Allen Iverson had a spectacular game and had 35 points, 12 assists and six steals to lead the Denver Nuggets to a 122-109 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night.

"AI had it going from everywhere, driving and making shots in between," said reigning league MVP Dirk Nowitzki, who had a good game as well as he managed to match his season-high with 32 points and hauled 12 rebounds.

Iverson was 12-of-19 from the floor and 11-of-13 from the line to make his sixth game above 30 points, but perhaps the best thing about his performance was the 12 assists he dished to get his team mate involved in the offense.

"I thought AI had a real good feel for the game," Nuggets coach George Karl said. "His game is to get to the free-throw line and to run. Dallas tried to get the ball out of his hands. He definitely did a good job getting the guys involved."

Twenty-four hours earlier, AI had scored a season-high 51 points but that wasn’t enough for the Nuggets to avoid defeat at the hands of the visiting Lakers.

Carmelo Anthony finished the game with 23 points and Linas Kleiza scored 23 as well as he benefited from Iverson’s passing. Kenyon Martin had 18 points while Marcus Camby pulled down 18 rebounds for the Nuggets (12-8), which are at their second win in the last 20 visits to Dallas.

Besides Nowitzki, Jerry Stackhouse scored 23 points off the bench and Josh Howard added 20 for Dallas (12-8) which now lost their second game in a row and their sixth of the last nine.

"They're disappointed, we're all disappointed," Mavs coach Avery Johnson said. "We don't want to play this way.”

Denver was nine points ahead at the half time, 62-53, after Martin scored 18 points over that stretch and Iverson had 15. Then AI and Anthony connected for 24 of Denver's final 28 points in the third period to enter the final quarter with a 98-92 advantage.

Then the Nuggets went on a game-breaking 9-0 run and the Mavericks were never able to cut the deficit below nine points.