By ALLON SINAI, APcasspi nba where is the basket(photo credit: )
Omri Casspi scored more than 20 points for a third straight game on Saturday night, but the Sacramento Kings still fell to their third consecutive defeat.
The 21-year-old Israeli scored 22 points and took a career-high 11 rebounds for his third double-double of the season, while also adding four assists in 41 minutes on court.
However, the Kings fell to an early deficit against the Dallas Mavericks and lost 99-91 at the ARCO Arena.
"It is tough, but we are a young team, all of us," said Casspi, who hit four of six shots from beyond the arc.
"Coach said it the best - 'We have to get the respect from the media, the league, coaches, from everybody.' We will learn our way, it just takes time and people will respect us.
"We played hard and this was a back-to-back, last night against the Lakers we lost and tonight we came out with a little less energy. It was tough tonight after the game last night. We are going to get better for the future."
Dirk Nowitzki scored 25 points for the Mavs, who used a 13-0 run in the second quarter to take command and never trailed again in improving their record away from home to 12-5, the most road wins in the Western Conference.
Jose Barea scored 17 points for Dallas, which has won three of four. Josh Howard had 16 points and Jason Kidd added 14 points and seven assists.
Leading by 10 points, Nowitzki went on his own 6-0 run, making a pair of jumpers and hitting two free throws to put the Mavericks in front 93-76 with 3:39 remaining.
The Kings ran off 11 straight points to pull to 93-87 on Donte Greene's three-pointer with 30.1 seconds left. Howard, Jason Terry and Nowitzki all made two free throws in the final 29 seconds to help seal the victory.
After missing the previous three games with an ankle injury, rookie Tyreke Evans started slow, missing six of seven shots, then got going late in the second quarter. Playing a bit tentative offensively, he shot 6 of 18 overall and had 14 points and six rebounds.
"We got in late last night. The Mavericks got to watch our game last night and probably had a day off yesterday. They were probably more fresh than us," said Casspi.
"We had a tough loss there in Los Angeles. We are leaning from this, you have to learn. Playing back-to-back in this league is hard, especially when you are playing the Lakers away and then come back to play Dallas at home. We are going to get better and learn from it."
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