At its core, the Mavs’ philosophy isn’t all that complicated: slow the game down, avoid turnovers, and play halfcourt basketball on both ends. Simply put, Dallas wants to control the tempo and manage the game, avoiding mistakes offensively while forcing them defensively.
In basic terms, that’s also what every other NBA team wants to do, but the Mavericks do it better than most. Obviously no one plans on turning the ball over 15 times in a game, but Dallas happens to have done it fewer times — just seven — than all 29 other teams. Every team hopes to play at their own tempo, but in today’s NBA it feels like it takes more commitment to play a game at a 95-possession pace than it does to play 100; only seven teams average fewer than 97 possessions per 48 minutes, but four of them would be in the playoffs if the tournament started today, and Dallas (one of the three who wouldn’t be) is knocking on the door.