Barea lifts Mavericks

Dirk Nowitzki matched his season high with 39 points and new starter Jose Juan Barea provided quite a spark in the fourth quarter, leading the Mavericks to a 112-97 victory over the Phoenix Suns last night in Dallas.

Nowitzki had 37 points through three quarters and the Mavericks seemed to be comfortably headed to victory when the Suns began to make things interesting. But when they got within 10, former Northeastern star Barea - a 5-foot-11-inch backup point guard-turned-co-starter alongside Jason Kidd - helped Dallas regain control by single-handedly guiding a 10-0 run. Soon after, he nailed a 3-pointer that pushed the lead to 23 and punctuated it with a loud scream drowned out by a roar from fans already on their feet.

"When you have confidence, you can do anything and his confidence is high right now," Kidd said of Barea.

Barea finished with 18 points, and Jason Terry continued his recent role off the bench with 19 points as Dallas won for the eighth time in nine games.

Spurs 108, Nuggets 91 - Tony Parker scored 22 points, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili each added 21, and visiting San Antonio took advantage of a rare poor performance by Chauncey Billups to whip Denver.

The Nuggets had won 12 of 15 since acquiring Billups from Detroit in the Allen Iverson trade. Billups helped the franchise get off to its best start since the 1976-77 team won 13 of its first 19.

In the first half, Billups scored just 3 points; he scored 9 in the irrelevant fourth quarter to finish with 12.