Before the finals started, I wrote that I hoped the Sports God's wouldn't bestow a championship on LeBron and company, validating their soulless hijacking of the league and that ridiculous behavior as a legitimate way of building a championship. The Sports God's haven't been great to me in the past year. The Colts were more injured than anything. The Astros are the worst team in baseball. The Devils missed the playoffs for the first time in ever. Barcelona was granted second and third life with asinine refereeing decisions against Arsenal and Real Madrid. Nothing had really gone right, but this made up for almost all of it. They did not let the Heat win, and almost as importantly (and assuredly something that will get undercovered), they let a deserving team in the Mavs win.
The Mavericks were the essence of a great team. They had one great player, but eight other average to good ones. They didn't have a bad player, save for Peja who got benched this series but was great in the Lakers series. They were constructed about as well as any team since the 2003-2005 Spurs teams before Ginobili and Parker became all-star caliber players. What was more, they brilliantly put together a team with many veteran players who had never won a ring, who had spent countless years slogging on good teams but never winning it all, and that provided a great amount of collective motivation to finally unload a pack of monkey's off their collective backs.
Of course there was Dirk, the superstar who was unfairly punished for basically having two bad playoff series in his career (2006 Finals and 2007 1st round). Dirk has been an amazing player for years, and I used to hate him for being so good back in the mid 2000s. He's easily the best international player ever (depending if you consider the African-born but American-collegiate Hakeem Olajuwon). He's probably top-25 all time (although I threw up a little when someone said that a Duncan comparison for best-forward was in play). After Dirk, though, were many players who like him had never won a title. There was Jason Kidd, who twice made the finals as the best player on his team, but lost to teams that had some of the best players of all time in their prime, in Shaq in 2002 and Duncan in 2003. There was Shawn Marion, who was a major cog on three title-worthy Suns teams from 2004-2005 to 2006-2007, but each time lost to Duncan's Spurs and ironically the 2006 Mavs. There was Peja Stojakovic, who before yesterday, went to bed each night thinking about the shot he missed that could have won the 2002 Western Conference Finals before the Kings lost in overtime. There was Jason Terry, who with Manu Ginobili, has been the best 6th man for a decade, living off the memory of missing a shot that would have tied the game in Game 6 in 2006. Finally, there was coach Rick Carlisle, who despite taking two prior teams to the conference finals, had never made the NBA Finals and unceremoniously fired despite a career winning percentage around .600. The Mavs were constructed like a team should: 12 men tied together with one goal - winning their first title.
The Mavericks also had the benefit of having a great, great ability to get hot. Their defense carried them for the first two games, which they were lucky to split 2-2. Then, as would eventually happen, they got hot and started nailing threes (after 69% in game 5, they "cooled" to 50% in Game 6). The Mavericks never backed down from the Heat, like the Celtics and Bulls seemed to do. They never relented. They new they would get their points in the 4th quarter, but they also knew that the Heat couldn't get theirs. Keep the game close in the 4th and pull it out. It's a oft-used cliche in basketball and football, but I've never seen it used better than the Mavs did. The Mavs and Heat both knew that sooner or later, the Mavs would make their run. In Game 3, after blowing a late 7 point lead, the Heat didn't fall apart, but in Game 2 and Game 4 they did, with the Heat twice going over 7 minutes with just one field goal, while the Mavs hit everything in sight. This had been a problem for the Heat all year long. They struggled mightily to close games, something that changed against Boston and Chicago, but Dallas was just too much offensively.
Of course, I would be remiss to not touch upon the Heat. In all honesty, the Heat got what they deserved in a way. James, Wade and Bosh must have known that because of their three salaries, the rest of the team would be less than great. You could easily make the argument that although players #2-#3 in Miami were a lot better than #2-#3 on Cleveland, Cleveland had the better roster after that. James and Wade also knew that they would have too sacrifice playing their game all the time, which came to a head in the Finals. The Heat are still a great team, and those three players are all still great (or very good in Bosh's case). That said, Dwyane Wade is already 29. Bosh is already 27. James in 26, and has been playing since he was 18. These aren't young guys. The younger nucleus resides in OKC and Chicago, if not Memphis and Portland. The Heat will not run away with any titles. If they do win one, they will have to earn it. Many people have said that this was the best chance for another team to beat the Heat as the Heat will have to learn how to play with each other. However, you could easily make the case that this was the best year for the Heat to win a title, a year where teams wouldn't really know how to play them defensively, and in a time where OKC and Chicago are a couple years away and Boston and LA are a couple years too late. They just didn't realize Dallas was at the perfect place.
As for Mr. James, well, you can right of any MJ comparisons. FOREVER. LeBron James as a player is 2-8 in NBA Finals games. I don't like quoting win-loss records for individual players, but in the NBA it is fine, since one player can win a title if he gets the help needed (Duncan, Hakeem, Nowitzki). Again, LeBron is 2-8 in Finals games (I will say that the 2007 Cavs were immensely overmatched in 2007 against the Spurs). Jordan was 24-11. Jordan never lost a finals. Kobe lost two, but also won 5. Duncan never lost a title. LeBron's 0-2. Worse was that LeBron shied away from being the man in this series, even after Dwyane Wade injured his hip and never returned to the level he was in Games 1-3. LeBron passed the ball away like it was poisoned, like it was an object he wanted no part of. LeBron wanted to win titles easily, and it showed as when he needed to put in the effort (and not huge effort, mind you, as he was being guarded by an old Shawn Marion and an older Jason Kidd), he couldn't do it. LeBron might be the most talented NBA player ever, but he's not the best, just like Randy Moss in the NFL. LeBron gave up any hope of him being the true heir to Michael Jordan, unless he wins the next six titles. (By the way, I'm not going to talk about LeBron's ridiculous "the haters go back to living their problem-filled lives" comments, but I'll say that they are in line with someone who's insecure about their own ability and truly don't understand why they are hated).It was a long strange year for the NBA. One with dizzying highs, but rooted in a terrible low, when three players hijacked a league. It looked like they had rigged the league and basically colluded to win the next eight titles. In the end, it was a forgotten team that won the title, a team that basically all of ESPN's supposed experts picked to lose to Portland for no reason whatsoever other than the fact that Dirk choked five years earlier. The Mavericks were 57-25. They were one game worse than the Heat in the regular season, and swept the Heat. Was this really a surprise, that a deep team filled with hungry, talented veterans could beat a team with 2.75 stars and little else? One statistic to leave you with, one that really defined this season. When Nowitzkti played, the Mavericks were 55-17 in the regular season, and 16-5 in the postseason. They were the best team, and they deserved to be.
