When you’re down 3-0, you throw in everything up to and including the kitchen sink. Rick Carlisle, a reliable pitcher of plumbing fixtures, began this one by starting both Jason Terry and Jason Kidd. It didn’t hurt that Kendrick Perkins exited, eight minutes in, with a hip strain. Three quarters down, and the Mavs were up thirteen.

What didn’t Carlisle allow for? James Harden having only the best playoff game he ever had, racking up 29 points. He powered the Thunder to a 28-10 run in the first nine minutes of the fourth. Dallas quit hitting from the field with 5:47 left; even the departure of Serge Ibaka with six fouls did not empower the Mavs, and Harden iced the deal with 10 seconds left, putting Oklahoma City up by five. Kevin Durant added one more free throw, and the Thunder get to celebrate dethroning Last Year’s Champs, 103-97.

As for Dirk, well, he was Dirk, logging a game-high 34 points. But in that fourth quarter, he was reduced to begging at the charity stripe: he had one field goal in those twelve minutes. Jason & Jason wangled 27 between them, but starting them both weakened the Dallas bench a bit — any time your bench is led by Ian Mahinmi, “weak” comes immediately to mind. The Maverick reserves scored 23 points, or six less than James Harden.

With the Beard taking care of offense, Durant turned his attention to defense, ending up with a double-double: 24 points, 11 rebounds. And Derek Fisher put together yet another line that belies that Old Man crap: five of six shooting for 12 points and a plus-21 for the night. Radio guy Matt Pinto pointed out that Oklahoma City has beaten Dallas in six straight games — last two of the season, plus four in the playoffs. As for Mavs owner Mark Cuban, I suspect he’s standing in front of an ATM right about now.

Meanwhile, the Nuggets and the Lakers fight it out, and one of them will be the next-round opponent of the Thunder. When we’ll know for sure, no one knows for sure.

Jeweler and social-network maven (90,000 tweets!) Dan Gordon was asking how come this game started at 8:30, there being no West Coast teams involved; I explained that it was all a matter of television, and the desire to fit most of a doubleheader into prime time. The following interchange ensued:

Dan: oh, but what about us getting to bed at an acceptable hour? #oldmanquestions

Yours truly: The NBA doesn’t care about keeping old men up late. #notsayinganythingaboutthemavs

Maybe I could have said something about the Mavericks, who alternated between arthritic and argumentative for just over 43 minutes, after which Rick Carlisle hoisted the home-white flag. At the time, it was 95-69 OKC, and, said radio guy Matt Pinto, the building was just about empty. The Dallas benchwarmers went on a 10-0 run to finish the thing, but 95-79 still counts as a rout, especially since Oklahoma City did a superior job of shutting down the Maverick offense: Dallas shot 34 percent and turned the ball over 15 times. Oh, and “argumentative”: four techs, including one against Carlisle; Brian Cardinal got one mere seconds after leaving the scorer’s table.

As is often the case, there’s a telltale statistic: the Thunder turned the ball over only eight times, and two of those were in the five-minute temps des ordures. Kevin Durant, who had been merely a factor in the first two games, became the major playmaker in the third, with 31 points, six assists, two steals and three rebounds. This took some of the pressure off Russell Westbrook, who turned in a 20-point line with four assists versus only three turnovers. Serge Ibaka blocked four shots, scored 10, rebounded 11, for the night’s only double-double. And both Derek Fisher and James Harden kicked in ten from the bench.

Okay, maybe one more of those statistics: in the second and third quarters, the Mavs scored a total of 31 points. I’m guessing the rest of the time, they were scrambling for Aspercreme. And Dirk — oh, my heaven, Dirk — went 6-15 from the floor and worse, missed three free throws. That’s a season’s worth of clang for Nowitzki. Nor did anyone else generate much offense: after Dirk’s 17, you have the Jason and Jason combine, with 23 between them, and — well, you’ve seen enough collapses to know which way this is going.

So it’s for all the marbles Saturday night at Probably Broke Airline Fieldhouse, or whatever that damn place is called. Were I going, I’d be bringing brooms, because … well, just because. And hey, at least it’s not at 8:30.

What kind of night was this? Scott Brooks actually put Russell Westbrook on Dirk for a few moments in the fourth quarter. (And Westbrook drew a charge, to Nowitzki’s visible annoyance.) It didn’t figure to be a blowout, though the Thunder did briefly lead by 16 in the second. Inside the last minute, Dallas was up 97-96; Kevin Durant drew a foul from Jason Terry and sank two free throws, Dirk’s dagger didn’t, and James Harden chipped in two more freebies, making it 100-97 at the 25-second mark. Jason Terry took a whole five seconds to lay it up; Harden got two more free throws to make it 102-99, and while Terry had a couple of good looks on that last possession, nothing would fall, and it’s 2-0 Thunder.

Dirk, as befits Dirk, had a game-high 31; the rest of the Mavs shot a blah 38 percent, and only five of 23 treys fell. (The Thunder dropped 5 of 16 from the next block.) Shawn Marion added 15 points; the Jasons had 23 between them. Dallas was outrebounded slightly, 37-35. The OKC secret weapon, though, was obviously the foul shot: the Thunder hit 37 of 39.

Before you ask: Durant missed those two. Still, despite another meh night from the floor (5-17), he cashed in 26 points, and Westbrook (10-21) had 29 more. There was a little more bench action tonight: Harden finished with 15, but Derek Fisher rose for 11, and Nick Collison might have had more than four had he not fouled out early in the fourth quarter.

So it’s off to Dallas on Thursday and Saturday. Can the Thunder shut down the Mavs? There’s only one way to find out.

And so it came to pass in Such A Leak Arena on a dark and stormy night that the defending champions came to defend their championship. No matter what the Thunder did, the Mavericks had a response for it. Still, OKC persevered, going on a 7-0 run (in 64 seconds!) to tie it at 94-all with 1:27 left. Then Dallas displayed a rare phenomenon known as “fifth-chance points,” in which OKC made four attempts to retrieve the ball, but it ended with Ian Mahinmi sinking two free throws. Kevin Durant, who’d been having a rough (for Kevin Durant) night shooting, then set up Serge Ibaka for a dunk and an and-one. With 24 seconds left, it was 97-96 OKC. James Harden fouled Dirk Nowitzki, who of course didn’t find it convenient to miss either of his free throws. And a second and a half before the buzzer, Durant front-rimmed a jumper, which bounded off the backboard — and in. Oklahoma City 99, Dallas 98, and the playoffs begin on a positive note.

Still, it’s not like KD was playing slacker. He put in nearly 44 minutes on a night when no one else had 40. And he reeled in six boards, served up four dimes, and blocked four shots. It’s enough to make you forget 10-27 from the floor (1-6 for three) and 25 points. Besides, Russell Westbrook found his A game, good for 28 points (13-23), and those Ibaka freebies gave him 22 for the night. The bench didn’t score much. In fact, the bench didn’t score at all, except for Harden, who had a highly-efficient 19 on 4-7 and nine free throws. No one seemed to mind.

If Jason Terry is a feared sixth man, and he is, then Vince Carter should get props as a seventh: he tossed in 13 points to go with Terry’s 20. Dirk, being Dirk, had 25, almost half in the fourth quarter. Shawn Marion tacked on 17 more. The Mavs had a 42-36 advantage off the boards, but they turned the ball over even more than the Thunder — 15-14 — and while they nailed ten of 22 treys for 45 percent, they were no better than that on short-range shots. Still, I can’t help thinking that Dallas could have pulled this one off, were it not for the fact that Rick Carlisle’s momentum-control scheme had left them with no timeouts after Durant’s winning jumper.

So not a lot to gripe about, unless you’re a Thunder fan who also happens to be a cardiac patient. And if Game 2 (Monday night) is like this, more of them might be.

Dwain Price, Dallas Mavericks beat writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, tweeted this last night after the Mavs dropped one to San Antonio:

When asked was he surpsied [sic] about having a Did Not Play-Coaches Decision tonight vs. the Spurs, #Mavs F Lamar Odom said: “I buried a child.”

No one takes a DNP-CD particularly well, exactly, but this seems unusually morose, even for Odom, until you remember that he has buried a child: in 2006, son Jayden, six months, died of SIDS. So this was Odom’s dismissal of the incident: nothing Rick Carlisle can do to him can possibly compare to what he’s already been through.

Few things in life are quite as satisfying as sending the Mavericks home with a loss, mostly because it’s seldom easy to do. And it didn’t look like it was going to happen: Jason Terry and Dirk Nowitzki, of course, presented the greatest challenges, and Dirk drilled home a three — his fourth of the night — with two and a half minutes left, giving him a game-high 27. But that was all he would get; in fact, that’s all any of the Mavs got, as the Thunder shut them out the rest of the way en route to a 95-91 win, taking the season series 3-1 and indeed sending the Mavs home to deal with the Knicks.

This one, though, was tight all the way through: lead changes left and right, especially in the fourth quarter. The Thunder didn’t actually pull ahead until the 0:46 mark, when Serge Ibaka drew Ian Mahinmi’s sixth foul and sank two free throws. Three more freebies, one from Kevin Durant and two from Russell Westbrook, iced the deal. For those who were wondering if James Harden was going to come to life after a less-than-indifferent opening, wonder no more: The Beard owned the place starting in the fourth, garnering 14 of his 16 points. Twenty-four for Westbrook, 22 for Durant, and 14 rebounds for Kendrick Perkins, who was on his best behavior all night.

Jason Terry, arguably Harden’s only competition for Sixth Man of the Year, wound up playing 37 minutes, more than any of the Mavs except Dirk, and he was his usual fearsome self. Mahinmi, pressed into service in the middle thirty seconds in after Brendan Haywood rolled his ankle somewhere over Perk, was the most efficient shooter on the floor: five of six and all three of his free throws for 13 points. But if Rick Carlisle was hoping for some Vinceanity, it didn’t happen: Vince Carter checked out in ten minutes, having missed his only shot. And Sean Williams essentially scored four for the Thunder, having goaltended two OKC shots in rapid succession.

But hey, this is what happens when you play Dallas, and we don’t have to see them again until the playoffs. The Suns will be here Wednesday, the Cavs on Saturday, and neither of them figure to be quite as much of a handful as the Mavs.

Mavs/Thunder games are usually fairly riotous, but usually not to the extent that one of the coaches gets a free pass to the locker room. Tonight Dallas coach Rick Carlisle was T’d up twice, the second for kicking the ball into the stands, though the Mavs didn’t do anything differently in his absence: the entirety of the Dallas offense seemed to be “Get Jason Terry the ball.” Terry was his usual effective self, though Dirk Nowitzki was having an un-Dirk-like night (two of 15?) and both Lamar Odom and Brendan Haywood were missing in action. Meanwhile, the Thunder, who had trailed through most of the first half, sputtered; but in crunch time they came up with both buckets and stops, snagging the win, 95-86.

Thabo Sefolosha is still out, and Scott Brooks, noting that starting James Harden hadn’t been all that successful against the Clippers night before last, came up with the idea of starting Daequan Cook at the two. Cook managed some Thabo-like numbers, and Harden was back in double figures, so perhaps this will be the rotation while Sefolosha heals. Russell Westbrook led the scoring parade with 33; Kevin Durant had 23 plus 13 rebounds, and Serge Ibaka — well, is this technically a double-double? He scored only four points, but got 11 rebounds and ten blocks. And it’s a good thing there was some serious defense on display, because the Thunder shot only 40.7 percent and hit only five of 20 treys.

Then again, the Mavs shot only 35.7 percent and hit four of 19 treys. Nowitzki was held to eight points, half of which came from the foul line. Shawn Marion and Brandan Wright contributed twelve points each, but nobody else broke double digits. No way can we blame this on Carlisle’s brief spate of hotheadedness.

The Grizzlies show up in OKC Friday night, and that’s just the beginning of a hairy road trip: at San Antonio on Saturday, Portland on Monday, Golden State on Tuesday, Sacramento on Thursday and Utah on Friday. The Thunder won’t be back home until Valentine’s Day, and the Jazz aren’t exactly bearing candy hearts these days.

You had to figure that Dallas wasn’t going to keep losing to Oklahoma City indefinitely, and the Mavs defended their home court with something resembling vigor tonight, handing those young upstarts from Up North their first setback of the season, 100-87.

Thunder shooting was poor at 40.8 percent, and Thunder shooting from three-point range was ghastly at 26.3. (It didn’t help that Daequan Cook, who was unwell Saturday, was inactive tonight.) Turnovers were down, for once, but there’s something askew on any night where Kendrick Perkins outshoots Kevin Durant from the stripe. (Perk hit five of six, KD four of seven.) And the OKC bench was held to 25 points, all of them by guards James Harden and Eric Maynor, while the Dallas reserves contributed 47.

Obligatory Dirk reference: Yes, Dirk was there. Twenty-six points’ worth. He wasn’t too great with the long ball — one of five — but then he didn’t have to be. I have nightmares of Nowitzki aged a hundred and six, still hitting from 18 feet out, and I suspect fans of about 29 NBA teams do likewise.

The Trail Blazers come to town tomorrow, followed by two days off, and then a back-to-back-to-back: against Houston, against Houston again at their place, and then back home against San Antonio. The foreshortened season makes these things necessary; we can only hope that the players can make them bearable.

Radio guy Matt Pinto and TV chap Grant Long couldn’t agree on whether Dallas coach Rick Carlisle was out of his gourd for pulling Dirk Nowitzki in favor of Vince Carter with a bit over three minutes left. First possession, Carter hits a jumper from about 18 feet; second possession, Carter’s out, Dirk’s in. I was thinking Carlisle was working some mind games, but a minute and a half later, Dirk drew a T after complaining about an offensive foul, so maybe Carlisle was seeing the veins on Nowitzki’s forehead before anyone else. (There were six technicals tonight, which, given the level of ferocity on display, was no surprise.) The Thunder were up five with 46 seconds left, but Dallas drilled two treys, and with 1.4 seconds left, that would seem to be it. “Like heck,” said Kevin Durant, and rainbowed the inbound into the bucket at the buzzer. OKC 104, Dallas 102, and I swear I could hear the screams in the arena from four miles away.

Weird numbers on display again. The Thunder shot 58.7 percent, which is phenomenal; they turned the ball over 26 times, which is horrendous. (Rebounds were even at 38.) Russell Westbrook was back on track; perhaps more important, so was Serge Ibaka, who had been comparatively ineffective in the first three games of the season. The X factor, here, though, was the OKC bench, which apparently has a new rule forbidding letting the opposition gain any ground. I, of course, approve.

And then there was Dirk. He was, for the most part, his usual Dirkish self, dropping in 29 points including ten free throws, and snagging ten rebounds to boot. The Thunder have basically figured out that if you bottle up everyone else, it doesn’t hurt to let Dirk be Dirk. (And while he had 29, Durant had 30 — of which the biggest were those three at the horn.)

So it’s 4-0 after five days. The Mavs, who haven’t won in five tries (two preseason), will get a chance for revenge Monday on their home court. In between, the Thunder will look directly into the Suns on Saturday.

Yeah, yeah, we know: preseason. Doesn’t mean squat. Still, there’s a certain amusement value in a game where Daequan Cook misses ten of eleven from beyond the arc and it doesn’t matter; the Thunder were up 74-53 after three quarters, and the bench held on to dispatch the pesky Dallas reserves, 87-83. It’s good to beat the champs.

Much of what we saw Sunday, we saw again: dominance on the boards (51-39) and too many turnovers (17, though the Mavs gave up just as many). Both Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki showed up for this one, though neither did much damage (nine points between them). OKC ran out to a 23-point lead before letting things get a little too lax, and you know Scott Brooks is going to be drilling on Finishing The Damn Game for much of the week — especially since the season opens on Christmas against the Magic, who aren’t exactly pushovers. Yet. (Depends on whether Dwight Howard vanishes from the roster between now and then.) Still, disposing of the league champions twice in a row, even in the preseason, has got to be good for morale. It’s certainly good for mine.

The hurry-up preseason runs a whole two games: OKC at Dallas, followed day after tomorrow by Dallas at OKC. I am hesitant to make a whole lot of assumptions after the first one, especially since neither Jason Kidd nor Dirk Nowitzki was on the floor, but I have to figure that Scott Brooks went seriously bipolar tonight: he got to see some excellent shooting (56 percent, plus ten treys) and a serious rebounding advantage (45-33), but he also had to witness twenty-five turnovers, which very nearly undid the Thunder’s 106-92 win in the Big D with the big D.

This being preseason, no one played a whole lot of minutes. The Mavericks got to play underdog a couple of times, down by twenty and then pulling to within a couple of possessions before the Thunder calmed them down. (The scarier was the beginning of the fourth quarter, when the Mavs threw up 14 consecutive points into a 20-point Thunder lead.) Still, OKC retained some semblance of cool, which they didn’t always do in tough fourth quarters last season.

Tuesday will be here before I know it.

“Good judgment,” Will Rogers would tell you, “comes from experience.” Oklahoma City didn’t have a lot of it, playoff-wise, and in the closing moments, you could tell. With 39 seconds left, Russell Westbrook sank two free throws to bring the Thunder to within two. Dallas worked some clock, and Dirk Nowitzki actually missed a shot, but Jason Kidd cleared, fired it back to Dirk, and Eric Maynor pretty much had to foul him. Nowitzki duly dropped in both foul shots — he’s missed only two in five games — putting Dallas up by four, 100-96, and that’s the way it ended.

The obligatory Telltale Statistic: Daequan Cook, who put up no shots and pulled in one rebound in just over four minutes, was +5, highest on the team, despite lots of OKC offense: Westbrook had 31, Kevin Durant and James Harden 23 each, Nick Collison 12 plus 12 boards. Major problem: Kidd moved the ball seemingly at will, serving up 10 assists. (The Thunder in aggregate had 16.) And he moved it to Dirk (26 points), or to Shawn Marion (also 26). Scant consolations: OKC won the battle of the boards, 49-44, and shot slightly better: 42.7 percent versus 41.

So the Mavs go to the Finals, and if they play the Heat, I suppose I’m cheering for Dallas. (Chicago, last I looked, was in a 3-1 hole.) There will be another season, perhaps as early as next season, though they’re still talking lockout. Experience, it turns out, pays dividends; the Thunder, by next spring, will have earned them. Will could have told you that, too.

If we’ve learned anything from this series, it’s that the Mavericks are supreme opportunists: give them any kind of opening, and they’ll take advantage of it. With about five minutes left, the Thunder had forged a 15-point lead; four and a half minutes later, Dallas had shaved it to two, and with six seconds left, Dirk Nowitzki, who hardly ever misses a foul shot, hit two of them for the tie, and overtime was upon us.

The Mavs, in fact, got their first lead of the night during the extra period, as ominous a sign as the storms going on outside the arena, and The Two Jasons got the last seven points to put it out of reach, 112-105. Once again, youth and exuberance fall to age and experience.

And once again, the box score might fool you. The Thunder absolutely owned the boards — 55-33, including 20-5 offensive — and the only double-doubles of the night were posted by Kevin Durant (29 points, 15 rebounds) and Serge Ibaka (18 points, 10 boards). But OKC managed to lose the ball twenty-five times, and eleven of thirteen treys failed to find their way to the net. (The Mavs missed 17, but then they put up 25.)

And then there was Dirk. He wasn’t that much of a factor in the overtime, but he did his damnedest to make sure Dallas got there. He finished with 40 points and four turnovers. For comparison: Durant turned it over nine times, though this is more of a tribute to Shawn Marion’s stifling defense. And be it noted, both James Harden and Nick Collison fouled out, which hampered OKC’s efforts to regain control of this thing.

Which efforts, I presume, will resume Wednesday in Dallas. But down 3-1, the Thunder now have to win three straight to get into the Finals, and two of them will be on enemy turf. Then again, they didn’t do so hot at home, either.

“I just got hit by a great big brick,” wails the poor fellow, but his girlfriend refuses to commiserate: “She says thanks for reminding me about that Maverick.”

The Thunder got more reminders than they wanted about several Mavericks tonight, and it doesn’t help that they put up lots of bricks themselves: they managed only 12 points in the first quarter, and wound up shooting a miserable 36.5 percent. You don’t want to know about their three-point prowess. (Okay, if you’re a glutton for punishment: they missed sixteen in a row before Russell Westbrook finally dropped one through. That’s 5.9 percent. I’ve had credit cards at that rate.) Dallas won Game 3, 93-87, and the Mavs now lead the series 2-1.

It wasn’t Dirk slipping them the dagger; although Nowitzki had ten in the fourth quarter, he managed only 18 total. Shawn Marion was the better marksman tonight, getting his 18 off 9-13 shooting. The Two Jasons added thirteen each; Tyson Chandler had 15 rebounds.

Meanwhile, Batman and Robin got little help from their fellow Gothamers. Westbrook had a game-high 30, but he was 8-20 from the floor; Kevin Durant had a double-double — 24 points, 12 boards — but shot 7-22. (Take out those eight missed treys and he’s at 50 percent.) Which leaves a mere 17 points for the other starters and 16 from the bench. At least the foul shooting was up to snuff: 32 of 36. And there’s this: late in the fourth, it was possible to hear a bar or two of that infamous Cee Lo Green song playing in the background. I’m sure it was the expurgated version, but the sentiment had to be something other than “Forget you.”

Game 4 is Monday at the Roundhouse, at which time we’ll see if the Thunder have any kick left.

Nick Collison was almost able to contain Dirk Nowitzki until the last minute, when his sixth foul took him out of the game with the Thunder up six. Dirk got three free throws, and inexplicably missed one; Oklahoma City ran 24 seconds of clock and drew a shot-clock violation; a Dallas trey went awry, Thabo Sefolosha sank two out of two from the line, and the Thunder wound up with a 106-100 win to even up the series.

Which is not to say that Dirk had problems. Okay, he missed one foul shot out of ten, which kept him to a mere 29 points. But the Dallas bench, so clearly superior Tuesday night, was seriously outplayed by the OKC reserves: sixth man James Harden rolled up 23 points on nine shots, while it was taking Kevin Durant 23 shots to get 24. In fact, Russell Westbrook got to ride the pine late in the game, because Eric Maynor was masterminding things so well.

The Mavs shot only 43.8 percent tonight, way below spec for a gang of sharpshooters. Telltale statistic: Jason Terry, who ran OKC ragged in Game 1, scored zip in the second half. Meanwhile, the Thunder was hitting 55.7 percent from the field, despite the best efforts of Tyson Chandler (15 points, 13 rebounds).

So it is apparently possible to beat the Mavs on their home court. (Lakers, take note.) The trick, of course, will be beating them three times more out of the next five. Then again, three of the next five will be in the Arena Waiting For A Name in downtown OKC, starting on Saturday night. Things are gonna get loud(er).

Rick Carlisle’s offense, at least as manifest this evening, can be simply described as “Give Dirk the ball.” In terms of operating efficiency, it can’t be beat: Nowitzki hit 12 of 15 from the floor and 24 of 24 from the stripe, a solid 48-point performance. Then you look at the other four starters, and you see that only one of them — Shawn Marion — even broke ten, and he fouled out with three minutes left. Not that this matters a great deal in the grand scheme of things, but clearly the Mavericks are playing a Dirkcentric sort of game, and various Thundermen took their turns not quite defending Nowitzki. Oklahoma City pulled to within five a couple of times in the fourth quarter, but Dallas wasn’t having any of that noise, and the Mavs won it by nine, 121-112.

Then again, from the OKC point of view, three things happened: Kevin Durant scored 40, Russell Westbrook was wearing his Rim Repellent fragrance (3 of 15? ye gods), and Scott Brooks, who normally makes Clark Kent look like Sam Kinison, was T’d up for some uncharacteristic insolence. The Thunder actually picked off a couple more rebounds than the Mavs. But here’s your Telltale Statistic: Dallas sixth man Jason Terry (24 points) outscored the entire OKC bench (22).

Still, this isn’t any reason to despair. Dirk is Dirk, but he ain’t Apollo. There was a stretch during the fourth quarter in which nobody for Dallas was scoring but J. J. Barea. Okay, Barea had 21, but still, this thing is doable if (1) Westbrook breaks out of his funk and (2) someone — Serge Ibaka? — figures out how to slow down Nowitzki, or at least block one of his shots once in a while. (Dirk’s BA tonight: zero.) There’s another chance on Thursday, and then things come back north.

Last Thunder/Mavericks clash, Dirk Nowitzki played barely a quarter before retiring to the locker room with a sprained knee, but the Mavs won that one anyway. This time, Dallas was still Dirkless, and Caron Butler, poor fellow, is out for the season with a ripped tendon. Despite that, the Mavs jumped out to an early lead and were up 55-51 at the half, at which time Scott Brooks gave the Thunder a spelling lesson, emphasizing the letter D. OKC outscored Dallas 22-15 in the third quarter, and ran out to a double-digit lead in the fourth. Then in the last minute, DeShawn Stevenson rolled out two consecutive treys and nearly pulled off a steal on the next possession; Kevin Durant nailed two free throws, the Thunder got a stop, Rick Carlisle wandered out onto the court for some reason, Durant handed him the ball for no apparent reason, and Stevenson put up one more trey before the horn, making the final score 99-95.

All the Dallas starters posted double figures, except Jason Kidd, who didn’t score at all but did get ten rebounds. Shawn Marion, who’s been shooting over 50 percent most of the season, had an admirable 25 points; Tyson Chandler, ever ferocious, got 14 points and 18 boards. Were Nowitzki and Butler missed? No doubt; but there’s also no doubt that the Mavs know how to step up.

Telltale statistic: Oklahoma City pulled off 13 steals. (The Mavs had four.) This was a game of ball movement, first and foremost: 41 assists (OKC 23, Dallas 18), and only three blocked shots. Durant finished at 28, about his average; Russell Westbrook and Jeff Green returned to form, and Serge Ibaka had eight rebounds and hit six of six shots in 24 minutes — and accumulated, again, six fouls.

So the Mavs win this series 2-1, but I suspect we’re not done with these guys just yet. In the meantime, the Grizzlies will be in town Saturday; next week, it’s an odd back-to-back, at Houston on Wednesday, followed by a visit from the Magic on Thursday.

It was early in the second quarter when Dirk Nowitzki came down hard, and for a while it looked like the Thunder would be avenged for an earlier loss to the Mavericks. By “for a while,” I mean “until the end of the third quarter,” at which point it was Oklahoma City 81, Dallas 79. But the absence of Dirkus Maximus was stunningly insignificant in the final twelve minutes, during which the Thunder managed to score a stunningly-insignificant twelve points, and the Mavs walked away with what seems like their 107th consecutive win, 103-93.

They did it by basically throwing everything they had at OKC: Shawn Marion posted a season high of 20 points, four other Mavericks finished in double figures, and lightly-used backup big Alexis Ajinça put up exactly one shot: a trey. Of course, it went in. The Mavs sank 11 of 23 treys while shooting 48.8 percent and missing only one free throw.

“We picked a bad time to miss shots,” said Scott Brooks laconically. The Thunder shot 42 percent, but only 22 percent in that last quarter. Kevin Durant did manage his usual 28, and OKC was at least within shrieking distance on most of the stats, even leading 38-32 in points in the paint, but when there’s a lid on the bucket, you do not win.

The Nets will be coming to The Court With No Name on Wednesday. Last time Oklahoma City played New Jersey, it went to three overtimes. I don’t think I have enough antacid on hand to go through that again.

Through three quarters, it looked like the Thunder were actually going to put away the visitors from Dallas, who had only just arrived from a narrow win over Detroit and who had given the impression of looking a bit tired in spots. Then came the fourth quarter, and the Mavericks shut down everything the Thunder threw at them: with about seven minutes left, Dallas went on a 10-0 run and then kept on running. The final at the Awfully Quiet Arena was 111-103.

You can probably expect the next two words: “Dirk Nowitzki.” He led all scorers with 34, including a Durantean 14 of 15 from the foul line. But just as hazardous to Oklahoma City was Tyson Chandler, who once came within a physical of joining the Thunder, with 17 points and 18 rebounds. And Caron Butler wasn’t much of a factor in the second half, but 15 points in the first kept Dallas in the game until they were ready to make the big run in the final frame.

OKC technically outshot the Mavs, 48.2 percent to 44.4, but Dallas owned the boards (49-36) and the charity stripe (30 of 34 versus 17 of 23), and a double-double from Kid Delicious (32 points, 11 rebounds) wasn’t enough to keep the Thunder in contention, despite double figures from Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green and, yes, Serge Ibaka. They didn’t play badly, exactly, but when you’re overrun 36-22 in the fourth quarter, Bad Things happen to you.

Now follow two road games, at Indiana (Friday) and Houston (Sunday), followed by a visit from the Hornets on Monday. It will take at least two out of three to stay up with the other contenders in the West.

I figured I’d use that title regardless of the outcome in Dallas; only the voice — active or passive — need change. As it happened, the Mavs were on the receiving end of the rolling, as the Thunder squared the season series 2-2 with a 121-116 win and nailed down a playoff slot.

The Dallas veterans and the Oklahoma City youngsters played more or less evenly most of the night; the Mavs got the early lead, with the Thunder going up eight at halftime and stretching the lead to nineteen in the final frame before Dallas mounted a rally to pull within four. Both sides shot over 50 percent and over 80 percent from the foul line; Dallas outrebounded OKC, 39-34.

Dirk Nowitzki got a third of those 39 boards, and 30 points besides. Jason Kidd added 24 points; Caron Butler had 10 rebounds. Shawn Marion departed early with an injury.

Once again, six of the Thundermen landed in double figures, and it wasn’t all the Durant Show; Kevin had 23, but Jeff Green scored 22, and both Russell Westbrook and Nick Collison contributed 17 to the cause. The Thunder blocked only one shot, but they pulled off 11 steals.

OKC is now 47-28, with seven games left. The 55-21 Lakers lead the West; the Mavs, the Nuggets, the Jazz and the Suns are all stuck 5½ games back at 50-27. That leaves the Thunder in sixth, one game ahead of the idle Spurs. The Trail Blazers, in eighth, have already clinched a playoff spot; they will trail San Antonio by about .003 if they beat the Kings tonight.

Tomorrow: back home, against the Timberwolves, followed by a Tuesday trip to Utah and a Wednesday home date against the Nuggets.

Speaking of Tuesday, it’s a Dallas/Oklahoma City rematch — for the NBA Dance Bracket. The Thunder Girls have defeated the dancers of the Timberwolves and the Spurs already, and they’d like your support on the 6th at http://www.nba.com/dancebracket/2010/.