LOS ANGELES -- So far this season, the Mavericks have been kind of like the rest of us.
They exist day to day, week to week, paycheck to paycheck, hoping to make ends meet and live to fight, work and laugh another day.
OK, so their paychecks have an extra zero or three on them. You get the point.
Which is that they have dug themselves out of the NBA equivalent of deep debt, having gone from that abysmal 2-7 start to four games over .500 before hitting their current three-game losing streak.
And so here they are, knowing that the goal over the next couple of weeks is to tread water.