The Dallas Mavericks concluded their long-lasting championship celebration tonight by honoring the final, and arguably most important, member of last year’s team in Tyson Chandler by giving him his ring.

There was a game that actually had to be played Tuesday night, but that seemed to be priority number two, or even three, amongst the sideshows pertaining to the New Jersey Nets and Dallas Mavericks.

It may have gone unnoticed by the rest of the country, especially on Sunday, but the current form the Mavericks are showing against some of their toughest competition serves as a reminder to astute NBA viewers how the current champions will put up a fight to defend what they won last summer.

Amongst Linsanity and other long winning streaks around the league, the defending champs had quietly run off four straight wins and began rounding into form. With tough wins over the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Trailblazers, and Clippers, the Mavericks were beginning to find their stride against quality teams in the Western Conference. It was more of the same tonight with Denver in town again.

The Mavericks had quite a task on their hands with the Clippers on Monday night, as Los Angeles came in with the second best record in the Western Conference.

Test number two for the healthy Mavericks would come just a night later back at the American Airlines Center against the always feisty 15-12 Portland Trailblazers. There’s no doubt that Portland would be looking for some payback in their first meeting with Dallas since the Mavs knocked them out of the playoffs in the first round last year. Only one thing was for sure in this meeting: due to his retirement, Brandon Roy wasn’t going to lead the Blazers to a miracle comeback like he did last spring.

The Oklahoma City Thunder rolled into Dallas tonight and brought the ever-growing Mavericks-Thunder rivalry with them. While the Thunder are beginning to get used to the injured life with backup point guard Eric Maynor out for the season, the Mavericks are getting a little bit too familiar with constant minor injuries.

Everything was going to plan through the third quarter as the Dallas Mavericks’ lead ballooned to as much as 18 points, but no lead ever seems to be safe in this classic rivalry as long as one team leaves the other enough time. Of all things, it was the San Antonio Spurs’ unheralded bench featuring Danny Green, James Anderson, and Gary Neal’s hot shooting that kept the Spurs in the game and even got them ahead by as many as nine points in the fourth quarter. Then the fun started.

Lamar Odom may have been in a difficult place physically and mentally, but his current team needed him to snap out of it quickly with the Utah Jazz in town and the injury bug beginning to find its way in the Maverick locker room. With Dirk Nowitzki already out, Delonte West was a late scratch with a bothersome hamstring. To make matters even worse at the point guard position, Jason Kidd checked out of the game with a strained calf at the 9:47 mark of the first quarter and didn’t return.

For most of the last decade, Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks match-ups have been virtually meaningless. For two different reasons, that wasn’t the case tonight in Dallas.