ORLANDO, Fla. – The Dallas Mavericks on Monday were wearing the same road uniforms that they wore the day before. The faces looked the same.

But, boy, can appearances be deceiving.

There was no resemblance whatsoever to the team that was so deplorable in Detroit.

Defying all logic, the Mavericks followed up their worst game of the season with one of their best, building a nice lead and then executing when they had to in a 107-98 win over the Southeast Division-leading Orlando Magic at Amway Arena.

In winning, the Mavs avoided a three-game sweep by Eastern Conference divisional leaders after dropping a heartbreaker at Boston and getting stomped at Detroit. They also showed that the difference between trashy and terrific can be as subtle as a tweak in the playing rotation.

Jason Terry, who had been forced into the starting lineup at point guard because of the injury to Devin Harris, returned to his sixth man role, with J.J. Barea starting at the point. Terry played his usual minutes, but the alteration made all the difference.

After the Mavericks had staved off Orlando's comeback attempt, coach Avery Johnson stood on the court as his players filed past him toward the locker room. He passed out high-fives and hugs in one of the most emotional moments of the season.

"I wanted the men to know that I'm in their corner," Johnson said. "I'm out there fighting. I think I stood up tonight more than I've stood up the whole season, just letting them know that if we're going to go down, then I'm going to go down with them."

The collective effort was amazing, considering how poorly the Mavs played in a 23-point loss to the Pistons on Sunday.

AP

The Dallas Mavericks' Jason Terry (left) dishes the ball off as Orlando's Maurice Evans and Dwight Howard converge on him.

Terry needed to get back into a comfort zone, so the natural move was to get him out of the starting lineup. The move had the desired effect. Terry hit 8-of-14 shots, the first time since Jan. 19 that he's hit at least half of his shots (seven games).

Terry, who prides himself on being able to fill any role asked of him, admitted it might have been a good move to get him back in the sixth-man role that has been so good for him this season.

"It's an adjustment to make," he said. "I've been able to do it in the past, but the last two games, it just didn't go as smoothly as it usually does."

It certainly seemed to help his shot. But there have been suggestions coming from all sides about his shooting of late – in particular from his coach.

"With Jet, we've always said, when you're open, shoot," Johnson said. "And when you're not open, shoot, because we love for you to shoot."

Said Terry: "I was getting calls from here to Seattle, Washington, to shoot the ball. They thought I was a little hesitant the other night. But shooters shoot."

And so, he did. And so did Josh Howard, who scored a team-high 28 points. Dirk Nowitzki matched Terry's 20 points as the Mavericks led the entire game.

Dallas' lead reached 19 in the second quarter, but it was down to 83-80 in the fourth. Terry started a 10-0 blitz with an 18-foot running jumper and hit two more perimeter shots in the run.

"That's the money time of the basketball game," Terry said.

Orlando, which got 28 points from Dwight Howard, never got closer than six the rest of the way. The best thing Terry did was take the right shots, Johnson said. Against Detroit, he passed up an open 3-pointer when the game was still in reach, drawing his coach's ire.

"When he's open and he doesn't shoot, then we have a problem," Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Barea did a nice job of setting an early tempo. Johnson said he considered moving Barea into the lineup at Detroit but was concerned about matchup problems defensively.

It worked wonderfully against Orlando, which also starts a Puerto Rican point guard, Carlos Arroyo.

Technically, the Mavericks went 2-2 on this trip, since it started in Memphis. But they went home for a day before starting the Boston-Detroit-Orlando swing.

"O-2 road trip was not the way we wanted to start," Nowitzki said of the Celtics and Pistons games. "We definitely wanted to go home with a win."