Mavericks continue domination over Bobcats

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina, (Reuters) – Dirk  Nowitzki and Jason Terry led a second-half charge to help the  Dallas Mavericks continue their unbeaten run over the Charlotte  Bobcats with a 89-84 victory on Monday.

Nowitzki registered a team-high 27 points and Terry put in  20 as the duo combined to score their team’s final 15 points to  help the Mavericks (40-21) come from behind to win their eighth  straight.

“I thought we were really great defensively in the second  half,” Dirk Nowitzki told reporters. “We definitely picked up  the energy a little bit.”

The victory meant a first eight-game win steak for the  Southwest Division leaders since 2007, with Caron Butler  returning to the team and scoring 22 points after missing two  games because of a bad reaction to medication.

The team is 8-1 since trading for Butler during All-Star  weekend.

In their first game since Hall of Famer Michael Jordan had  agreed to buy the team, the Bobcats built a 12-point lead in  the third quarter with their future owner sitting courtside but  they failed to claim what would have been a first victory over  the Mavericks.

With the loss, the Bobcats, who are trying to make their  first postseason, fell into a tie with the Miami Heat for  eighth place in the Eastern Conference.

“We’ve got to get past it somehow,” said Charlotte guard  Raymond Felton.

“We don’t want this to be another season where we could  have and we should have. We’ve got to work through the kinks  and work through the problems we’re having right now.”

The Bobcats wayward shooting cost them at the end as they  closed to four points back with 1:05 left in the game but  missed three straight field goal attempts.

Stephen Jackson scored 20 and Tyrus Thomas added 16 and 12  rebounds for Charlotte (28-30), who lost for the fifth time in  seven games.