Mavericks appear poised for strong season finish, unlike last year’s

INDIANAPOLIS — During last season’s NBA All-Star weekend in Salt Lake City, no team had more buzz surrounding it than Dallas.

But here in Indianapolis during this season’s All-Star weekend? Barely a peep was said about the Mavericks.

Last season’s Mavericks were 31-29 and carried a three-game losing streak into the break, but they were just five games into the Luka Doncic-Kyrie Irving Era. They were the only franchise with two All-Star starters.

This year’s Mavericks are 32-23. They co-own with Boston the NBA’s longest current winning streak at six games. Dallas is 3-0 since the acquisitions of Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington, having also recently been fortified by the injury returns of Irving, Dereck Lively II and Maxi Kleber.

And after missing 19 of the last 21 games, Dante Exum’s return appears imminent.

Clearly there’s much more reason to be bullish about Dallas’ post-All-Star chances than this time last season.

“It’s about us and everyone that’s in that locker room and continuing to get that work in on off days,” Irving said of the winning streak. “And doing the little things to be prepared to play whatever amount of minutes that coach asks you to.

“I think once we matured, in that sense of being able to lock into our roles, you’re seeing some highly successful basketball being played.”

Guess what, though? At last season’s All-Star break, the Mavericks were sixth in the Western Conference.

Now they are seventh, albeit just one game behind fifth-place Phoenix, which happens to be the team Dallas will host Thursday night as both teams begin post-break play, both with 27 games remaining.

“Good test for us,” Suns forward Kevin Durant said after Sunday night’s All-Star Game, won 211-186 by the East. “They’ve been playing well lately. They’ve got some new additions to their team that will challenge us.

“It’s a great game to start the second half of the season with.”

That might have been All-Star Weekend’s most lengthy Mavericks-related comment by a non-Dallas player, other than Nikola Jokic quipping after his buddy Doncic’s 7-point performance: “Luka’s really bad for this game. He’s worse than me, 100%.”

Perhaps Doncic, along with his stated disdain that no one tries on defense in All-Star games, also wanted to help the Mavericks remain under the radar, unlike last year in Salt Lake City, where Irving scored a franchise All-Star-record 32 points, plus 15 assists and 7 rebounds.

Doncic did nothing in Indianapolis to boost his profile in Most Valuable Player discussion, but he was far from the only All-Star who played listlessly.

Besides, his MVP chances largely will be dictated by his ability to maintain his averages of 34.2 points, 9.5 assists and 8.5 rebounds and Dallas’ bid to move up in the conference…