Bryant had 38 points to win a scoring duel with Nowitzki, and Steve Nash helped beat his former team by scoring 20 points for the first time with the Los Angeles Lakers in a 103-99 victory against the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday.

Nowitzki finished with a season-high 30 in a game that had a playoff feel from the start, even though both teams still have plenty of ground to make up to even qualify for the postseason. They trail eighth-place Houston by several games, but they are the franchises that have the last three NBA titles won by teams from the West.

Bryant and Nowitzki had 16 points apiece in the first half and were still even at 24 after the third quarter before Bryant scored 14 in the fourth, including seven in the last 3 minutes. They were a combined 8 of 9 from 3-point range and hit 24 shots and 12 free throws between them.

“It’s fun,” said Bryant, who also had 12 rebounds and seven assists. “He’s one of my all-time favorites. He’s a throwback type of player. He doesn’t mind the physicality. He made some incredible plays down the stretch.”

Bryant, who went past the 31,000-point mark, was playing in Mark Cuban’s building two days after the outspoken Dallas owner suggested in a radio interview that the Lakers might have to consider dumping the five-time NBA champion through the amnesty clause.

The Lakers responded by calling the comment inappropriate, and Cuban defended himself before the game.

“Amnesty THAT,” Bryant tweeted after the game.

“I’m sure if he wants to amnesty Dirk, that’s something we’ll be willing to entertain,” Bryant told reporters.

The Mavericks were so frustrated trying to guard Bryant, O.J. Mayo got called for a foul and a technical when he jumped around wildly after the whistle blew on a drive to the basket by Bryant. Nash made the technical shot, and Bryant hit his pair of free throws for a 94-90 lead.

“He’s been the best player in my decade,” said Nowitzki, who also had his season high with 13 rebounds after missing the first 27 games following knee surgery. “I’ve in the NBA a long time and he’s the one player I love to watch. It was a big game on the national TV stage. It was a fun one. We just came up a little bit short.”

Nowitzki was called for a technical earlier in the fourth quarter after a similar display when he missed a shot during a physical sequence with Metta World Peace.

“It was very intense,” said Mavericks rookie Jae Crowder, who spent his share of time trying to guard Bryant. “From the crowd standpoint, from the player standpoint, from the officiating. You could tell.”

Three times in the final 3 minutes, Bryant put the Lakers up four after the Mavericks had pulled within two. The last gave Los Angeles a 101-97 lead with 46.9 seconds left.

Nowitzki scored to make it a two-point game, and World Peace missed a free throw to give Dallas a chance to tie. Mayo missed a 3-pointer with about 5 seconds left, and Bryant clinched it with a free throw that made it a two-possession game.

“That’s why he’s Kobe Bryant,” Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s not John Smith. No disrespect to John Smith, whoever he is. That’s what he does. That’s what he loves. That’s what he trains for.”

Nash had 13 of his 20 points and three of his four 3-pointers in the second half, including one that answered Mayo’s only bucket from long range and put the Lakers up 99-95.

“He came on in the second half and really gave us a big boost,” Bryant said. “He was very aggressive and it forced them to make changes defensively. He’s extremely clutch.”

Dwight Howard had three big free throws in the fourth, including one that put Los Angeles ahead for good at 91-90, and finished with nine points and 13 rebounds.

The Lakers had the biggest lead at six — several times — and the Mavericks erased each one through three quarters. Nowitzki’s 3-pointer from the top of the key late in the third made him 4 of 4 from long range and capped a 7-0 run for a 71-70 Dallas lead, but Bryant scored twice on drives after a timeout to put the Lakers in front again.

In the first half, Nowitzki was 5 of 8 from the floor, made both 3-pointers and all four free throws and led everyone with eight rebounds. Bryant, meanwhile, was 3 of 4 from long range, including a pair from well behind the arc, but just 1 of 6 inside the line. He had a game-high six assists before halftime.

Game notes

Bryant got a technical in the first quarter when he gestured at referee Ken Mauer after Darren Collison stole ball. It was his league-leading 13th technical — one ahead of DeMarcus Cousins of Sacramento. A one-game suspension is in order when a player reaches 16 technicals. … Mavericks C Chris Kaman entered the game in the second quarter after missing 10 straight games with a concussion. … The Mavericks scored at least 30 points in the first quarter for the fifth time in six games.

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“We still like this team a lot,” Buss said Thursday in an interview with ESPNLA 710 radio in Los Angeles. “How can you not believe in this team? This team is built to win. It’s a very, very solid team. We haven’t seen them all together and play together for games. In my mind, we would not consider a temporary fix or blow it up. Why blow up something we have a future with?

“It’s very difficult to talk this way because we’re five games under or six games under .500, and we’ve dug ourselves a hole. But at the same time, I feel that if we put it together, we can string seven or eight games in a row and dig ourselves out of this hole. If we play with the energy we’ve seen in the last two games, then I think you go into the playoffs with momentum.”

Buss was referring, of course, to the Lakers’ injury woes this season. Steve Nash missed seven weeks with a broken bone in his leg. Dwight Howard has struggled in his recovery from back surgery and is now out indefinitely with a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Pau Gasol has missed time with assorted leg injuries and is now out with a concussion. Backup point guard Steve Blake has missed all but the first five games with an abdominal injury.

Still, bad luck hasn’t been the whole story of the Lakers’ season. The team fired coach Mike Brown five games into the season and chose Mike D’Antoni to replace him when former coach and 11-time NBA champion Phil Jackson was available and interested in the job.

General manager Mitch Kupchak has previously said the Lakers chose D’Antoni because they felt his system would apply to this roster better than Jackson’s Triangle offense. Buss concurred and said he, Kupchak and his father, owner Dr. Jerry Buss, still feel that way.

“We thought Steve Nash was our future point guard for the next three years and we needed a coach we felt would fit with him,” Buss said. “That was one of the main issues where we thought that D’Antoni was better than Phil. Well, not better, nobody’s better than Phil, but we felt that he fit the team the way we wanted to work it.

“I like D’Antoni a lot. I still believe in him 100 percent. I have no questions about him. We just have to have this team work together and play together. We just don’t have enough information to analyze anything. It’s just not enough data to put your finger on a problem.”

Injuries and everything else aside, what if this team and its $99.2 million payroll don’t make the playoffs?

“We stuck our neck out with this payroll because Kobe (Bryant) is in the twilight of his career and we want to win championships,” Buss said. “Now, am I upset that we might not make the playoffs? Of course. I’d be upset if I had a $10 payroll or a $200 million payroll. I want to make the playoffs and I want to win championships. But to panic? No, we’re not going to panic.”

The Lakers could face a difficult situation in convincing Howard to re-sign with them when he becomes an unrestricted free agent July 1. The Lakers can offer more years and more money than any other team because of the way the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is structured, but would Howard want to stick around after a season that’s gone so poorly?

“If we make the playoffs, that means we’re playing well and I think we’ll go deep in the playoffs and it’s a no-brainer that he stays,” Buss said. “I think if it continues to fall apart because of injuries, I’m hoping we can convince him, ‘Look, everybody was injured, you weren’t 100 percent for the whole year, let’s give it another shot next year.’

“It points to 95 percent that we’ll be able to keep him. I can’t control what he does, but I can sure make a great argument.”

As for Gasol, who is averaging a career-low 12.6 points a game and has struggled each of the past two seasons to find his place in the Lakers’ offense, Buss said he expects the 7-foot Spaniard not only to revert to his previous form, but to play more in the low post, as both Gasol and Bryant have advocated.

“I love Pau Gasol,” Buss said. “The thing is, if you shoot the basketball from 6 feet, your percentages are going to be in the high 50s. If you shoot from 18 feet, you’re lucky to get 40 percent. To base his year off of his shooting percentages is just not the right way to analyze how he’s playing.

“I believe if we can get him down low, he can coexist with Dwight Howard if they play enough games to where they can play off each other. I believe eventually he will move down there and D’Antoni will move him down there and his percentage will go back right to where it was.”

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