NEW ORLEANS - Nobody's proclaiming Maverick independence from the dreaded dive to deep in the lottery.
They have far too big a hole to climb out of to say that yet.

But with consecutive road wins and the knowledge that only four games separate them from the No. 8 spot in the Western Conference (occupied somewhat unbelievably by Sacramento), apparently anything's possible, right?

"We're not that far off," Deron Williams said. "That eighth seed is right there. We're what, three or four games back. There's a lot of time left. Hopefully we can get our guys and at some point see this team healthy."
The bottom half of the Western Conference is pretty much a hot mess.

The Kings are 13-17 and would qualify for the playoffs if they began today.

Fortunately for the NBA and basketball fans everywhere but Sacramento, the playoffs do not begin today.
Only the post-Christmas portion of the schedule starts now and the Mavericks fully intend to see if they can make that miserable 4-17 start nothing but a bad memory.

They are 5-4 since then, including 2-1 on this road trip that ends Monday at New Orleans and included a brief, 27-hour stopover in Dallas for everybody to say hello, Merry Christmas, and goodbye again.

What's happened in the last three weeks has the Mavericks thinking the unthinkable, which is that they can turn this thing around and at least give themselves a shot at the playoffs somewhere down the road.

And for those who feel all this is doing is messing up their potential top draft pick, oh well. Try telling that to the athletes who want to prove they aren't the worst team in the NBA, or even close to it.

"It's great," said Harrison Barnes. "It shows the resolve of this team. We had the fight all season, but it hasn't really showed up in the win column. It hasn't really showed up in the road wins. And it can be deflating at times. But we stuck with it and we've put two road wins together. We just have to continue it.

"It's funny. We lose some games early in the season and a lot of people wrote our season off. And we're just going to continue to battle and work and keep our heads down and put ourselves in a good situation at the end of the season."

Somehow, with Dirk Nowitzki looking like he's physically fit, rested and ready to be Dirk Nowitzki again, you can almost believe Barnes when he says this season can be salvaged.

For now, they just want to play hard in the moment and see where things go. They have another winnable road game Monday at New Orleans. And stacking up som road wins is the only way they can hope to make headway.
"When you go on the road at Christmastime, there are opportunities to steal games," coach Rick Carlisle said. "I'm real happy for the guys (with two consecutive road wins). The last couple days, things are looking up."

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