Where have these Mavericks been?

As a former sports writer, I have had the opportunity to cover more than my share of college and pro basketball post-season play and I heard on numerous occasions that a single basketball season is, like Gaul, divided into three parts. In college, it's the pre-conference season, the conference season and the NCAA tournament. In the NBA, it's the pre-season, the regular season and the playoffs. Each succeeding season requires a little more intensity.

That is something I never thought the Mavericks understood. They seemed to think they could take their level of play that took them to a successful regular season into post-season play. Teams like the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat know better, which is why the Spurs and the Heat have NBA titles and the Mavericks don't.

Last night, however, the Mavericks finally seemed to play as though they finally understood what it takes to win in the playoff season. Or as that fine basketball writer Eddie Sefko put it:

"The Mavericks' education in this series continues by the game, and like college kids who don't get what their professor sometimes says, it appeared that a light bulb went off Tuesday."

Now the question is whether they'll remember the course material and pass the final two exams in this series tomorrow and Saturday.

Which brings up another point. Everyone's been talking about how it's almost impossible to come back from a 3-1 deficit in a best-of-seven series. My response is: The Spurs won three consecutive games in this series so why can't the Mavs do the same thing? If they continue to play like they did last night, they shouldn't have any trouble doing just that.