we battled.

“Our lineup at times threw them with mismatches. On offense we shot the ball well, which we needed to today, and that gave us a chance at the end.”

At the end, after Ellis hobbled off for good with an undisclosed leg injury with 1:57 remaining and Dallas up 106-105, the Mavs found one more burst of energy.

Rondo forced Westbrook into an air ball, and then scored inside after receiving a bullet pass from Nowitzki. Westbrook missed again and Nowitzki made two free throws for a 110-105 lead with 1:05 to go.

Stepping up to the challenge again, Rondo forced Westbrook into a turnover. But Reggie Jackson’s dunk inched the Thunder to within 110-107 with 4.8 seconds left.

Parsons closed the scoring with a breakaway dunk with just 0.8 seconds remaining in a game the Thunder played without injured star Kevin Durant.

Westbrook had his streak of scoring at least 25 points in 11 straight games snapped. He finished with just 18 points on 6-of-23 shooting, and also had nine rebounds, nine assists and five turnovers.

With Parsons scoring 15 points, the Mavs led 31-20 late in the first quarter as they kept pushing the tempo at a breakneck pace until they took a 64-58 lead into the halftime break.

“We wanted to come out and be the aggressive team,” Carlisle said. “We set a good tone early, but they made runs. I don’t know that it won the game for us, but those guys’ aggression got us off to a good start.”

This story was originally published December 28, 2014 at 11:15 PM with the headline "Dirk plays center, scores 30 as Mavericks slip by Thunder."