DALLAS – The pressure had been building with every missed shot until when Kostas Papanikolaou finally saw a 3-pointer fall, he shouted and punched the air happily, releasing all the tension that had grown from his nervous first steps into an NBA game.

The game finally found a relative respite from the long, ugly parade to the free throw line, and with the starters’ night over, the Rockets began to find something more meaningful than the Rockets’ and Mavericks’ apparent pursuit of a foul every 30 seconds.

Papanikolaou hit another 3. Ish Smith pushed the offense. Donatas Motiejunas scored inside. Finally, Jeff Adrien took over down the stretch and the goal that actually meant something as the Rockets began their preseason schedule – rebuilding the bench – found at least some traction.

The Rockets surged past the Mavericks, 111-108, on Tuesday, a victory mercifully clinched when Papanikolaou was fouled with .2 seconds remaining and made all three free throws to end nearly three hours of preseason basketball.

“Whether or not that was the accurate call at the end, it was the right call because it spared everybody five more minutes of basketball agony,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “The rookie official, Don Hudson, I was impressed with him. And I was even more impressed after the last call.”

The teams combined for 91 fouls to remove any shape from the game. Until the Rockets bench finally surged in the second half, the highlight of the night might have been an exchange with Rockets coach Kevin McHale and Chandler Parsons in the first half.

Agonizing as the first-half foul fest on Tuesday had to be to endure, there was a moment to mark the occasion that even the whistles that provided the soundtrack for the evening could not interrupt. As McHale called a play with his former small forward a few feet away, Parsons asked him to repeat the call he had heard so many times through his first three NBA seasons.

“You didn’t know the plays last year,” McHale said. “You’re not going to know them this year.”

With that, McHale had a rare reason to smile. For most of the night, there were not many. Parsons scored his 14 points in the first half. Trevor Ariza looked like the suitable replacement he is expected to be, making 5 of 7 shots for his 12 points. But there was little either team could take from the play of the starters, with Dwight Howard fouling out in 15 minutes with six points, six rebounds, six shots, six free throws and six fouls, and Dirk Nowitzki not playing at all because of a bruised hip.

“We got a lot of free throw boxing out,” McHale said of the evening. “We need to work on that.

“I thought Papanikolaou, I put the ball in his hands and let Pap make some plays, which he did. Trying to go to D-Mo and D-Mo had some stuff going on. And D-Mo got Jeff Adrien some baskets late. I thought the second unit guys did fairly well.”

he Rockets’ bench made enough plays to have something to build on in the second half. McHale went with Nick Johnson and Ish Smith as his second-team backcourt, citing Smith’s play through camp and a desire to get a look at Johnson. Papanikolaou played 26 minutes backing up Ariza. Motiejunas played a game-high 27 minutes, leading both teams with 18 points on 7 of 11 shooting.

“It’s just the first game,” Motiejunas said. “Summer for me was long. For most of the guys it was the first game in two or three months. We’ll see what happens later.”

Motiejunas kept the Rockets in the game long enough for Jeff Adrien to take it over late, twice driving and scoring over former Rockets center Greg Smith, drawing a charge and then finally finishing with a dunk set up by Motiejunas. Papanikolaou clinched the win when he went to the line in the final fractions of a second, going from a night that began in which he could not make a shot to being unable to miss even when he wanted to clang his last free throw.

“When I first stepped on the court, I was a little bit nervous,” Papanikolaou said. “I wasn’t feeling that good. But as I kept playing, I started relaxing, feeling better and better every minute. In the end, I was feeling very good.”

He was not the only one, but for a handful of Rockets reserves, there was reason to be pleased besides that the marathon had finally gotten the foul that was enough to end it.