For some 78 days and nearly 40 games, they've avoided each other, rolling up gaudy records and padding thick cushions in their divisions without the schedule throwing them together once.

Finally, they convene tonight at Arco Arena, after all that time apart, poised and expected to give us a Game of the Year contender. Or maybe even surprise us.

With a defensive struggle?

	Doug Christie, left, and the Kings can smother opponents with their defense, too.

OK, OK. That's not going to happen. When it's Dallas vs. Sacramento, wherever they play, the odds always favor a 120-118 throwback night.

That's not to say it couldn't happen, though. You know about the Mavericks' 31-5 record and the Kings' corresponding 28-10. You know that the Mavericks started 14-0, playing without Raef LaFrentz and Nick Van Exel early and still without Eduardo Najera. And you know the Kings kept winning in spite of even a longer injured list: Mike Bibby, Scot Pollard and now Bobby Jackson out with Bibby back.

What isn't so widely known, and what even sneaks up on the participants sometimes, is where both teams sit in the NBA's defensive standings. Scan the opponent field-goal percentage listings, which most coaches value as the truest measure of defensive prowess, and there they are: Kings at No. 2 at .417, Mavericks at No. 3 at .418.

You can look it up.

"From the league's two best offensive teams, that seldom happens," said Mavericks assistant coach Del Harris, an authority on D whose most recent book on the subject can be found at your nearest Barnes & Noble. "I'm not sure what it means, but it's unusual."

What it means, for starters, is that Dallas and Sacramento actually could make this a defensive battle if they had the inclination. Fortunately for us they don't -- "Don't worry, it'll be an up-and-down game," Harris said -- but these teams do have the capability. Much as they prefer running the ball at each other, they're putting the clamps on everyone else. Another reason, then, why they're the two teams most likely to supplant the Lakers as champs.

The Kings quietly began changing their identity in the summer of 2000, acquiring Jackson and Doug Christie, and they belied their flash-and-dash image by going a grinding seven games with the Lakers in the Western Conference finals. Since then, they've added a shot-blocker from the weak side (Keon Clark) and a veteran scorer who, on his ninth team, is suddenly known more for stopping people (Jim Jackson). "If you want to play good defense, you have to have good defenders," Kings coach Rick Adelman said. "All four of those guys are defensive-minded."

The Mavericks, meanwhile, were shamed into their new mindset by a second-round humbling from Sacramento last season. So they spent the summer hatching various zone looks to offset their lack of defensive stoppers. The Kings, remember, won both games at American Airlines Center in their 4-1 cruise and -- according to a now-famed banner hanging in the Mavericks' practice facility -- produced 115 dunks or layups in that series from a total of 207 baskets. It doesn't make the Mavericks feel any better that the incomparable Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News went back through the game reports this week and counted up only 106 dunks and layups.

"For a couple years, they took the hit as a good team that didn't play any defense," Harris said. "Last year, they pretty well put that to rest. With us, we still haven't convinced everybody. But both teams have realized that offense alone isn't going to win anything.

"We're not ready to make any boastful statements about our defense. All we can say is that we're proud of our guys for the efforts they're making and that we've gotten better at it."

	3-D Vision
	The Mavericks and Kings are tough to score on from 3 as well as 2. Below are the NBA's top five teams in defensive 3-point field-goal percentage going into games of Jan. 15.
	Rank/Team	3FG%
	1. Phoenix	.295
	2. Sacramento	.311
	3. Dallas	.322
	4. Indiana	.323
	5. Chicago	.324

The Kings feel they have to boast a little if they want anyone to talk about their D. They were ninth in the league in opponent field-goal percentage last season (.440) and 19th in points-per-game allowed (97) -- compared to Dallas' .452 (19th) and 101 (28th) -- and then made the transition to playoff basketball better than ever.

In the Dallas series, especially, Sacramento's defense was a difference-maker: Christie on Michael Finley, the double-team blanketing of Dirk Nowitzki, Bibby and Bobby Jackson outdueling Steve Nash and Van Exel. Stopping Nowitzki became such a priority that All-Star forward and Long Distance Shootout champ Peja Stojakovic, before turning an ankle in Game 3, shadowed the German everywhere, to the detriment of his own offense.

"We've gotten better every year, even though I don't think our guys get the credit for what they deserve," Adelman said. "If we keep teams at 41 percent, I'll take our chances winning every night. But there's going to be nights where someone shoots 45 percent or 48 percent. What we have to watch, we give up a lot in transition sometimes. But in the halfcourt we're usually pretty good."

Said Chris Webber: "Last year we played great defense but I think it's much better now. Personally, in the blocks, I can get up on my man a little more because I know Keon is our second line of defense. And Doug, I hope he gets the credit this year, because he's the best defensive player in the league. He's always in the passing lanes, always checking the other team's best (swingman). It starts with Doug and ends with Keon and the rest of us just try to play good D in the middle."

The big difference in Dallas is that the Mavs have a middle again. Shawn Bradley was so far out of favor by the time the playoffs started last year, the Kings scarcely saw him. Don Nelson saw fit to give Bradley only 15 minutes over five games, and Bradley didn't block a single shot in those cameos.

Some eight months later, Bradley has reinvented himself (again) as the anchor of the Mavericks' many zone schemes. He's leading the league in blocked shots, too, as a 7-foot-6 center should. Ask the Mavericks' coaches and they'll tell you straight-faced that Bradley -- averaging 8.1 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.97 blocks -- has probably been Dallas' most consistent player outside of its Big Three.

Truth is, unlikely as it sounds, the Mavericks have been more concerned about their bench production than their defense so far. Which is why they reached overseas to lobby France's Antoine Rigaudeau to please give the NBA a chance. Dallas is trying to keep pace with Sacramento's ever-deepening bench, where Hedo Turkoglu -- a starter in the conference finals for the injured Stojakovic -- often finds himself now that Jim Jackson has arrived. Yet, ironically, the Rigaudeau-related questions the Mavericks are asking internally are defense-related. As in: Can Rigaudeau play man-to-man in the NBA when he has to?

Don't fret too much, though. Defense is an emphasis for these teams now, even when they play each other, but they also can't help themselves. Only once in their five playoff encounters did one team fail to reach triple digits in scoring.

"Even if it turned into a half-court slugfest, I think both teams would get over 100," said Donnie Nelson, the Mavericks' other lead assistant. "It'll be up-tempo for sure. Everyone can relax."

And enjoy.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. To e-mail him, click here.