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Nobody is talking about the Mavs
Can Dallas catch the Spurs in the Southwest Division? (PER Diem: March 1, 2011)
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Hollinger By John Hollinger
ESPN.com
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KiddMatthew Emmons/US PresswireThe Spurs and Lakers may be the favorites out West, but don't count out Jason Kidd and the Mavs.
It's time to talk about Dallas again.
You remember the Mavs, right? The team that has the league's third-best record. The team that has won 16 of its past 17 games? The team that, for some reason, absolutely nobody is talking about right now?
Yeah, those guys.
Last season, you'll recall, they accomplished a similar feat, winning 15 straight games after the break against a soft stretch of schedule while my Power Rankings frowned in disapproval.
This year looks a little different. While the Mavs are only seventh in the current rankings, they're within a point of third. Look at the "rating" and not the ranking, and you'll see there are essentially seven teams as near-equals at the top, followed by a chasm separating No. 7 Dallas from No. 8 Philadelphia and the rest of the league.
Similar to last year, Dallas again has an unusually bad point differential for its record, with just a plus-3.9 average scoring margin; their brethren in the contender community all are at plus-6.0 or better. The difference is that they're actually playing really well right now.
The point differential numbers are skewed a bit by a horrid 10-game stretch when Dirk Nowitzki was out of the lineup, but let's focus instead on the 20 games Dallas has played with Dirk and without Caron Butler -- essentially, the team they'll take into the playoffs. There, the résumé brightens considerably. The Mavs are 17-3 with a plus-6.3 average scoring margin in that stretch, a far cry from the series of smoke-and-mirrors wins last March. Although the opposition was soft, 12 of the 20 games were on the road.
The Mavs are a weird team that doesn't quite fit our construct of what a contender ought to look like -- there's only one star, and they have a bunch of little guards running around, and their only real small forward is 92 years old and was released by one of the worst teams in captivity.
But they're really effective. And while they give off the same "regular-season overachiever" vibe that Chicago does in the East, one would prefer to have a more valid empirical reason for dismissing a team's chances.
Which takes us to the first big question in today's Western Conference FAQ: Can Dallas catch San Antonio? Jason Terry said it was doable, and Tony Parker's injury undoubtedly throws fuel on the fire. So
Can Dallas catch San Antonio? Standing six games back with 23 to play, the Mavs have their work cut out for them, even with Parker out two to four weeks with a calf strain. (And given Gregg Popovich's history of valuing the big picture over the short term, you can bet it will be closer to four weeks than two before Parker returns). Dallas has only one game left against the Spurs, on March 18, so even with a win they have to make up five games in the rest of the slate.
Beating the Spurs in March would tie the season series, and making up the rest of the ground would probably allow Dallas to catch San Antonio in division record (one game behind if they win in March) and conference record (four back with a win in March), so that Dallas would probably, but not certainly, have the tiebreaker.
Five games back doesn't seem like much, but if San Antonio doesn't totally choke, then Dallas nearly has to run the table. Even sans Parker, San Antonio won't be bad -- George Hill can adequately fill in at the point, and Manu Ginobili and Gary Neal also can initiate the offense. The Spurs still have some big games left (twice against Miami and the Lakers, once against Boston), but even so, I have trouble seeing them doing any worse than 12-10 in the 22 non-Dallas games; most likely they'll do substantially better.
Take San Antonio's worst-case of 12-10 and you'll see the Mavs have to go 17-5; if the Spurs improve much on that 12-10 mark, it quickly becomes impossible for Dallas to catch them even with a win in March. Should San Antonio go 15-7, for instance, it requires Dallas to go 20-2 against a schedule that isn't chopped liver. And that's assuming a win on March 18; lose that one, and their hopes are toast.
So no, I don't think they can do it. But they could make it a bit more interesting along the way.
Can the Lakers win three straight series on the road? The two-time defending champion Lakers are in third in the West right now, which means they could have some rough sledding come playoff time. Because Boston nearly did the same thing a year ago as the No. 4 seed before faltering at the end of Game 7 in the Finals, we've lost sight of just how difficult this feat is in practice.
In the last three decades, only one team -- the 1994-95 Rockets -- has won a championship playing more than two series without home-court advantage. Otherwise you have to go all the way back to the 1977-78 Bullets to find a team that won three straight series on the road to claim a title.
Others have won as a No. 3 seed, but it takes help. San Antonio was in the same position in 2007, but was on the road only once in four series; an upset gave the Spurs the home court in the conference finals, and they had a better record than any team in the East (L.A. does not). And the Lakers and Detroit also won as No. 3s this decade, but they were really No. 2s -- they had home-court advantage against the No. 2 in the second round.
The Lakers themselves have yet to win a series without home-court advantage in the post-Shaq era. The last time they pulled it off was the 2004 conference finals against Minnesota.
So it appears for the Lakers to have realistic hope of a three-peat, one of two things needs to happen -- either they need to pass Dallas for the second seed (possible: they're two games back and play the Mavs twice more), or they need some help in the playoffs in the form of an upset of a higher-seeded foe.
How settled are the last four spots? A lot less than they looked on Sunday morning, let's put it that way. Denver, Memphis, New Orleans and Portland still hold the upper hand in the race for the final four spots in the West, but Houston's comeback win at New Orleans and Channing Frye's back-to-back game winners have reinserted some doubt into the proceedings.
Phoenix is now just a half-game behind Memphis for the final playoff spot and, unfathomably, is only two and a half out of fifth. Unfortunately, the Suns lose tiebreakers to both Portland and Memphis, which is why the playoff odds give them a slightly pessimistic 47.2 percent chance of cracking the top eight.
Houston, meanwhile, cannot be dismissed -- not with 12 home games remaining and Kevin Martin in blowtorch mode. In fact, tonight's game in Portland is sneaky-important. Right now the Rockets project to finish two games behind the Blazers, but if they swing this one into the win column, they'll project as nearly a dead heat.
Houston has already blown the tiebreaker against Portland, but a win would even its record at 31-31, with 12 of its final 20 games at home and four of the road games against bottom-seven teams. Win tonight, in other words, and it's pretty easy to see Houston landing at 43 or 44 wins and factoring into the conversation, which is why the playoff odds project a surprisingly rosy 29 percent chance even though the Rockets are three games off the pace. Houston also owns a tiebreak against Memphis and (with a win later this season) New Orleans.
Despite the fact that Memphis is in eighth right now, Portland and New Orleans may ultimately prove easier to catch. The Grizzlies have only eight road games left and are playing well, while the other two have more even schedules and more uneven recent results. Utah, meanwhile, is only a game back but fairly easily dismissed based on its recent play.
Nonetheless, the odds tilt in favor of Denver, New Orleans, Memphis and Portland being the four teams left standing when the dust settles, in that order. Just not nearly as strongly as they did a couple of days ago.
Who's the low seed everyone wants to avoid? Easy call: Memphis. The Grizzlies are a scary first-round opponent for several reasons. First, they're better than their record, having taken up permanent residency in the top 12 in the Power Rankings. Second, they're going to be better in the playoffs than they are now, once Rudy Gay comes back and Shane Battier is fully integrated; as an added plus, the mere fact they're not playing Hasheem Thabeet will likely help, too. Moreover, in a playoff series, FedEx Mausoleum might have some actual fans in it.
But the real reason to fear Memphis is its checklist of goodies that scares the West's top contenders. Take the Lakers, for instance. You think L.A. wants to have Memphis put Tony Allen on Kobe Bryant, or have Pau Gasol go up against a younger brother who knows all his tricks, or have Derek Fisher try to stay in front of Mike Conley?
Go right down the list and you'll see similar concerns. Dallas has nobody that can guard Rudy Gay or Zach Randolph, while Battier is a wild card the Griz can throw at Nowitzki; similarly, San Antonio is a big man short and lacks great answers for Gay. Oklahoma City, post-trade, matches up a little better -- it didn't have any answer for Randolph before getting Kendrick Perkins -- but I don't think anybody is excited to face this team.
Want proof? San Antonio played Memphis twice at home and barely won both; one went to OT. The Griz beat L.A. twice, one a 19-point beatdown in Staples, and have won two of their three meetings with both Dallas and Oklahoma City. Overall, against the West's top four they're 6-6, even though seven of the 12 games were on the road.
As I've written before, upsets in first-round series virtually never happen when the home-court team also won the season series; in at least three of the four matchups involving Memphis, that won't be the case. Sum it up and if there's a team to avoid, this is the one.
