Mavericks rise from depths to top Suns

In a rematch of last season's Western Conference finals, Dirk Nowitzki scored 35 points, Jason Terry had 30, and Jerry Stackhouse had 23 as the Dallas Mavericks beat the host Phoenix Suns, 119-112, last night for their first victory of the season.

Leandro Barbosa scored 30 points, Shawn Marion had 21, and Steve Nash had 20 for Phoenix, which fell to 1-5, the Suns' worst start since they dropped 13 in a row to open the 1996-97 season.

This was the first meeting of the clubs since last summer's Western Conference finals, won by Dallas in six games.

Dallas (1-4) took 109-105 lead with an 8-3 run late in the fourth quarter. After the Suns tied it at 112-112 on Nash's 5-footer with 1:27 to go, the Mavericks' Stackhouse hit two free throws.

After Nash missed a fallaway jumper, Terry drained an 18-footer to put Dallas ahead by 4 with 32 seconds to go.

Cavaliers 113, Bulls 94 -- LeBron James, accused of quitting on his team in his previous game, scored 19 points with a season-high 12 assists to lead host Cleveland past Chicago.

Drew Gooden added 20 points in three quarters, Anderson Varejao had a career-high 15, and Sasha Pavlovic 16 points in a season-high 25 minutes for the Cavaliers, whose bench went 21-of-30 from the field and helped Cleveland bounce back from an overtime loss on Tuesday to the Atlanta Hawks.

Following that game, James took some heat for walking off the court while there was still about 10 seconds left on the clock. The Cavaliers were down by 9 points at that point, but that didn't seem to matter to critics who felt James should have played hard until the final horn.

Against the Bulls, James took a leisurely walk to Cleveland's bench with 5:12 left. By then, the Cavaliers had built a 24-point lead.

Warriors 121, Hornets 116 -- Baron Davis had 36 points and nine assists against his former club, and Golden State knocked off the last unbeaten team with a victory over visiting New Orleans.

Chris Paul had 34 points and 10 assists for New Orleans.