DALLAS — David West hardly said a word the last two days. That meant trouble for the Dallas Mavericks.
West let out his pent-up frustration over a poor Game 3 with a determined effort in Game 4, scoring 10 of his 24 points in a quick stretch early in the second half to help the New Orleans Hornets pull away for a 97-84 victory Sunday and a 3-1 lead in the first-round series.
“Everything was stirring up in him,” Hornets coach Byron Scott said. “He wasn’t going to play the way he played in Game 3. We were banking on that. He was in an aggressive mind-set from the start and he came up big.”
The Hornets hadn’t won in Dallas in 14 tries since January 1998. They can eliminate Dallas by winning Game 5 on Tuesday in New Orleans.
“You want to see if you can hopefully take their life away right from the start,” Scott said. “They’ve got a veteran team, so it won’t be easy.”
Dirk Nowitzki had 22 points and 13 rebounds and Jason Terry scored 20 points, but they didn’t get much help. Josh Howard was 3-for-16 and Jason Kidd had only three points, three assists and four rebounds before getting ejected with 7:16 left for a flagrant foul on Jannero Pargo.
Pistons 93, 76ers 84
PHILADELPHIA — A dash of perfection was exactly what Detroit needed to go from the brink of a disastrous deficit to back in control of the first-round series. All it took was 12 minutes.
Tayshaun Prince scored 23 points and made all but one shot from the field, and the Pistons played with a purpose and dominated the second half to beat Philadelphia, tying the best-of-seven Eastern Conference playoff series at 2-2.
“Everybody knows that we are good under pressure,” Detroit guard Chauncey Billups said. “I hate that we put ourselves in this position a lot of times.”
Suns 105, Spurs 86
PHOENIX — Boris Diaw had 20 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists in one of the best playoff performances of his career, and Phoenix stayed alive with a rout of San Antonio.
Raja Bell scored 21 of his 27 points in a dominant first half to help Phoenix bring a one-sided end to the defending NBA champions’ nine- game playoff winning streak. The Suns were 11-0 in the regular season when Bell scored at least 20.
Cavaliers 100, Wizards 97
WASHINGTON — LeBron James had 34 points and 12 rebounds, and dished the ball to Delonte West for a tiebreaking 3-pointer with 5.4 seconds left, helping Cleveland take a 3-1 lead over Washington in their best-of- seven Eastern Conference playoff series.
After Gilbert Arenas’ 8-foot fadeaway with 28 seconds remaining made it 97- all, James dribbled out the clock before finding West, whose career playoff-high 21 points included five of Cleveland’s 13 3-pointers.
