Michael Finley scored 29 points and Steve Nash had a career-high 19 assists as the Mavs won their third straight game since going back to a small-ball look, beating the Western Conference-leading and suddenly struggling Sacramento Kings 127-117 on Thursday night.
“This has been good for us. We needed to get our confidence back,” Dallas forward Antawn Jamison said.
The Mavs matched a season high for points with their fourth straight game of at least 118, a mark they had reached only once in 26 games before that.
“We get more open looks, more opportunities in the open court, and it’s working for us,” Finley said.
Sacramento lost for the fourth time in five games, and its conference lead shrunk to half a game over the Los Angeles Lakers, who played late Thursday, and Minnesota with seven games remaining in the regular season. The Kings were coming off a 107-89 loss at San Antonio a night earlier.
“We’ve won 52 games. We’ve got to find out how we did that,” Kings coach Rick Adelman said. “We have to find ourselves again.”
Finley made seven straight field goals in one stretch. The first four came in a 10-0 run at the end of the first half that pushed the Mavs ahead 67-50.
Coming off a season-low two points in 10 minutes Tuesday against Cleveland after missing three games with a strained right calf, Finley hit 13 of 22 shots in a team-high 42 minutes.
