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'Big D' comes up small again: Mavs 0-2 after loss to Nuggets

Dec 27, 2011 - 5:14 AM Dallas, TX (Sports Network) - A day later, and the defending NBA champions are still without a win.

The new-look Dallas Mavericks suffered through another lackluster performance and Ty Lawson scored 27 points to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 115-93 victory.

The Mavericks lost to Miami on Sunday in a rematch of last season's NBA Finals, which Dallas won in six games. Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki finished with 21 points in that game, but key offseason acquisition Lamar Odom scored just four points and was ejected in the third quarter. Delonte West and Vince Carter, also new additions, finished with 10 and five points.

Not much changed in Monday night's game. Nowitzki scored 20 points, but Odom shot just 1-for-10 and scored six points, while Carter ended with 11 and West added only two.

"We kind of have a new team out there and we're trying to get acclimated," said Mavericks forward Shawn Marion, who played with a finger injury and scored two points. "You can tell it's not flowing the way it should be and there's going to be some bumps."

Aside from a struggling offense, Dallas had little success defending the Nuggets, who shot nearly 50 percent and drained 10 three-pointers.

Andre Miller and Al Harrington both scored 18 points for Denver, which went 50-32 last season and lost to Oklahoma City in the first round of the playoffs.

"I've been saying the whole time that we've been playing well together," Lawson said. "There are a bunch of good players on this team and I knew that we were going to come out strong."

Harrington drilled consecutive three-pointers to end the first quarter, giving Denver a 32-23 lead, and the Nuggets pulled away in the second.

After a Jason Kidd three pulled the Mavericks within 47-41, Denver scored 20 consecutive points in a span of 5 1/2 minutes. Lawson scored consecutive buckets in the middle of the run, which Rudy Fernandez closed with two foul shots.

The Nuggets carried a 69-42 lead into the break and never trailed in the second half, despite shooting only 37.5 percent in the final two quarters. Denver went ahead by as many as 33 points and cruised to the victory.

Dallas didn't do nearly enough to trim its advantage after the break. It needed to trim its deficit in the third quarter in order to have a good chance to win, but struggled offensively. Nowitzki scored 10 points, but the Mavs made only 8-of-21 field goals and entered the fourth quarter with an even greater deficit -- 97-68.

Game Notes

Sean Williams scored 12 points for the Mavericks, including 10 in the fourth quarter. Kidd also had 12 points, while Rodrigue Beaubois netted 10...Danilo Gallinari finished with 15 points and seven rebounds for Denver...Dallas had 20 turnovers, leading to 26 Nuggets points.