| Venue: TD Garden, Boston Date: Friday, 3 March Start: 19:30 (Saturday, 00:30 GMT) |
| Coverage: Watch live on BBC One, BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app in the UK. |
Luka Doncic scored 42 points and Kyrie Irving added 40 as the Dallas Mavericks held off the Philadelphia 76ers to win 133-126 on Thursday.
Irving teamed up with the league’s leading scorer Doncic after the Mavericks agreed a trade with the Brooklyn Nets last month.
Since Irving’s debut, Dallas had gone 1-4 with the two on court but they combined for their second win together.
“Luka was ready for the party, I was ready for the party,” said Irving, 30.
“It was one of those games where we had some special performances and I’m just glad the work translated, because it could have gone either way. We did everything to make sure we were focused down the stretch.”
Joel Embiid, the league’s second leading scorer, had 35 points for the Sixers, who cut a 25-point deficit to four with a 15-0 run to open the final quarter.
But Irving scored 11 points in the fourth quarter to help the Mavericks avoid a repeat of Sunday’s collapse from a 27-point lead to lose against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Irving and Doncic combined for 18 assists and became the first Dallas team-mates to score at least 40 points in the same game.
“I mean, two guys had damn near 100 points on us,” said Philadelphia’s Tobias Harris.
“It was tough with one wizard with the basketball in Luka and now they got two of them out there.”
The Golden State Warriors scored 42 points in the third quarter to propel them to a 115-91 home win over the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Warriors remain without Stephen Curry, who has missed 10 games with knee and leg injuries, but managed to fight back from an 11-point half-time deficit.
Jordan Poole scored 22 of his 34 points in the third quarter as the defending champions claimed their fourth straight victory.
Friday’s games include the Brooklyn Nets visiting the Boston Celtics, which will be shown live on BBC One and BBC iPlayer (00:30 GMT, Saturday).
The Nets have been trending in the wrong direction since trading Irving and Kevin Durant and suffered a fourth straight loss on Wednesday, while Jayson Tatum got back to his best for the Celtics after being named MVP in this year’s All-Star game on 19 February.
Tatum scored 41 points as Boston beat the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday to maintain their pursuit of the Milwaukee Bucks for the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
“We got a pretty good stretch of basketball coming up,” said Boston’s Jaylen Brown. “There’s going to be some tough games so we have to find ways to win and guys have to be ready.”
