Power Rankings Week 23: Mavs Rise!

[SleepingHero]

https://www.nba.com/news/power-rankings-2023-24-week-23

#7 DALLAS MAVERICKS

The Mavs have won seven of their last eight games, with the only loss having come without Luka Doncic, by single digits, and in Oklahoma City. They seem to be in a three-team race for the final guaranteed playoff spot in the Western Conference, tied in the loss column with both the sixth-place Suns and seventh-place Kings.

Three takeaways

• The Mavs rank third defensively (107.7 points allowed per 100 possessions) over this 7-1 stretch, though they’re still a couple of good defensive games from climbing out of the bottom 10 on that end of the floor for the season. The eight games have been pretty balanced regarding the strength of the opposing offenses.
  
• Better defense can lead to more transition opportunities, and the Mavs had two great transition sequences in their win over the Jazz on Thursday, one resulting in a lob for Derrick Jones Jr. and the other finishing with a lob for Kyrie Irving, the guy who’s given their transition game a big boost. The Mavs have seen the league’s second-biggest jump in both pace and transition points per game, and they’ve averaged 16.4 fast break points per 48 minutes with Irving on the floor, compared to just 14.8 per 48 with him off the floor.
  
• More transition (along with a couple of bouncy bigs) leads to more layups and dunks. And over their last seven games, the Mavs have outscored their opponents by an average of 16.3 points in the restricted area. They’ve still been outscored by 1.7 per game (18th) for the season, but that’s a big improvement from last season (-5.6, 28th).
  

Having just handled the Jazz last week, the Mavs will now begin a five-game trip in Utah, with two huge games in Sacramento on Tuesday and Friday. No Western Conference offense has scored more efficiently against the Dallas defense than that of the Kings, who scored 127 points per 100 possessions as they won the two




Mavs behind only the Nuggets, Wolves, OKC, and Pelicans. Call me delusional but if the Mavs continue the vibes I think they have a good shot at all of those teams.

[Smitty]

Mavs can’t look ahead to tomorrow nights matchup with the Kings. The last time in Salt Lake the Mavs got embarrassed 90-127. The starters in that game were Exum-Kai-DJJ-Luka-Lively so it’s not that they were short handed.

Dirk Nowitzki: "Utah is a bad city."