TORONTO — DeMar DeRozan scored 25 points to lift Toronto 100-78 over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday, a much-needed win in the Raptors' battle for playoff positioning.
Jonas Valanciunas added 14 points and 12 rebounds as the Raptors (39-28) won for the first time in three games. Norman Powell chipped in with 19 points, while Patrick Patterson and Delon Wright added 11 apiece.
Dirk Nowitzki, who at 38 recently became one of six players in NBA history to score more than 30,000 points, led the Mavericks (28-38) with 17 points.
Back home after going 2-3 on the road, and playing their 10th straight game without three-time all-star Kyle Lowry, the Raptors led for much of the night but didn't put double digits on their opponent until the third quarter. Toronto took a 79-66 advantage into the fourth.
Just two points were scored in the first four minutes of the fourth before Patterson knocked down a three-pointer to give the Raptors an 18-point lead. He would drill another long bomb to stretch the gap to 21 points with 6:10 left in front of a capacity Air Canada Centre crowd of 19,800.
A basket by Powell with 4:04 left made it a 23-point game, sending some satisfied Raptors fans to the exits.
With 15 games left in the regular-season, the Raptors — fourth in the Eastern Conference — continue to chase Washington and Boston, who each had three-and-a-half games on Toronto ahead of Monday's action.
"I don't think you live your life looking at (the standings), but it's important," coach Dwane Casey said prior to tip-off. "We've got what, 15, 16 games left? And to understand what significance it means in these next 16 games is home court, are playoff standings.
"We're just trying to get our rhythm, our mojo back, trying to get a rhythm without Kyle. We have a certain personality without him that we haven't gotten yet. And it's nobody's fault it's the DNA as much as anything else."
Cleveland leads the East, five-and-a-half games ahead of Toronto.
The Raptors shot 47 per cent on the night, and dominated the glass, outrebounding Dallas 53-34.
A three-pointer by Harrison Barnes gave the Mavs an early five-point lead, but that was as big as it would get in the first quarter and Dallas took a 26-25 lead into the second.
A three-point running jump shot from Patterson capped an 8-2 Raptors run that gave them a five-point lead early in the second quarter. Powell drilled a three of his own six minutes later that put Toronto up by seven. The Raptors took a 50-46 advantage into the halftime break.
DeRozan had 11 points in the third, including a driving dunk — accompanied by a snarling face — that gave the Raptors an 11-point lead. A pair of free throws from Jakob Poeltl that sent the Raptors into the fourth with a 13-point lead.
The Raptors host the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thursday, play in Detroit on Friday, then are back home to host Indiana on Sunday.
Lori Ewing, The Canadian Press
