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The Mavericks had enough firepower to defeat the Cavaliers on Sunday night, even with Dirk Nowitzki in street clothes.

Nowitzki sat out because out of an elbow injury, but the rest of his team picked up the slack in a 102-95 victory at the American Airlines Center. Turnovers and missed shots in the second half cost the Cavaliers, who kept things close even with their superstar, LeBron James, struggling.

James scored 23 of his 25 points in the first three quarters. He took just three shots in the fourth, unusual considering he usually goes into takeover mode during crunch time.

Instead he relied on the likes of Delonte West, Daniel Gibson and Anderson Varejao to hit shots.

West scored 10 of his 18 points in the fourth, while Gibson and Varejao combined for 14 in the quarter.

The Cavaliers were outscored by just one in the final period, but playing the Mavericks to nearly even wasn’t enough at that point. Not when they came into the final 12 minutes already trailing by six.

Tim Thomas, who started in place of Nowitzki, led the Mavericks with 22 points in the contest.

“In a situation like this when you lose a guy like Dirk that is such a great shooter, it is a real blessing to have a guy like Tim ready to go,” said Mavs coach Rick Carlisle. ”The way he stepped in and not only played but played really well.”

He scored nine points in the first half and the Mavericks went into halftime up 52-50, despite the discrepancies in field goal shooting.

The Cavaliers shot 53 percent in the first half, while their counterparts shot just 41 percent. The ability of the Mavericks to get to the free-throw line helped to counteract the Cavs shooting advantage. They shot 15-15 from the charity stripe in the opening half.

In the second half the Cavs managed to hold their opponents to just five free throws, but still struggled to stop them on that end of the floor.

“We did a better job in the second half of not sending them to the free-throw line,” said Cavs coach Mike Brown. “But our defense was not that good.”

The Mavericks had 13 assists on 20 second-half field goals. Many of those assists came on the pick-and-roll, which Thomas, Shawn Marion and Drew Gooden used effectively.

“Our pick-and-roll defense was not good in the second half tonight, to say the least,” said Brown. ”I thought that was a big advantage for Dallas in the ballgame.”

Another advantage for the home team was in their ability to take care of the basketball. The Cavaliers finished the game with 12 assists. The Mavericks had just six.

“We turned the ball over on the road, and we can’t do that,” said Brown.

Simple, but true.

No Maverick had more than one turnover, while four Cavaliers had two or more.

One of those players was James, who had a subpar performance, at least by his lofty standards.

He was just 9-23 from the field with three rebounds and six assists. Most of James’ statistics came before halftime, when the Mavericks weren’t keying on him as much.

He shot just 3-11 in the second half.

“We just locked in and locked in on him (LeBron) defensively,” said Thomas. “We made some mistakes in the first half and we corrected them at halftime. LeBron was doing most of the scoring in the first half so we just wanted to make the other guys beat us.”