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The Dallas Mavericks have made the playoffs.

Not mathematically. You won't see a notch by their name in the standings. But they have broken through mentally.

Anyone who has followed the ups and downs – primarily downs – of this team in recent weeks knows that's much more important.

I arrived at American Airlines Center on Wednesday night prepared to write the Mavericks' epitaph. I even looked up how to spell the word epitaph after falling for Avery Johnson's smokescreen about how he didn't know if Dirk Nowitzki would play.

Well, he played. And the Mavericks played with a confidence and emotion that has been missing all too often this season.

"The start of something big" is how Josh Howard described the Mavericks' 111-86 victory.

If you believe Golden State emasculated the Mavericks in the playoffs last season, if you believe the Warriors exposed Nowitzki as an MVP fraud, what do you believe now?

This game was for those clueless souls who allege Nowitzki isn't all that tough. He played with a high ankle sprain and sore knee that would have kept lesser athletes on the bench in street clothes for at least another week.

Nowitzki wasn't at his best Wednesday. He labored to get up and down the court at times and had no lift to his jump shot. But he was able to pivot off his left leg on several occasions and get to the basket. He finished with 18 points and five rebounds in a performance that was more about sheer will and guile than ability.

Nowitzki did more on one leg than Golden State's Stephen Jackson did on two. Jackson, who punked Nowitzki in the playoffs, had two points and was 1-of-11 from the field as Howard shut him down.

The Mavericks carried a 20-point lead into the final period and actually extended that lead. That's one way for the team to force critics to stop focusing on its struggles in the stretch.

The Mavericks made the closing moments of this game irrelevant, because Howard was once again dominant offensively. Jason Terry, who has seemed lost at times this season, found his way. Jason Kidd showed why the Mavericks mortgaged their future to obtain him, and Johnson left center Erick Dampier on the court rather than remove him to try to go small with the Warriors.

The result: The Mavericks pounded the Warriors into submission on the boards, 56-38.

"It was a must win," Nowitzki said. "If we had gone down tonight, things did not look good at all."

It wasn't just a must win. It was a game the Mavericks should have won.

Golden State was playing its fourth game in five nights. The Warriors had lost to San Antonio by 24 points one night earlier.

"I'm very upset," Golden State coach Don Nelson said after the game. "Avery Johnson had inside information. He used to play for Golden State, and he knew too much about what we were going to do."

Who knows? Maybe Nelson intends to file a countersuit against Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

All kidding aside, the Mavericks have a two-game lead over Golden State and own the tiebreaker. That means the Warriors must make up three games on the Mavericks in the final seven games to pass them in the standings.

"We're in the playoffs right now, and we want to stay in that position, no matter what the number or what seed it is," Howard said.

There is still work to be done for the Mavericks in the final two weeks of the regular season. They leave for road games at the LA Lakers and Phoenix. The cushion they just created could be deflated quickly.

But for the first time in a long time, the Mavericks appear up to the challenge.

"It's a new month," Johnson said. "We haven't been the greatest in certain situations, but it can all change.

"If you can ever change it, if you can build some momentum, then who knows what is going to happen?"