The Dallas Mavericks finished the first half of the 2013-14 season on an emphatic note, winning six of their last seven and seven of their last nine--vaulting themselves from also-ran status to their current position as the sixth seed in the dog-eat-dog NBA Western Conference.
However, with LeBron James and the 2012-13 NBA Champion Miami Heat paying the Dallas Mavericks a visit on Tuesday night, Mavs superstar Dirk Nowitski made it clear that, compared to the champs, the Dallas Mavericks have a lot of work left to do--
“The last two years, they’re champs and one year we were the eighth seed going into the playoffs and got swept.” Nowitski added, “and the next year we didn’t make the playoffs. So it’s kind of hard to have a rivalry if we’re not even a playoff team."
The two franchises have taken on very different trajectories since the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat four games to two in the 2011 NBA Finals, capturing the first and only NBA championship in Dallas Mavericks history.
The "Big Three" have cemented their arrival and then some, erasing the disappointment of their first year as a unit by winning the last two NBA championships--and looking utterly dominant at times doing so.
The Dallas Mavericks have gone a respectable, yet hardly elite, 109-93 in the regular season since their title victory, with a first-round sweep at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the 2012 NBA Playoffs functioning as their only taste of the postseason since.
Even with all of this in mind, Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle made it clear Monday that the Mavericks aren't planning to wave the white flag for the Miami Heat, or any opponent for that matter--
“It’s not easy, but we’ve had some tough games lately. The Indiana game is as tough as they come, too. These kind of tests, you got to look forward to them and embrace them.”
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