Getty ImagesNEW YORK - Jose Barea kept finding unimpeded paths on his drives to the basket, and two things became clear.
The Dallas Mavericks couldn’t be stopped, and the New York Knicks didn’t seem interested in proving otherwise.
Dallas put on a shooting clinic that crushed the Knicks’ spirits, ignoring the absence of two starters and rolling to the biggest win in franchise history with a 128-78 victory Sunday.
“They took our heart out of us,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni said.
Drew Gooden stepped into the lineup with 15 points and 18 rebounds, Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry each scored 20 points, and the Mavericks beat the Knicks for the eighth straight time. Dallas shot 58 percent from the field, was 12 of 22 from beyond the arc and 16 of 17 from the foul line.
It wasn’t hard once the Mavs had taken the fight out of the Knicks by turning their stops on one end into 3-pointers at the other.
“They were discouraged and you could tell early,” Terry said. “If you’re getting stops and then coming down and making buckets, that deflates a team. It’s human nature.
“At halftime we talked about coming back and doing what it was that got us the lead, and we were able to with no resistance. So when a team doesn’t give you much resistance, you’ve just got to continue to work and not fall into a lull.”
The Mavericks led by as much as 53 and outscored the Knicks 70-31 over the middle two quarters on the way to bettering their 149-104 victory over Golden State on Jan. 15, 1985.
Barea replaced point guard Jason Kidd in the lineup and scored 11 points, and rookie Rodrique Beaubois backed him up with 13.
The Knicks owned the previous largest lead in the NBA this season when they led Indiana by 48 points three weeks ago, but they offered no resistance on Sunday in the second-worst loss in franchise history. New York was 4 of 25 from 3-point range in its lowest-scoring game of the season.
Already leading by 16 at halftime, the Mavs made 15 of 19 shots (79 percent) in the third quarter. Nowitzki was only 1 of 6 for seven points at the half, then scored 13 in the third on 5-of-6 shooting before the starters took a seat for good.
Barea had at least two hardly contested layups in the third quarter as the Knicks appeared to simply stop trying. It was an embarrassing effort lowlighted when Jared Jeffries botched a layup on the break and the ball was batted off his head out of bounds on the rebound.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
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