Mark Cuban says Dallas Mavericks will have at least 12,000 fans at home playoff games

DALLAS - Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said the team will allow at least 12,000 fans for their playoff home games, and he’s hoping he can get even more into the arena.

Last week, Cuban said the NBA would only allow for 9,000 fans in arenas for playoff games, but in an interview with 105.3 The Fan Thursday, he said they were able to get their arena capacity to 12,000 fans per game.

He hopes to push that number up to 15,000 if they can "get some modifications done to the arena," which holds just under 20,000.

Cuban added that if it wasn’t for the NBA’s protocols, he would allow full capacity crowds.

He’s hoping the Mavs can have a bigger home court advantage over the Clippers, which is only set to allow about 7,000 fans into the Staples Center for their home games.

The Mavs started the season with no fans allowed in the American Airlines Center, but then began letting in about 1,500 frontline workers into games, and the number of fans allowed in the arena for games has since grown to about 4,000 towards the end of the season.