Mavs finally snag win at Golden State

OAKLAND – Devin Harris picked himself off the floor and had a message to deliver to Matt Barnes. The face off led to double technicals. Maybe there is a rivalry after all.

Forget the records. Don’t focus on the injuries or who wasn’t in uniform. The Mavericks came to town Thursday and that’s all the Warriors needed to see.

Winless coming into the night, Golden State stepped back six months in time and brought back that playoff mojo. The crowd fed off their springtime memories. “We Believe” t-shirts were back in fashion.

Unlike those games of days gone by, the Mavs found a way to slip out of Oracle Arena tasting victory. No one in Dallas locker room treated the 120-115 outcome like postseason mouthwash – history can’t be rewritten – but there was level of satisfaction in leaving Oakland with a win for the first time since Jan. 25, 2006.

“It’s very important knowing they had beat us the last four or five times to get this monkey off our backs,” Jason Terry said.

It was anything but easy. The game went down to the final possession and it took Baron Davis coming up short on a wide-open 3-pointer for the Mavs to snap a string of six consecutive losses at Oracle that included three in the first round last season. Dallas improved to 4-1 and ends its quick two-game West Coast trip Saturday at Portland.