Simmering below Ja Morant’s nightly trapeze act, an endless trickle of status reports about Ben Simmons, Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving, LeBron James’s ongoing quest to fix the broken Lakers and many other storylines that have come to define the first half of this season, the Mavericks are becoming a stealth contender.
Winning 10 of its last 11 games, Dallas is 26–19, an energized fifth seed in a wide-open Western Conference with one of the world’s five most talented players on its side.
But sometimes an impressive stretch is less meaningful than why it’s happening. In Dallas, recent success marks a significant shift in what is and hasn’t been the priority. After not finishing with a top-10 defense since 2012, the Mavs currently rank fourth in defensive rating, with the NBA’s best defense over the past month.
