Dallas Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle had a recent pep talk with the team about the importance of standings as they prepare for the third act of the regular season — that's before claiming that prior to the said discussion, the Mavs long-time coach wasn't even paying attention to it.

Per the Dallas Morning News, Carlisle explained why he felt they need to deliver such talk.

“This is the homestretch,” he said. “We talked about where we are. We’re not going to belabor it on a day-to-day basis, but this stretch of 27 games is big.

“We have great respect for the meaning attached to it in terms of positioning and playing well down the stretch and those kinds of things.”

As for Mavs All-Star Luka Doncic, he doesn't believe that Carlisle never actually look at the standings but understood the point the veteran coach was trying to make.

“I think he saw them before,” Doncic said, still smiling. “He just didn’t want to talk about it. But, no, just where we are, we want to make it as [high] as possible [in the standings].”

The Mavs currently sit at 7th in the West but is tied record-wise with the Oklahoma City Thunder who holds the tiebreaker and is therefore slotted at 6th place.

The disparity between the middle six spots is quite low, however, with just four games separating the 2nd seeded Denver Nuggets and a few losses here and there could mean having the seedings switching rapidly.

The Mavs are looking to regain some consistency and make a push for homecourt advantage.