Against All Odds, Mavericks A Playoff Team
By Duncan Smith
The Dallas Mavericks were picked by almost no one to make the playoffs this season, but with a victory on Monday over the Utah Jazz they have clinched a spot.
The Dallas Mavericks had a disastrous offseason this past year. After thinking they had made one of the biggest acquisitions of the free agency period when they signed DeAndre Jordan, formerly of the Los Angeles Clippers, they were in for a shock when Jordan got cold feet and opened the door to his teammates to talk him out of relocating to his home state of Texas.
The whole saga was one of the most entertaining 24-hour periods in NBA offseason history, spawning humorous theories of hostage situations in Jordan’s house (check out the bottom tweet by Blake Griffin as an example of that) and Mavs owner Mark Cuban driving through the suburbs of Houston trying to locate Jordan.
But it had a dramatic effect on the Mavericks’ outlook on the coming season and future seasons alike as he backed out of the contract prior to the end of the free agency moratorium to return to the Clippers.
In story with @ramonashelburne we also report Mavs now fear they won't now get audience with Jordan as Clips have essentially surrounded him
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) July 9, 2015
So far, Clippers able to keep everyone else out of house, including Cuban, agents. Everyone. They're in four-corners until midnight Eastern.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 9, 2015
Don't agree with the furniture layout but I'm not an interior designer. pic.twitter.com/23PNgQB88z
— Blake Griffin (@blakegriffin23) July 9, 2015
Needless to say, the Mavs were pissed off. They focused the negative energy in a way that only a well-coached and motivated team full of veterans could, however, and they surged to a hot start and a 9-4 record 13 games into the season.
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They were able to play essentially .500 ball from that point on, rarely getting more than five or six games above the breakeven mark, but never getting close than two or three games to it either.
The wheels seemed to fall off around the beginning of March, when the Mavericks began a five-game losing streak, and ended up losing 11 of 13 games betweeen March 3-27, a time when teams with playoff aspirations are supposed to be going on a run to amp up for the postseason.
Right around the time the rest of the basketball world stopped paying attention to the Mavs, believing that they had finally have become what we all expected them to be, they righted the ship and went on a spectacular tear that is still ongoing.
Having bottomed out with a record of 35-38, a couple games out of the last playoff spot, the Mavericks have won seven of their last eight games, including a playoff-clinching 101-92 victory Monday night against the Utah Jazz on the road in Salt Lake City.
The Mavericks are currently alone in seventh place in the Western Conference and are a likely favorite to climb to sixth as the injury-ravaged Memphis Grizzlies will be fodder for the Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday and then will get the pleasure of being the victim of the Golden State Warriors 73rd win on Wednesday.
The Mavericks own the tiebreaker with the Grizzlies thanks to a 3-1 head-to-head record, so if both teams lose out (the Mavs play the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday to conclude the regular season, so it’s likely) the Mavs will take the sixth seed.
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Thanks to the efforts of guys like Dirk Nowitzki, Wesley Matthews and Deron Williams, and the splendid coaching of Rick Carlisle, who should receive multiple Coach of the Year award votes, this Dallas Maverick team is a playoff team.
Nobody thought it would happen, and nobody can deny they deserve every bit of it.