DALLAS MAVERICKS Advanced Stats: PACE #20 93.1 OFF #8 107.6 DEF #7 102.3 Dallas did exactly what people expected from them in the regular season: be one of the top seeds in the Western conference. They were one of the most fundamentally sound teams in the league, even though Dirk Nowitzki got injured and missed some games that resulted in six losses in a row. Without this injury, Dallas would have most... Read more

2009/10 Review: The Dallas Mavericks were the winners of the trade deadline last season when they acquired Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood from the Washington Wizards and many pundits predicted them to be the second best team in the West. The truth must be told: they finished the regular season with a 55-27 record and with Butler and Haywood in the team, they went 22-6 - a whopping 78.5% winning percentage... Read more

The Dallas Mavericks somehow overachieved last season because many experts predicted that they could even miss the playoffs, but Dallas ended the regular season with a 50-32 record and beat the Spurs in the first round of the Western Conference Playoffs. However, let me say that they didn't start well the season. With a new head coach in Rick Carlisle, the Mavs started 2-7 on their first 9 games of the season, having... Read more

The last three seasons were a nightmare for Mark Cuban, who saw his team failing when they weren't supposed to. In 2005/2006, they finished the regular season with a 60-22 record and went to the NBA finals, where they lost to Miami by 4-2, when they were up by 2-0. In 2006/2007 they had an even more amazing regular season record of 67-15, but they suffered the biggest upset ever on the first round of the Playoffs... Read more

LAKERS VS DENVER The Lakers finished the regular season with the top seed in the West and so, they will face the 8th seed Denver in the first round of the playoffs. Bynum won't probably play during this series and I actually doubt he will play again this season. It is rare to find a difference of seven games between the 1st and the 8th in a conference, but this has happened in this wild Western conference... Read more

Western Conference: 10. Portland Trailblazers Portland is one of the main surprises this season, as they are a team which passed from active dogs to favored by large spreads, which made the bettors struggle a lot. Portland had an amazing month in December, but after that the bookies, knowing that the bettors would start betting on the Blazers , started favoring the team by a large number of points, but as... Read more