At 28-13, the Dallas Mavericks have their best midseason record of coach Rick Carlisle's seven-year tenure.

Think Carlisle cares?

"I knew there was going to be a lot of 'Hey, halfway-point story' questions," Carlisle said. "Whatever."

Hey, the Mavs have too much work to do to waste much time preparing midseason progress reports.

Not that anyone is complaining about the Mavs' record. ("I would have taken this record if you would have given it to me at the beginning of the year," owner Mark Cuban said.) It's good enough to put them smack dab in the middle of the playoff pack in the historically stacked Western Conference, tied for fourth place with the rival Houston Rockets.

However, nobody in the Mavs' locker room thinks they're good enough right now to contend for a championship. Their 1-8 record against the rest of the West's top eight teams entering Monday's road game against the Memphis Grizzlies is a reminder of that. But there is a firm belief that the Mavs can reach that level.

Dallas took a significant step in that direction by dealing for championship-proven point guard Rajon Rondo in mid-December.

Less than a month after Rondo's arrival, Dallas is still early in the process of adjusting to the dramatic change to the roster.

"We had a pretty new team at the start of the season and then you add a guy like Rondo, it changes a lot of things, too," Chandler Parsons said. "The more we play together with our full team, the more comfortable we're going to get with each other. Every day we've got a chance to get better."

As Cuban said, "It feels early in a new season, actually. It doesn't feel midseason at all. But we'll figure it out."

The Mavs are 9-5 since trading for Rondo, including a loss to the Denver Nuggets last week that he sat out along with Dirk Nowitzki and Tyson Chandler. Dallas has slipped significantly in its offensive efficiency (from a league-leading 113.6 points per 100 possessions before the trade to 105.1 afterward) and made major strides defensively (from 104.8 to 100.7).

But there aren't any numbers that measure the dramatic boost the Mavs got in their confidence to really compete for a championship with Rondo in the mix.

"The trade made us better," said Nowitzki, whose uncharacteristic shooting slump is partially to blame for Dallas' recent offensive decline. "We have a lot of weapons out there. We've got a point guard that has a lot of experience and has a championship and is a great player for us, but I also think we have some work to do on both ends of the floor.

"I can certainly see the potential that's there, but the problem is the West is so tough. It's loaded."

There is no concern that a team featuring Monta Ellis, Nowitzki and Parsons will be able to score enough points to be a tough out in the playoffs. The question is whether Dallas can be good enough defensively to give itself a shot at playing into June.

Chandler, whose work as a defensive anchor helped hang the championship banner in the American Airlines Center rafters, provides the Mavs excellent rim protection. The Mavs believe that Rondo can still be an elite defender -- especially when it matters most -- despite his admittedly subpar work on that end of the floor during his last couple of years in Boston.

Still, the Mavs must mesh into a defensive team that's greater than the sum of its parts. They have to find ways to get stops with smarts, much like the 2011 title team.

That's the primary focus in the second half of the season for the Mavs, who pray to the basketball gods that they'll be healthy and clicking when the playoffs come.

"If you would have asked me in the championship year in January how does it look, I would have said I have no idea," Nowitzki said. "You've got to be healthy at the right time. You've got to roll at the right time. There's a lot of factors that play into it late, but we've got to at least put ourselves in position. Hopefully stay healthy, keep working, keep working on defense.

"I think we were an underrated good defensive team in '11, especially with Trix [Shawn Marion], [Jason] Kidd and Tyson out there at all times. You've got to find ways in big situations to get stops. I still think we've got to get there with this team."