RJ Barrett scored a game-high 32 points Wednesday night for the host New York Knicks, who moved back to the .500 mark with a 108-85 win over the Dallas Mavericks.
Barrett, who had 31 points in Monday’s win over the Spurs, is the youngest player in franchise history to record consecutive games with at least 30 points and has scored at least 30 three times in his last five games. He scored at least 30 points just three times in his first 158 NBA games.
Julius Randle (17 points, 12 rebounds) and Mitchell Robinson (19 points, 10 rebounds) each had double-doubles for the Knicks, who have won four of five to improve to 21-21 — the first time they’ve been at .500 since being 12-12 on Dec. 7. Evan Fournier scored 13 points and Alec Burks added 10 points.
Luka Doncic had 21 points and 11 rebounds for the Mavericks, whose six-game winning streak was snapped. Dallas, whose average margin of victory during the streak was 15.7 points, was trying to win seven in a row for the first time since the 2010-11 season.
Jalen Brunson scored 14 points and ex-Knick Tim Hardaway Jr. added 13 points.
Back-to-back baskets by Doncic gave the Mavericks their lone lead at 8-7, but Burks hit a pair of 3-pointers to bookend a run of eight unanswered points by the Knicks, who led by as many as 11 points before ending the quarter with a 30-21 lead.
Hardaway scored the first six points of the second for the Mavericks, who pulled within 32-30 on a 3-pointer by Marquese Chriss. The Knicks began gradually pulling away and headed into halftime with a 56-45 lead following a pair of free throws by Burks with 16.9 seconds left.
The Mavericks scored six of the first eight points of the third before the Knicks scored 11 straight points in a run they extended to 14-1 when Barrett’s 3-pointer gave New York a 72-52 lead.
A Barrett dunk with 10:11 left gave the Knicks a 90-68 lead, after which New York missed its next nine shots. But the Mavericks scored just eight points in that span before Robinson converted an old-fashioned 3-point play and delivered an emphatic dunk on consecutive possessions to fuel a game-ending 18-9 run.
–Field Level Media