Mavericks Not Likely To Reach Fifth Seed In Conference
The Dallas Mavericks are playing better basketball as of late, but the odds of reaching the fifth seed in the Western Conference are very slim.
The Dallas Mavericks will try to make it three straight wins on Tuesday night at American Airlines Center in the fifth game of a six-game home stand. Dallas has managed to win each game during this stretch, takeaway a fourth-straight loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder last Wednesday.
There’s been much talk about how advantageous it would be for the Mavericks to climb up to the fifth seed, thus replacing the Memphis Grizzlies in that spot. The reasoning behind this poorly founded ideology is that this would theoretically pit the Mavericks against the fourth-seeded Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the NBA Western Conference playoffs beginning in about six weeks.
Let’s get something clear: The Mavericks will not climb to the fifth seed.
To accomplish this, we have to assume that a good Grizzlies team that’s going to try to hang on over the stretch run of the regular season is simply going to collapse without Spanish center Marc Gasol.
This isn’t likely, although Memphis does still have six games remaining against teams ranked above them in the Western Conference standings at this time.
For the Mavericks, the story is quite a bit different.
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Dallas will know all it needs to know about itself by the time March ends seeing as how it has three games this month against top-seeded teams in the league. The Mavericks play the Cleveland Cavaliers on the road on March 16th and play two games, home and away, against the Golden State Warriors on March 18th and 20th.
In fact, counting those games just mentioned above, the Mavericks still have seven games remaining against teams with better records than they have. There’s three more games against teams that are nipping at Dallas’ heals in the Western Conference for the sixth-seed.
The Mavs still play home and away against DeAndre Jordan and the Clippers, a couple of contests that will illustrate everything necessary to determine how good of a matchup between these two teams might be in the first round – each team has won on their home court in two previous games this season.
An interesting stretch later this month features two-straight games against the seventh seeded Portland Trail Blazers on March 20th and again on the 23rd. These two games could spell out not just Dallas’ playoff seeding, but whether or not the Mavs even qualify for the playoffs at all.
Again, that fifth seed is a lofty goal, and one that really shouldn’t be focused on as a conscious or stated goal, and I’m sure it’s not beyond discussion in the media and around the water cooler at the office. The Mavericks have only one game left with Memphis and this one will be a big one, but this by itself isn’t enough to make up the difference.
The reality is that each of the final 20 games on the schedule are huge for the Mavericks.
First things first.
The Orlando Magic at AAC beginning at 7:30pm CST.
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If Dallas can handle the Magic, which it couldn’t during an overtime loss in Orlando last month, then a potential four-game winning streak could be established with a win over the Sacramento Kings on Thursday at AAC that could help set the stage for a strong month of March, which is the only thing that should matter to the Mavericks right now.