SACRAMENTO – Remember the early and middle parts of this NBA season when coach Jason Kidd said that the Mavericks’ best defense was their offense?
Yeah, it seems like a long time ago.
These days, the Mavericks are proving to the many doubters out there that they can stop opponents from scoring. Kidd and his staff have been relentless in stressing defense. And the players have now bought in to what the coaches are selling because they are seeing results.
The Mavericks are in the top five in the NBA in defensive rating over the last 10 games. That’s enough of a sample size to prove that they are not allergic to that end of the court.
“That was early in the year,” Kidd said about his best-defense-is-offense strategy. “But as we can see, our defense has now caught up with our offense. And that’s just part of the season.
“When you’re a good team, you’ll find ways to win when you’re not scoring and that’s what we’re doing now. We’ve found a way to dominate the paint.”
The changes in the Mavericks have produced nine wins in their last 10 games, including Tuesday’s 132-96 pummeling of the Kings at Golden 1 Center. The Mavericks limited the Kings to 68 points in the final three quarters, similar to the 64 points they made Utah work for on Monday night after that 41-point first-quarter explosion.
These Mavericks are showing us all something.
Now, it doesn’t mean every game is going to be perfect defensively. It’s never like that for even the best teams. But getting consistent effort on that end of the floor is more than half the battle.
“We can play a lot of different ways,” Kidd said. “We can go slow. And then we can get out and run. The season is used to learn about one another, to learn trust, to go through different experiences.
“They’re not always going to be positive. How do you handle losing, how do you learn from losing. Our group has done an incredible job of being able to learn from losing and staying together.”
To the point of playing a lot of different ways, the Mavericks have two of the best half-court creators in the NBA in Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving. But they also have a lot of runners who can get down the court for transition buckets.
That’s what peeved Sacramento coach Mike Brown.
“They played last night, had to travel in,” Brown said. “We played last night, we were here. And to have five fast-break points is not good enough, especially when they had 18.”
Tack on the Mavericks’ 22-of-39 three-point shooting and we got a great look at just how lethal this team can be when both ends of the floor are working.
Here’s our other takeaways from the blowout win Tuesday:
Movin’ on up: The Mavericks woke up Wednesday morning in sole possession of sixth place in the Western Conference, a game ahead of Sacramento and the seventh position that would be part of the play-in tournament. Avoiding that is certainly an important goal. But at this point, the Mavericks probably should be looking up in the standings, not down. They are just one game behind New Orleans for the No. 5 seed and just 1½ games behind the Los Angeles Clippers for fourth place in the West, which would bring with it a home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs. With 10 games remaining in the regular season, that’s very much in play for the Mavericks.
He speaks the truth: Sacramento coach Mike Brown didn’t mince words after Tuesday’s game. “We got our behinds kicked,” he said. “Starting with me, all the way down. You got to give Dallas credit. They actually played the way that we like to play.”
Spreading it around: The Mavericks got 26 points from Dončić in the first quarter when he personally kept them in front of the Kings. Then, Irving and Tim Hardaway Jr. combined for 33 points in the second half. And they got nice contributions from P.J. Washington, Daniel Gafford and Derrick Jones Jr. sprinkled throughout the game. “I think that’s a true testament to the selflessness we have, just the mentality going into every game knowing that we’re ready to deal with all the punches teams throw at us,” Irving said. “We feel like we have the resolve. We have the perseverance. And we also have the IQ.”
X: @ESefko
Western Conference update
Team (seed) Record Games left (H-R)
Denver (1) 51-21………6-4
Oklahoma City (2) 50-21……….6-5
Minnesota (3) 49-22……….7-4
LA Clippers (4) 44-27……….6-5
New Orleans (5) 44-28……….6-4
Dallas (6) 43-29…….….4-6
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*Sacramento (7) 42-30……….6-4*
Phoenix (8) 42-30………4-6
LA Lakers (9) 40-32……….3-7
Golden State (10) 37-34………4-7
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Houston (11) 36-35………4-7
*–Owns tiebreaker via better divisional record
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