Being a Mavericks fan, I’m incredibly excited about where they sit at the All-Star break. 44 wins and 9 losses. Only 9 losses at the All-Star break. That’s less than ten. Does that even matter? Well, no. The only thing that will matter in the grand scheme of things is how they sit at the end of June. However, the second place team in the Southwest division, the Spurs, already have 18 losses. The best they can finish is 64-18, but that’s not going to happen. Even if the Spurs end up running the table, the Mavericks would have to lose more games in the remaining 29 games than they did in the first 53. Again, that’s not going to happen.

I started looking at the Mavs stats in wins & losses the other day. Unlike the Suns, there is a great difference in their production when they win than when they lose. First off, Dallas is averaging 102.2 points per game when they win, but only 88.6 points when they lose. That’s a 13.6 point difference. There are only four other teams (Denver, Boston, Memphis, Washington) who have a bigger difference in wins and losses. They also attempt 2.3 more field goals in losses, and all 2.3 of those are three pointers. Two more stats. The Mavs average 5.5 more rebounds per game when they win, and they average 1 more foul per game when they win. Charlotte, Minnesota, and Boston are the only other team who foul more when they win than when they lose.

So what do these stats tell us about how Dallas wins? One word. Aggressiveness. The three things that point to that are their rebounding, fouls, and field goal attempts. The thing that stands out to me when I watch Dallas lose is that they seem really passive. They don’t drive the ball to the paint enough, and they seem lazy on defense. The stats back those up.

The hard thing about being aggresive is that it can be tough to do every game. The regular season is really long, and there are some games (Charlotte for example), that are harder to get revved up for than others. That’s why Avery is the perfect coach for this team. He will not sit idly by and allow his team to get lazy. Keep it up coach.

You can see some of these stats at Yahoo! Sports.