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Mavericks continue home dominance of Raptors

Mar 2, 2009 - 5:56 AM DALLAS (Ticker) -- The Toronto Raptors are still searching for their first road win against the Dallas Mavericks this decade.

Dirk Nowitzki scored 24 points to lead five players in double figures as the Mavericks cruised to a 109-98 victory over the Raptors on Sunday.

Josh Howard scored 16 points and James Singleton added 12 and a career-high 16 rebounds for the Mavericks, who have not lost at home to the Raptors since December 30, 1999.

Dallas had 10 players play at least 11 minutes and its bench outscored the Toronto bench, 41-26.

"Tonight we needed everybody, we needed everybody out there," Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said. "(Devean) George didn't get in until the second half and I thought he played extremely well, and helped keep our minutes down on an overall basis. It's a busy stretch and we've got to keep ourselves energized as best we can."

Dallas led by as many as 10 in the first quarter before Toronto fought back to take a 35-31 lead early in the second.

The Mavericks scored the final six points of the first half to take a 60-53 lead into the locker rooms. Nowitzki capped a 9-2 run with a 3-pointer to give Dallas a 75-66 advantage with 6:04 left in the third.

Toronto tried to chip away but Dallas again closed strong, scoring the final seven points to take a 90-75 lead into the fourth quarter.

"I liked our energy but they had too many second-chance points," Raptors interim coach Jay Triano said. "We'd get a stop, but then we couldn't come up with the basketball. It was tough to get stops at the beginning of the game, but then we finally picked up our intensity and our pressure on the ball and we just couldn't rebound the basketball."

Brandon Bass and Devean George scored on consecutive possessions to push the lead to 97-79 with under eight minutes remaining and the Raptors were unable to get any closer than 10 the rest of the way.

Chris Bosh scored 28 points and Andrea Bargnani added 18 to pace Toronto, which was outrebounded, 57-44. Dallas had 20 offensive rebounds.

"We didn't do a good job of boxing out long (rebounds)," Bosh said. "A couple of them bounced right to them. We have to keep that in mind - when you have long shots, sometimes you have long rebounds. And they had some guys that were really hustling out there, we failed to put a body on them and they pretty much got the board every time."

Jason Kidd had 15 assists for the Mavericks, giving him 10,002 for his career. He is the fourth player in NBA history to reach 10,000.

"It really is an honor when you look at the guys that I have joined," Kidd said. "All the thanks that I can give is for the teammates that I have had over the years."

Jason Terry returned after an eight-game absence due to a broken finger and scored eight points on 3-of-9 shooting in 18 minutes.

"I thought it was more a timing matter tonight," Terry said. "It was good to be in the gym and shooting to get a rhythm, but you have to have guys chasing you in live action to get back into form."