By Cookiehead Escobar

While the Dallas Mavericks regular season was successful (57 wins and a terrific trade), the squad fell to a better team in the playoffs.

Their first round sweep of the Minnesota Timberwolves was nice, but they quickly went down in 5 to the Sacramento Kings. The difference was that Sacramento can play some defense, and Dallas can not.

And that is what the Mavs must address this off-season.

Don Nelson, Mark Cuban and just about all of team management is happy with the advances they made this year. Cuban points out that teams typically don't make a sudden turnaround, that growing pains always exist.

Also, keep in mind that the trade bringing Nick Van Exel and Raef LaFrentz to town was a big one, and it takes time for key players to learn to play together. While the Mavs offense never slowed, defensive chemistry takes time to develop. Especially when the players are not particularly good individual defenders.

The team is built around Steve Nash, Michael Finley and Dirk Nowitzki. Van Exel and LaFrentz came in February. The team has some bench players ready to come in and do dirty work in Ed Najera, Adrian Griffin and Greg Buckner. A good defensive big man would be nice to acquire this summer.

The team should definitely stay together for a long time. All key players have many years ahead of them. They've got height, and size. Coaches just need to help these guys figure out how to stop people. Sacramento averaged 113 points per game against them in their second round playoffs matchup.

The future of the Mavericks is definitely bright. They should be one of the league's top teams for years to come. They just have to figure out how to get past the Lakers and Kings.