The Dallas Mavericks didn't even need to take the floor on Tuesday night to clinch a playoff berth.
With the Oklahoma City Thunder's blowout loss to the surging San Antonio Spurs, the Mavs clinched a postseason spot for the 14th time in the last 15 years.
The best the ninth-place Thunder can now do is tie the seventh-place Mavericks in the final standings, but Dallas owns the season series tiebreaker (3-1) over OKC.
Sitting 5.5 games behind the sixth-place Spurs and four games ahead of the eighth-place New Orleans Pelicans with only five games to play, the Mavs are all but officially locked into the West's No. 7 seed.
