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The NBA postseason is a little more predictable than baseball and football. Usually, the two best teams every year are the ones who make it to the NBA Finals. The same logic applies to the Conference Finals as well. The NBA is like Game of Thrones in that its ruled by shifting dynasties that ebb and flow in and out of power. The 2011 NBA Championship round was the first time since 1998 that we didn't see an appearance from dynasties that involved Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, or Tim Duncan. It featured one team that everybody expected to get there in the Miami Heat (and people would've killed them if they didn't) and another team who not many predicted at all.
The Dallas Mavericks were the #3 seed from the Western Conference who caught fire right as the weather got warmer Just the right moment to play the best basketball of your life. They were led by the German, sharpshooting 7 footer Dirk Nowitzki and his band of role players who were either inexperienced and hungry (JJ Barea, Tyson Chandler) or over the hill and/or on their way down (Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion). The Heat fielded their franchise guy Dwayne Wade and the two offseason superstar additions that shook the world: LeBron James and Chris Bosh.
The team everyone expected to come out of the West was the Los Angeles Lakers. This was right after Kobe, Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum, and company defeated the Boston Celtics in a historically great 7-game Finals that granted Kobe his fifth career ring. The narrative all year was "Can Kobe win 6 to tie Michael Jordan? If he wins, does that make him equal to Jordan? With 6 rings, could you argue he's better?" People were too distracted by the endless Jordan comparisons to even fathom how badly LA was going to get blindsided by Dirk Nowitzki. Half the time it was hardly competitive. Behind the unstoppable force that was a hot-shooting 7-foot German with a funky off-balanced fade away, the Dallas Mavericks rattled off four straight wins against the star-studded Los Angeles Lakers - who even had home court advantage.
After they mopped up the purple and gold blood off the Mavericks logo at center court, Dallas faced an Oklahoma City Thunder squad that featured Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, and James Harden. They were quick and had all the talent in the world, but they weren't ready for absolute primetime. Those three aren't together anymore, and they basically rule the NBA/Western Conference of today. The Mavericks handily dispatched them 4 games to 1. Dirk and his squad convincingly overcome Kobe - one of the league's biggest alpha males - and then took care of business against the most lethal team of young ballers in the Thunder. All that was left was to take out the other big fish in the pond - Lebron James and the hated Heat.
It was a rematch of the 2006 Championship that saw Dwayne Wade submit one of the greatest Finals Performances ever, rallying his squad back from being down 2-0 to win it all. Dirk was hailed as a choker immediately after, and he hadn't made it back to the NBA Finals to redeem himself yet. How crazy were the NBA Gods to arrange it so Dirk faced the same franchise and player that did him dirty - Dwayne Wade and the Heat? Everybody was rooting for the underdog Mavs to triumph over Miami and its evil empire.
The Heat hosted Game 1 and they were on edge. It was the zenith of the widespread hate for the Miami Heat after LeBron ditched Cleveland for them. They were just doing their best to avoid every outside influence and focus on the game in front of them. After having a sloppy first quarter, they evened things out to maintain a consistent back and forth contest. The Mavs tried to steal their first game on the road but Dirk ended up injuring his finger within the last few minutes of the game, and the Heat prevailed 92-84.
Game 2 saw the Mavs pull off an epic 15-point fourth-quarter comeback led by a hindered Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk hit a go-ahead three with a little over 25 seconds remaining to stretch their lead to 93-90, but Mario Chalmers responded with a triple after Jason Terry left him unguarded. After that, Dirk made an epic attack on the rim driving left, sinking an incredible layup with his injured hand, leaving a little over three seconds left on the clock. Dwayne Wade tried to win it with a three at the other end but it but it bounced off the back rim. The series was tied at 1-1 after two.
The series shifted back to Dallas for Game 3. The Heat kept Dirk and his boys at arm's length most of it, even holding off a 14-point comeback by the Mavs. Miami went up 2-1. They went into enemy territory and did what they had to do. Game 4 is notorious for being the game that LeBron deferred to his teammates too often and put up a horrendous performance in the NBA Finals of only 8 points, which evened the series to 2-2. LeBron's detractors often point to this effort as evidence of his shortcomings, even though he's accomplished so much since then. Back then he was still an unproven superstar without a ring, and it seemed totally in the realm of possibility that he could finish his career without one. That was the narrative at the time. It's kind of silly looking back on it given the fact that it was only the first year he battled with new teammates Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh by his side.
Game 5 was the last time the Mavs would get to play in their home building for the Finals, and they raised the roof with a 113-100 victory that saw them nail 13 of their 19 attempts from deep. There was a crucial turning point where Rick Carlisle took out Jason Terry after some poor effort on the defensive end. It wasn't completely punishment though, it was just an attempt for Terry to collect himself. Carlisle told him, "Refocus. I'm putting you right back in." After he re-entered, he ran the Mavs crunch time offense and sunk a nail-in-the-coffin three right in LeBron's face to put the game out of reach 108-101.
The Mavs were up 3-2 and it was time to close the book on this series and the thought that Dirk couldn't win. Nowitzki had a bad first half from the field, but he hit 18 second-half points to propel the Mavericks to a 105-95 victory and an NBA championship. After they officially won, the understated European trotted to the locker room to have a tearful moment alone to revel in his victory and reflect on his journey from a premier superstar, to being given up on, to then to proving everyone WRONG. He came back out and was presented with the NBA Finals MVP. You can relive Dirk's moment here and that climactic Game 6 here
Dirk and that Mavericks team were so special because they brought an unexpected freshness to the NBA Finals that we don't always see. It was the first championship in the history of the Mavericks franchise, and we got to see one of the league's greatest player's (and arguably greatest European player) go the distance for the ultimate prize after such a long career. After that season, team owner Mark Cuban stupidly traded Tyson Chandler away who was the spirit of their defense. I still wish they held onto him so Dirk could've made another run at a title.
This year, the playoffs are looking a little predictable in the Western Conference. All year, the best two teams in the league have been the Houston Rockets and defending champion Golden State Warriors. Everyone is pretty resigned to the fact that those two will face off in the Conference Finals, but what if someone gets hot at the right time and pulls a Dirk? As of now, Russell Westbrook is on a mission to eat anyone alive who stands in his path and Damian Lillard is clearly tired of being slept on too. The Trailblazers are sitting at third place and the Thunder are at 4th (and they still have freaking Paul George and Carmelo Anthony). A man can dream but...what if one of those teams pulls it all together at the last second with some hot shooting and topples the Rockets or the Warriors? I'll be splitting time rooting for those two teams when playoffs come. Let's all hope for an interesting result that we can all reflect on down the road and say, "Damn....they really pulled it off".
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