General Admission
The real story behind Dallas’s NBA conquest
By Al S. Mendoza
THE story was not that the Dallas Mavericks won the 2011 NBA Finals.
That Dirk Nowitzki powered the Mavs to a 4-2 victory over the Miami Heat in the best-of-seven playoffs.
That Dallas owner, the eccentric Mark Cuban, finally achieved his dream of giving the Mavs a first NBA title in 31 years.
The story is that the Mavericks had a great coach in Rick Carlisle, who hammered in every Mav mind the value of camaraderie, the bigness of heart and the wonders of teamwork.
The story is that Nowitzki would be nothing, would not have won the MVP Finals Award, without the stupendous help his teammates had showered on him throughout the entire series.
“My team carried me that’s why I finally own an NBA ring,” said the 7-foot-flat Nowitzki from Wurzburg, Germany, a 10-time All-Star, after nailing the NBA title in 13 years of NBA play. “Without them, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”
“Them” would include Jason Terry, J.J. Barea, Jason Kidd, DeShawn Stevenson, Brian Cardinal, Tyson Chandler and the entire Dallas crew, actually.
Where Nowitzki is now is that he’s top on the world.
“It’s amazing,” he said. “I had dreamed of this one day and I thought I wouldn’t achieve it. It’s just incredible.”
He had caught a glimpse of the NBA championship ring the first time when, in 2006, he shoved the Mavericks to a 2-0 lead over the Miami Heat in that year’s NBA Finals.
But disaster struck when the Heat scorched Nowitzki and his pals with a 4-0 sweep in the next four games for a 4-2 victory.
Nowitzki was badly shaken from that nightmare, especially when the Heat clinched the tournament-winning Game 6 right on their territory in Dallas.
But still, after recovering his poise, Nowitzki told Cuban: “If I re-sign my contract with you, I want all my teammates to be with me again.”
Cuban agreed and the rest, as we love to say, is history.
With a similar 4-2 victory scored by Dallas to pocket a first ever NBA crown – in Miami – it was redemption, if not vindication, at its sweetest for the Mavs.
But before I forget, the story also of that sweet Dallas triumph was that a guy named LeBron James had a hand in it.
Heavily expected to play his vaunted superstar status to the hilt, James choked in the series after powering the Heat to a 2-1 lead, scoring only 8 points in Game 4 as the Mavs tied it at 2-2, and then tossing in a mere basket in the fifth quarter of Game 5 as Dallas moved ahead, 3-2.
In the crucial Game 6, James again faltered, paving the way for the Mavs’ title-wrapping 105-95 victory.
Actually, LeBron James was the real story in the Finals.
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