NBA Game Summary - San Antonio at Dallas
Dallas, TX (SportsNetwork.com) - Three of Rajon Rondo's nine assists went to Monta Ellis, who scored 38 points to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 99-93 win over the short-handed San Antonio Spurs on Saturday night.
Rondo also had six points and seven rebounds in his Mavericks debut, two days after he was acquired from Boston in a blockbuster trade. He missed eight of his 11 shots.
"He didn't shoot particularly well, but he did a lot of great things," said Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle. "He did a lot of things that most guys in that position just don't do -- rebounding, making plays, things like that."
Chandler Parsons added 16 points while Dirk Nowitzki and Devin Harris scored 13 apiece as Dallas earned its third consecutive win.
The Spurs sat much of their roster after losing back-to-back triple-overtime games on Wednesday and Thursday.
Missing Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Danny Green and Tiago Splitter -- among others -- the Spurs scored 30 points in the third quarter and had a 77-75 lead going into the fourth, but shot just 31 percent over the final 12 minutes.
They have lost four in a row for the first time in almost four years.
Marco Belinelli led San Antonio with 21 points, Aron Baynes scored 16 with 10 rebounds and Cory Joseph and Matt Bonner each had 14 points.
Rondo, who climbed to fourth place on Boston's all-time assists list in eight- plus seasons with the Celtics, had two turnovers before picking up his first assist as a Maverick.
His pass to Ellis on the wing led to a 3-pointer that tied the score with 5:36 remaining in the first quarter.
Later, his ninth assist also went to Ellis for a 3 that tied the score with 3:32 left in the game. Ellis scored 11 of the Mavs' final 13 points, including a layup with 1:48 remaining to give them the lead for good.
Carlisle called Ellis "the best player on the floor tonight without question."
"Without him getting 38 points," the coach said, "this was going to go the other way."
The Spurs went scoreless over the final two minutes of the game.
They were the first team to play consecutive three-overtime games since the 1951-52 Baltimore Bullets, who at least came away victorious in one of theirs. San Antonio fell 129-119 to Portland on Friday night after losing a 117-116 thriller to Memphis on Wednesday.
"I thought we were great," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "We could have handled the ball better. Giving up 25 points off turnovers on the road is not going to make it easy to win a game, but I thought the effort and the play out of these guys was really spectacular."
The Spurs had a 47-42 lead at halftime in this one behind Belinelli's 14 points.