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Mayo, Mavs pull away from Cavs

Nov 18, 2012 - 5:58 AM Cleveland, OH (Sports Network) - O.J. Mayo scored 19 points and the Dallas Mavericks put together a strong late surge to record a 103-95 victory over the struggling Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena.

Chris Kaman finished with 15 points and eight rebounds for the Mavericks, who used a 9-0 run down the stretch to halt a four-game road losing streak and hand the Cavaliers a fifth consecutive setback. Darren Collison and Vince Carter each contributed 14 points to the winning effort.

"We can man-up, stick together and do it the hard way and help each other or the thinking goes south. The guys got it done together," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said.

Kyrie Irving netted a game-high 26 points for Cleveland, with Tristan Thompson compiling 10 points and 12 rebounds in the Cavs' seventh defeat in eight outings.

A contest that was tightly played throughout was decided over a two-minute sequence in the fourth quarter.

Kaman gave Dallas a 91-89 lead by knocking home a jumper out of the paint with 4:54 left and Mayo followed with a 24-footer off a Collison steal seconds later to push the margin to five points.

After Irving misfired on a 3-point try on the ensuing possession, Collison drove the lane and scored before Shawn Marion's floater put the Mavs ahead by a 98-89 count with just over three minutes remaining.

Cleveland would get to within 98-95 when Irving buried a 3-pointer with 1:34 to go, but the Cavaliers missed their final four shot attempts.

The Cavs ended the night with a 37.5 percent (36-of-96) success rate from the field, while Dallas shot 58.8 percent in the deciding fourth quarter.

"What we're doing on the defensive end is not carrying over from practice to the games," stated Cavs head coach Byron Scott. "I thought the [first] three quarters was OK, the fourth quarter they shot 59 percent, and that's pretty much the game. We can't allow teams to shoot that way and then we shoot only 38, 39 percent and expect to win. Too many breakdowns on the defensive end."

Cleveland owned a 52-51 edge at halftime behind 12 points from rookie Dion Waiters, and was clinging to an 80-78 advantage entering the final nine minutes when Dallas put forth a 9-0 spurt to move in front.

Troy Murphy began the surge by knocking down a 3-pointer and Collison closed it out with an outside jumper that gave the Mavericks an 87-80 lead with under seven minutes to go.

The Cavaliers countered with a 9-2 flurry to draw even, with Irving accounting for seven of the team's points during the stretch.

Game Notes

Cleveland center Anderson Varejao had just four points on 2-of-11 shooting after pouring in a career-best 35 points while hitting 16-of-21 attempts to go along with 18 rebounds in Tuesday's 114-101 loss at Brooklyn ... Center Tyler Zeller returned to the Cavaliers' lineup after sitting out four games with a fractured cheekbone and contributed three points in 26 minutes ... Six Dallas players finished with 10 or more points, improving the Mavericks to 5-0 this season when five or more members score in double digits ... Dallas also moved to 5-0 when putting up 100 or more points.