Byline: DANNY O'NEIL P-I reporter
The Sonics haven't had much of a problem with starts this season.
Not the start of the season, when they won eight of their first 10 games.
Not even their starts this month. Though they entered last night's game against Dallas at KeyArena having lost six of seven, they held a halftime lead in four of those games.
Last night, it wasn't the Sonics who stumbled down the stretch, it was the Mavericks.
Rashard Lewis scored the final four points and Seattle won 85-81 in front of a near-sellout crowd of 16,539.
Seattle scored 24 points in the fourth quarter and beat the team with the NBA's best record. One week earlier, the Sonics scored eight points in the fourth quarter of a home loss to Cleveland, which has the league's worst record.
'I'm not even going to try to (explain it),' coach Nate McMillan said. 'I thought (we) came and played well enough to win this game. It's a big win for us, after the month that we have seen.'
The Sonics (18-21) won their second consecutive game after losing six in a row. It was the first time since Dec. 11 they beat an opponent with a winning mark.
The Mavericks - now 31-8 - aren't just any team with a winning record.
'That tells you what type of team we are if we come to play,' Lewis said.
Lewis hit a high-arcing, fallaway jumper over 7-footer Dirk Nowitzki with 43.1 seconds left, then made two free throws with 10.3 seconds remaining. Michael Finley and Steve Nash missed the Mavericks' final two shots.
Lewis finished with 19 points and a season-high 13 rebounds.
'He's doing some of the things that we hoped he would learn to do, and that is stepping up when the game is on the line,' McMillan said.
The Sonics outscored Dallas 24-15 in the fourth quarter, only the fourth time in the past 13 games they have outscored their opponent in the final quarter.
Predrag Drobnjak scored seven of his 19 points in the fourth quarter. Kenny Anderson, who also had seven points in the fourth, finished with 13 and seven assists.
Five Sonics scored 10 or more, but for the sixth time this season, no Seattle player scored 20. Gary Payton scored 12 points, exceeding his season low by two, but had eight assists.
The Mavericks had not scored fewer than 82 points in a game this season until last night, when they shot only 38 percent. They are the only team in the league with three players among the top 30 scorers, but that trio of Nowitzki, Finley and Nash shot a combined 15 of 46 (32.6 percent) against the Sonics. None scored more than 16.
Dallas scored five points in the final 5 minutes.
'Our offense went cold at the wrong time,' Mavericks coach Don Nelson said. 'In the fourth quarter, we just couldn't seem to make a shot, a big enough shot.'
That's the kind of molasses-slow flow the Sonics had displayed in the fourth quarter recently.
It was the kind of inspired finish the Sonics failed to show in their six-game losing streak. Last night, Seattle didn't look like a team that had lost to the Nuggets, Cavs and Clippers this month.
'It's very hard to explain,' Lewis said. 'Any NBA team gets up for guys like the Lakers, and the Mavericks and Spurs. For us, we had a six-game losing streak, and it wasn't to the best teams in the NBA.
'But we're trying to turn things, just so we could get back in that race of winning ball games.'
Brent Barry's 13 points included three 3-pointers in the second quarter. It was the first time since Nov. 12 he made more than two 3-pointers in a game. He made five of the seven shots he took.
'We know his (Barry's) history, especially against us,' said Finley, the Mavericks shooting guard. 'He hits big 3s. He's a shooter. Shooters go through slumps, and eventually they come out of them.'
Seattle led by as many as 10 points in the second quarter, but the score was tied at 44 at halftime after Dallas scored the final 10 points of the quarter.
It looked like another lost opportunity for the Sonics, who held halftime leads in five of their past seven games, yet won only once. That was in overtime on Friday night, after they had blown an 18-point halftime lead against Memphis.
The Sonics trailed by five points entering the fourth quarter last night, their largest deficit of the game.
Drobnjak's total was four fewer than his career high, and the most he has scored in a game since scoring 21 Dec. 23 at Phoenix.
Drobnjak had not scored more than seven points in the previous six games. He averaged 4.7 points and made 12 of 41 shots (29.3 percent) in those six games.
P-I reporter Danny O'Neil can be reached at 206-448-8209 or dannyo'neil@seattlepi.com
GAME IN REVIEW
PLAYER OF THE GAME: Rashard Lewis scored the Sonics' final four points of the game and finished with 19 and a season-high 13 rebounds.
He had eight rebounds in the third quarter, only two fewer than Dallas' entire team. It was Lewis' first double-double since Dec. 26.
SHUFFLE CONTINUES: Ansu Sesay started at forward, replacing Predrag Drobnjak. It was the ninth different starting lineup the Sonics have used in the past 10 games.
It was Sesay's first start of the season, and the switch was made because coach Nate McMillan thought the frontcourt tandem of Drobnjak and center Jerome James would be too slow for the Mavericks.
James started at center, but played only seven minutes in the first half. Drobnjak started at center in the second half and finished with 19 points.
Vladimir Radmanovic missed his third game since suffering a sprained ankle against Cleveland last Sunday. He has shot during warm-ups, but has not practiced since suffering the sprain.
SIGN OF THE TIMES: The man signing autographs in the south KeyArena stands was wearing a Mavericks jersey with Dirk Nowitzki's No. 41.
But it was a football-style jersey paired with jeans, and the man signing autographs for fans wasn't Nowitzki, but rather the man who signs Nowitzki's paychecks - owner Mark Cuban.
Cuban had never signed an autograph on anything but a check until he bought the Mavericks.
'I never really thought anyone would be in a position to want my autograph,' he said.
There were about 20 people who waited for his autograph yesterday. A founder of Broadcast.com, which was bought by Yahoo.com, Cuban was asked by a fan what he would be doing had he not been part of the dot-com explosion.
'Probably bartending,' said Cuban, in his jeans, jersey and slip-on Nike sneakers.
-Danny O'Neil
