By Jerry Wein
The Sixers got some help from the Mavs last night in their march to the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Luka Doncic scored 24 points and Tim Hardaway Jr. 23 and the Dallas Mavericks beat the Brooklyn Nets 113-109.
Kyrie Irving scored a season-high 45 points for the Nets. They lost a season-high fourth straight game and dropped 2½ games behind Eastern Conference-leading Philly, which has a 45-21 record compared to Brooklyn’s 42-24 with six games to play.
Dorian Finney-Smith scored 17 points as the Mavericks reached 10 games over .500 for the first time this season and moved a half-game ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers for the fifth seed in the West. Dallas holds the tiebreaker on the defending NBA champs.
