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Mavericks beat Rockets behind balanced scoring

Feb 21, 2015 - 6:41 AM Dallas, TX (SportsNetwork.com) - Devin Harris and Al-Farouq Aminu came off the bench and led eight Mavericks in double figures as Dallas got back on track with a 111-100 win over the Houston Rockets.

Harris went for 17 points, seven assists and six rebounds and Aminu, on top of spending time defending James Harden and playing 30 minutes with boundless energy, finished with season highs of 17 points and 12 boards.

All five starters, plus Charlie Villanueva, scored between 10 and 13 points for the Mavericks, who were blown out in Oklahoma City on Thursday.

"Bench play was great," said Dallas coach Rick Carlisle. "We had a lot of guys in double figures."

Houston received 26 points from Harden but fell behind by 20 points in the third quarter and couldn't get over the hump despite a fourth-quarter rally.

"We weren't very sharp tonight," said Rockets coach Kevin McHale. "We weren't that good."

Dallas trailed 8-0 early on but quickly answered, tying the game at 16 on a Richard Jefferson triple. Tyson Chandler threw down a pair of alley-oops, both on feeds from Harris, during the response.

The Mavs scored the last five points of the first and led 24-20. They went on to win each of the next two quarters by a combined 63-47 and looked on their way to a comfortable win before a 17-5 Houston run to start the fourth cut the deficit to 92-84.

Trevor Ariza, who made two triples to start the fourth, hit again from deep at 5:05 to make it a five-point game, but Aminu answered on the other end with a dunk. Aminu's tip-in 1 1/2 minutes later pushed Dallas' lead to 98-89.

"(Aminu) was tremendous," Carlisle added. "Lately, he's been one of our best plus/minus guys. He gives us a presence on the boards."

Monta Ellis got a difficult floater to go with just under two minutes to play, and Rajon Rondo fired a pass to Chandler for an open dunk on the next Dallas possession to seal it.

Game Notes

The Rockets acquired guards Pablo Prigioni and K.J. McDaniels in separate trades on Thursday ... Dallas has won eight of the last nine meetings at home ... Ariza and Josh Smith scored 16 and 15 points, respectively, for Houston.