Back in the early part of the 2011 NBA season the Dallas Mavericks were riding high with the NBA’s best record at 24-5 and having beaten some of the top teams in the NBA in convincing fashion. The Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs, Miami HEAT and Oklahoma City Thunder were all trampled by the surging Mavericks, who looked like they had finally discovered the formula for a legitimate title contender with an overabundance of talent on both ends of the floor.

Unfortunately for Dallas, that formula was decimated in late December when the game’s most un-guardable player, Dirk Nowitzki, came down awkwardly on his right leg on a seemingly routine one-legged fade away. Nowitzki ended up missing a career-long nine straight contests and second banana Caron Butler would fall just two games later to what ended up being a season-ending knee injury. The Mavericks found themselves without their two most explosive players and in a tailspin, losing 10 of 13 contests after their impressive start.

Instead of folding, the Mavericks grew despite the two best players on the team missing significant time with injuries. Even in The Finals, Butler remained on the shelf and Brendan Haywood joined him for the majority of the series, but Dallas was still able to win it’s first title without a full arsenal of players.

“I think adversity [helped us a lot],” Mavericks’ point guard, and the oldest point guard to ever start and win an NBA Championship, Jason Kidd said. “We got off to a great start at the beginning of the season. Dirk was playing [at an MVP level] and then we lose Caron and Dirk. And so everybody wrote us off but ourselves. I think going through that period where we lost six in a row and looked at each other and said we got to find a way, because those two aren’t coming back anytime soon. Guys stepped up, and we turned it around. I think just going through the journey of those injuries made us a better team, because we had to do a lineup change, and then we did the lineup change during The Finals and we didn’t skip a beat. 

“We just kept playing. That just shows the character of this team.”

That was the key for this Mavericks team both during the regular season and throughout this incredible postseason run: character. No matter the circumstances, this team met every challenge because none of those players in the locker room believed quitting was an option.

This team was counted out by the masses every step of the way this postseason, but failed to give their detractors any leverage due to some excellent all-around play on the count. This resiliency culminated in Game Two on the NBA Finals when, down 15, the Mavericks rallied in the fourth quarter to the tune of a  22-5 run to steal a game in Miami and notch the series at one a piece. 

It wasn’t the first time Dallas stormed back to steal a win after trailing by double-digits in these 2011 playoffs. The Mavericks came back from down 10+ against the Portland Trail Blazers in round one, the Los Angeles Lakers in round two, the Thunder in the Western Conference finals and saved numero quatro for the HEAT in the NBA Finals.

“You look at what we did along the way, along our journey, getting past Portland — nobody said we could,” Jason Terry said. “Doing what we did to the Lakers. We continued to grind it out, believing in each other, and showed huge resiliency every time we stepped on the court. I thought in this series there was a time and situation where there was a turning point. That was in Game 2.

“Down 15, we all looked at each other, and we continued to believe… we win that game and the rest is history.”

In winning three straight games to close out the series, the Mavericks became the first team since The Finals adopted the 2-3-2 format to win a championship when losing Game Three after the series was tied 1-1. Eleven other times teams tried to come back from that, and each failed, but Dallas simply wouldn’t accept failure as a possibility.

“Well, I just think we’re a resilient bunch, and we saw it,” Nowitzki said after The Finals. “This whole [NBA Finals] we were down some. We kept battling back, kept believing in each other. I just think this is a win [for] team basketball. This is a win for playing as a team on both ends of the floor, of sharing the ball, of passing the ball, and we’ve been doing that all season long. I’m happy. We never looked at ourselves as soft. Not for one minute. And we just kept fighting.”

{AUTHOR_BOX}Dallas prevailed in six games against the Miami HEAT because of that team-wide mentality of sticking together and sacrificing personal achievements for the overall success of the team. Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion, Barea, Haywood and mid-season acquisition Peja Stojakovic all played pivotal roles along the way while accepting their individualized roles throughout the year. Even seldom-used reserves Brian Cardinal and Ian Mahinmi made significant contributions in the NBA Finals that propelled this team to a championship.

The Mavericks’ run was littered with these types of moments where the supporting cast around Nowitzki stepped up huge, and Mavericks’ head coach Rick Carlisle did an excellent job of coaching to each player’s strengths and knowing when to push the right buttons on this veteran squad.

“This is a special team,” Carlisle said. “This is the most special team that I’ve ever been around, because it’s not about what you can’t do; it’s about what you can do. It’s not about what your potential short-comings are; it’s what we could accomplish as a group together. It was just phenomenal to be around them.”

Going into next season (should Dallas resign Butler, Chandler and free-agent-to-be J.J. Barea), this team could be even better in it’s attempt to win back-to-back titles. There’s a good chance each of these key players are re-signed, especially due to the fact that the chemistry on this Dallas team is a large part of it’s success. Each one of those players in the Mavericks’ locker room roots for one another to succeed but, more importantly, the continuity they’ve gained throughout the regular season and this long playoff run paid dividends as everyone knew their role and were seemingly on the same page throughout.

“I’ve learned chemistry matters,” an un-muzzled Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban said after The Finals. “That it’s a team game. That you have to have players that believe in each other and trust each other and trust your coach. And that’s a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. There’s no quick solutions. There’s not a single template for winning the championship. If there was, everybody would do it. And so you just have to ignore people from the outside and just really stick to what you know and try to get smarter and put the team — be opportunistic. That’s what the Dallas folks have heard me say forever. We’re going to be opportunistic and build a team. That’s what we tried to do.”

Even with Cuban’s newfound affection for chemistry and togetherness, look for Dallas to be major players in the trading market after all of this lockout mess is taken care of and this offseason finally occurs. With Chris Paul and Dwight Howard, among others, seemingly available for the taking don’t bet against the Mavericks’ owner tossing his hat in the ring to try to complete his quest to pair a legitimate superstar with former NBA, and now Finals, MVP Nowitzki.

For now, Mavericks’ players and fans are basking in the glory of the first NBA title in franchise history and the first sports championship for the city since the Dallas Stars brought home the Stanley Cup in 1999. After 11 straight years of regular season dominance, the Mavs finally followed up a 50-win season with an NBA title and Dallas did it in dominating fashion — losing just five contests over the course of the 2011 NBA Playoffs.

The bitter taste of the 2005-2006 NBA Finals has been replaced by the sweet sensation of victory for a Dallas Mavericks’ NBA Title that’s took 31 years to come to fruition.

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