If you think of all the descriptions of the Mavericks during the last two decades, you'd be able to fill a hoops dictionary.
But a term that hasn't been used very often when talking about them, if at all, is "mean streak."
That appears to be changing.
The Mavericks may never be a bad-boy team, but coach Rick Carlisle doesn't like a whole roster full of milk drinkers, either, as he likes to say.
When they took charge against Boston late in the third quarter and throughout the fourth for a 113-104 victory, it was with a fair amount of nastiness that they sealed the deal. They took hard fouls, popped up and got in the faces of the Celtic culprits, as rookie Luka Doncic did to Jaylen Brown in the third quarter when Doncic got leveled.
DeAndre Jordan got physical when it was needed. Wesley Matthews pushed and shoved and did whatever was necessary to defend Kyrie Irving in the second half.
"One of the characteristics is we have an edgy team and they're a competitive group and they did a really good job tonight of channeling their edginess toward the opponent," coach Rick Carlisle said. "And sticking together. There were some tough stretches. Our guys did a great job of sticking together. And that's been a big characteristic of this recent run is their togetherness."
As J.J. Barea added: "We got to play angry and play with an edge, and it works for us."
Here's a few of our other takeaways from the Mavericks' win that got them back to .500 at 9-9 and gave them an impressive 8-2 home record with six wins in a row at American Airlines Center.
-- The bench continues to be perhaps the Mavericks' most consistent asset. Barea had 20 points and eight assists, Devin Harris had nine points and was a plus-15 while he was on the court, leading the team in that department. According to Mavericks' research, every player who has started two games or less has a positive plus-minus. That's astounding and is why the Mavericks have the No. 1 bench in the NBA in terms of efficiency.
-- Take a breath. The Mavericks have three days off coming up, including a total off day on Sunday. Hopefully, the gym is closed and players will get away completely for a day without having to travel or work out.
-- And finally, there was this from Rick Carlisle when it comes to the Mavericks getting back to 9-9, the first time they've been .500 this late in the season since the end of the 2015-16 season.
"Real happy for the players," he said. "It was a good start, then a very hard stretch. They fought hard to earn their way back to even. Now we go on the road and it'll get tougher there. But we're doing a lot of good things. We've gone through a lot, learned a lot, learned a lot about each other. It's hard work winning in this league. Just ask Boston. They're one of the best teams and they're getting a big Howitzer punch every night."
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