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'Most-Improved' Dallas Mavs Surge Into NBA Power Rankings Top 5
The Dallas Mavericks are the hottest team in the NBA right now, and their recent stretch of games was enough for NBA.com to put them in the top five of Monday's Power Rankings.
The Dallas Mavericks are playing their best basketball with just four games remaining in the regular season, and a methodical 22-7 run since Feb. 5 has not only given them sole possession of the No. 5 seed in the Western Conference, but it has also landed them in the top five of NBA.com's Power Rankings.
The top five teams on this week's Power Rankings list are as follows: 1) Boston Celtics. 2) Denver Nuggets. 3) Oklahoma City Thunder. 4) Minnesota Timberwolves. 5) Dallas Mavericks.
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"If you like teams playing well going into the postseason, the Mavs are your squad in the Western Conference. With Dante Exum (8-for-12 on clutch 3s!) saving them against the Rockets on Sunday, they’ve won 14 of their last 16 games to give themselves a shot at a top-four seed in the Western Conference," John Schuhmann wrote.
"The Mavs have been the league’s most improved team since the trade deadline, both in regard to winning percentage (20-7 vs. 28-23) and point differential per 100 possessions (plus-7.2 vs. minus-0.1). The improvement has been mostly about defense, with Dallas ranking seventh on that end of the floor since the deadline.
"Their current starting lineup (frontline of Derrick Jones Jr., P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford) was a plus-8 in a little less than 10 minutes against the Warriors on Tuesday, the Mavs’ only loss in the 14 games in which that lineup has started together, and it’s allowed just 97.6 points per 100 possessions in its 151 total minutes."
The Mavs facing the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the playoffs for the third time in five years is almost a certainty at this point, and with the way the new-look roster is playing with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving leading the charge, there could be a much different outcome this time around.
