The Mavs are awake!

That's seven in a row for the defending Western Conference champs, and they're doing it without Josh Howard.

Granted, they've beaten Phoenix, Portland, Chicago, Memphis (x2), Charlotte and Washington, but you still have to be very impressed with what's going on in Big D.

The first thing that pops out is the defense. The Mavs have held opponents under 100 points in five of those seven contests. Just nine days ago, Dallas was allowing 105 points a game. Coming into tonight's play, it was down to 99 points a game, and that's going to drop further. Tuesday against the Wizards, a team that came into the game as the sixth highest scoring group in the NBA, the Mavericks only gave up 80 points and held the Wiz to 7 of 33 shooting in the second half. Very impressive.

The other factor in the winning streak is the play of Dirk Nowitski. He's merely averaging 28 points and 11 rebounds during the run. He's playing aggressively again, getting to foul line for double digit attempts in five of those games. This is the Dirk that was borderline unstoppable in the postseason last year.

So, big shock, the Mavs have returned to their winning ways. Now, I'm still waiting for Phoenix to join them. Maybe Steve Nash's winning 3-pointer last night was all they needed.