Golden State, Denver and Dallas are locked in a three-way round-robin battle for the final two playoff spots in the Western Conference. The Warriors visit Dallas on Wednesday.

"It's fun. It's competitive," Jason Kidd said. "As a professional, you want to be competitive and I got everything that I want. It's nothing but competitive each night and we are fighting for our lives, just like everybody else is."

Despite losing five of the last six and the tiebreaker with Denver, the Mavs still control their postseason destiny with nine games left. They've refused to make excuses all season and aren't about to start doing it now, even with Dirk Nowitzki sidelined.

"We can't do anything but look in the mirror," Jerry Stackhouse said. "That's all we can do from here on out."

WARRIORS 114, MAVERICKS 104: The three-team dog pile at the bottom of the Western Conference playoff picture took a new dimension after Golden State held off the Mavericks Sunday night at ORACLE Arena.

The Mavs, Warriors and Denver are all tied with 45-28 records (seventh best in the West) with nine games left in the regular season. The tiebreaking scenarios are too numerous to mention, especially with games left to be played among the three.

The Mavs, up 2-1 in the season series, host Golden State on Wednesday. The Warriors and Nuggets square off one more time. Denver won the series 2-1 from Dallas. Though nothing has been settled throughout the conference, it appears the final two postseason spots will come from this trio.

That, of course, can change. And it likely will. As of the close of NBA business Sunday night, the tiebreaker formula had the Nuggets and Mavs in the playoffs, as the seventh and eighth seeds, respectively, and Golden State at ninth.