Mavs vs. Nuggets review

Now that is how you play the game of basketball.

Led by a Dirk Nowitzki triple-double and suffocating defense the Mavericks dominated Denver 109-93 Monday night in perhaps the biggest victory of the season.

Nowitzki's 2nd career triple-double of 34 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists is obviously the lead story but not to be overlooked was the immense contributions of Shawn Marion on both ends of the court. Marion scored 21 points and hounded Carmelo Anthony who was only 3-16 from the field. Also struggling for Denver was Chauncey Billups who was 3-14.

The win keeps Dallas in 2nd in the West and gives the Mavs the tiebreaker over the Nuggets by virtue of winning the season series 2-1. The loss drops Denver all the way down to 5th in the standings.

Dirk was great all evening in all aspects of the game. He knocked down 4-5 from 3 point range and passed expertly out of double teams. Denver had no answer for him with Kenyon Martin out of the lineup, although Dirk was able to dominate Martin in last year's playoffs, so its hard to say he could have made that much of a difference.

Roddy Beaubois couldn't carry over his hot shooting from the Bay Area, but keyed the team defensively with 3 2nd quarter steals. Beaubois got most of his minutes at point guard with J.J. Barea out with a sore ankle.

After two consecutive great outings on both ends of the court the Mavs are hopefully gaining much needed momentum with the playoffs around the corner. It looks like the pieces might be in place for an interesting and maybe long playoff run.