This one was an anticlimactic 20-point loss at Target Center after which injured Randy Foye, Craig Smith, Al Jefferson and Corey Brewer all limped out of the team's locker room.

That Dec. 30 game set franchise records for both teams: The Wolves had never blown a 29-point lead in their 20-year history before. The Mavs had never come from behind by that much.

But Wolves coach Kevin McHale credits the 70-41 second-half lead his team lost that night with a 10-2 start in January that came immediately after that humiliating 107-100 loss. Dallas coach Rick Carlisle was ejected from that game and replaced by assistant Dwane Casey, the former Wolves head coach whom McHale fired two seasons ago.

"I actually thought that helped us play a lot better," McHale said. "That was the final straw. They got so mad after that game. After that game, I really noticed a disgust among the players, like, 'We cannot allow that to happen.'"

Until then, the Wolves had lost plenty of late leads, more than one in double digits. But none that were 29 points.

"When you've played good enough to do something special and then have played bad enough to give it all back, your guys say, 'Which one are we going to be, because we can't live in between?'" McHale said. "We had other five- six-point leads slip away all year long, but that one, you couldn't even find an excuse good enough to figure out how that happened."

MAVERICKS 108, WOLVES 88: The Mavericks led by 26 points in the second half at Target Center. They weren't about to surrender that lead.

Three months after the Wolves blew a 29-point lead in Dallas, the Mavs took a four-game lead over Phoenix for the Western Conference's eighth and final playoff spot by soundly beating a Wolves team not only missing star Al Jefferson, out since February, but also injured Randy Foye and Craig Smith.

The Mavs put Josh Howard back in the starting lineup after he had missed the past 10 games because of an ankle injury and led by 20 points before halftime.

"We were never able to contain them," Wolves coach Kevin McHale said. "They made some shots and we were not able to get a handle on them defensively. We tried hanging with them, but we couldn't muster any defense. That was the game."