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Brook Lopez, Deron Williams lead the way as the Nets drop the Mavs, 113-96

By Tom Lorenzo
Alex Trautwig

In a homecoming of sorts for Deron Williams, the Nets were in Dallas to take on the Mavericks in Game 2 of their 8-game "circus road trip." And after having blown out the Detroit Pistons on Monday night, well the song remained the same, so to speak, as Deron Williams and Brook Lopez combined for 69 total points with the Nets dropping the Mavs, 113-96.

Lopez played, arguably, the best game of his career -- certainly the best game of this season -- going for 38 points and 11 rebounds, while Williams went for 31 points and six assists.

This puts them 12 games over .500 for the first time this season. It's also the first time the Nets have won 40 games since the 2006-07 season, when they won 41.

Game Flow

Deron Williams and Brook Lopez got off to a hot start early, scoring the team's first 16 points, with Lopez scoring the team's first nine. Relying too much on two players was a tall task, as the Nets couldn't get much else going, resulting in a 13-2 Mavs run and an early 8-point deficit.

The Nets offense as a whole was just ugly in the first, despite the best efforts of Lopez and Williams. There's a bit of a problem when you score 22 points in a quarter and two players, in this case Williams and Lopez, are responsible for scoring 20 of those points.

On defense, the Nets just could not stop the Mavs, who were effective and efficient -- nine assists to just one turnover.

After one, the Nets were down 32-22.

The bench caught fire early in the second, with Keith Bogans hitting back-to-back threes while Andray Blatche went inside-outside to tie the game up at 36-36.

Reggie Evans did some nice work in the first half, grabbing 13 rebounds in 15 minutes.

Carlesimo did go with the Blatche-Lopez combo late in the second quarter, which made a lot of Nets fans happy. Blatche had the hot hand, shooting 6-of-6 from the floor, going for 14 points, while Lopez finished the half with 18 points. He couldn't go back to the Evans-Lopez combo, with the way Blatche was playing.

At halftime, the Nets tied the game up at 51-51.

Deron Williams and Chris Kaman went bucket-for-bucket early on in the third, and from there, Brooklyn's offense just started to go off. Carlesimo went back to the Blatche-Lopez combo and it worked really well, especially for Lopez, who scored 14 points in the quarter.

Through three, Lopez had 32 points, and helped the Nets to a 85-77 lead (should have been 10, but, you know, thanks to a boneheaded turnover by Lopez at the end of the quarter... but we can forgive him, considering how he was essentially carrying the Nets).

In the fourth, it was once again all Deron Williams early, as Carlesimo opted to keep Lopez and Joe Johnson on the bench for the first five minutes of the quarter. Williams scored 10 points in midway through the quarter and helped the Nets build a 9-point lead.

It was a combination of Williams stretching inside-outside, Johnson coming alive, Lopez continuing to dominate the paint and Evans simply cleaning up off the glass that did the Mavs in.

Evans finished with 22 rebounds, while Gerald Wallace had five steals in a fantastic defensive effort.

Nice win for the Nets, who have won their first two games of the "circus road trip."

For more on the Mavericks, see: Mavs Moneyball

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Game 68: Brooklyn Nets @ Dallas Mavericks

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