Utah Jazz: Defeat Mavericks; win streak climbs to six

SALT LAKE CITY — Their season's first half in the rearview mirror, the second so far has been a road chock full of sites worth seeing and savoring.

The latest on an itinerary worth saving:

A 104-92 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Monday night at sold-out EnergySolutions that marked the Jazz's sixth straight win, their eighth in a row at home and the 10th in their last 11 outings overall.

"The first half of the season we felt like we looked bad," said power forward Paul Millsap, who with Carlos Boozer (strained calf) out for a second straight game led the Jazz in scoring for a second consecutive time. "We felt like we weren't playing the basketball that we're used to playing. And we just had to turn it around."

Have they ever.

The six-game win streak coincides with the start of the 2009-10 NBA regular season's second half for 29-18 Utah, which got 25 points from Millsap and an 18-point, 15-assist double-double from point guard Deron Williams en route to winning its three-game season series with 30-18 Dallas.

That moves Utah to within a half-game of the Western Conference's swooning third-place Mavs, who've lost three straight overall and five in a row in Utah.

Not that their current lot in the West seemed to matter much Monday to the Jazz, who close a four-game homestand with games against playoff-contending Portland on Wednesday and Northwest Division-leading Denver on Saturday.

"We're just having fun right now," said Williams, who was playing for the first time since being picked for this month's NBA All-Star Game. "That's the difference. We're figuring out how to be a good team right now. Hopefully we don't get too cocky, took complacent with winning, and keep on doing it."

"I don't think about our standings. I think about our game," starting small forward Andrei Kirilenko added. "We played really good basketball, really nice basketball. I want to play good basketball. That's what I want to do."

Kirilenko did his part by scoring 13 points, shooting 6-for-7 from the field, making four steals and having a fourth quarter reminiscent of his 2004 All-Star season.

"We put A.K. on (Dallas All-Star) Dirk (Nowitzki) so he could get up and guard him," Millsap, who started the night on Nowitzki, said when asked about the difference in a fourth quarter that Utah took 26-17. "He limited his touches, and did a great job helping off of him."