Let's face it, the simple key to a better playoff performance is a better regular season performance. If you are not top 4, you'll play a better team in the first round, so a series loss is the expected result.
If you look at the past 10 years, the Mavs regular season results were 7, 10, 8, 7, 6, 11, 13, 14, 7 and 5. Which means in the 10 years since the championship until this year we always meet one of the 3 best teams in the west. So this year actually was the closest we got to not being a 1st round underdog, but if you look at the record, the gap between Clippers at 4 and Mavs at 5 was quite big and they claimed 5th by tiebreaker over 6 and 7 only.
In the last two years there were so many regular season blunders against supposedly weaker teams (most notably NYK last season, SAC this season). These need to be analyzed and eliminated to get to the around .650 to .700 win pct (5 to 8 more wins) that you need to secure home court for at least first playoff round.
If you look at the past 10 years, the Mavs regular season results were 7, 10, 8, 7, 6, 11, 13, 14, 7 and 5. Which means in the 10 years since the championship until this year we always meet one of the 3 best teams in the west. So this year actually was the closest we got to not being a 1st round underdog, but if you look at the record, the gap between Clippers at 4 and Mavs at 5 was quite big and they claimed 5th by tiebreaker over 6 and 7 only.
In the last two years there were so many regular season blunders against supposedly weaker teams (most notably NYK last season, SAC this season). These need to be analyzed and eliminated to get to the around .650 to .700 win pct (5 to 8 more wins) that you need to secure home court for at least first playoff round.