The Mavericks have played six games, less than 10 percent of the NBA season and while they are 4-2 and happy to have won all three of their road games, Rick Carlisle isn’t ready to hand out any bouquets.
So when the Mavericks woke up Tuesday No. 1 in the NBA in offensive efficiency rating, Carlisle sort of gave it a figurative yawn.
“In my opinion, these numbers really don’t start being significant until you’re 10 or 15 games in because the sample size is small,” Carlisle said after Tuesday’s practice. “But if we’re highly graded in offense, we’re doing some good things.”
Not surprisingly, the coach wasted no time turning the high offensive rating around.
“We’re down around 20th in defense and that’s why the majority of our practice was defense today,” he said. “The next two or three opponents are bigger, stronger, more physical, better rebounding (teams). It’s attitude, mindset and disposition and that’s stuff we just got to bear down and pick it up.”
He speaks the truth. Starting with Orlando on Wednesday and continuing with New York on Friday, then Memphis on a back-to-back Saturday night, the Mavericks have some physical big teams awaiting them. The Magic Nikola Vucevic, Mo Bamba, Aaron Gordon and Jonathan Isaac manning the front line.
And while they are not a great rebounding team, they do know how to assert themselves on the interior offensively.
“The thing we got to be more consistent at is the defensive end,” Carlisle said. “It’s a great group of guys that plays well together in a lot of ways. But we got to be more tied together defensively.”
Seats for soldiers always a great night: The Mavericks will have their annual Seats For Soldiers event Wednesday and they have been virtually unbeatable in games where the front-row season-ticket holders give up their tickets for military members.
The Mavericks are 12-2 in the annual event and last season they beat Utah by 50 points on Seats For Soldiers night.
“It provides motivation, for sure,” Carlisle said. “We see a lot of folks that have made the ultimate sacrifice, are injured due to their service, and we can never thank them enough.
“It’s a great gesture for our courtside season-ticket holders to give up their seats. It’s a very special night for all the military folks that are there. We look forward to it with great anticipation every year.”
Kleber could return: Carlisle didn’t show his cards when it came to whether Maxi Kleber (right knee contusion) would be back in action after missing Sunday’s game at Cleveland.
“Maxi’s doing better and so far is trending the right way,” Carlisle said. “We’ll see how he feels (pregame).”
Trying to capitalize: The Mavericks haven’t had a back-to-back set of games yet.
And they won’t until Friday and Saturday of this week when they play New York at AAC and at Memphis the following night.
“We’ve got a schedule that has been favorable in terms of the spacing of the games to start the season,” Carlisle said. “We’re doing everything possible to put ourselves in position to take advantage of that. But the games are all hard. So we’re doing a lot of good things offensively. Again, our concentration needs to be at the defensive end because with more stops will come more and better-flowing offense.”
He pointed to the second half Sunday at Cleveland, when the Mavericks scored 73 points and held the Cavaliers to 39 percent shooting.
One led to the other.
Twitter: @ESefko
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