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The Best Team Wins

As the Miami HEAT celebrated what seemed to be an NBA Championship in October, there were many across the country who wondered if three All-Stars could really win a championship. Could a team composed of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh and a bunch of secondary players actually take out a deep, talented team in a seven-game NBA Finals series to win it all?

Coming into their Finals series against the Dallas Mavericks, many thought Dallas lacked the talent to defeat Miami. After all, the Mavs boasted only one All-Star in Dirk Nowitzki, and while Jason Kidd is a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer, his best years are behind him. Still, the Mavericks came in as a much deeper team, and believed their superior depth and overall talent would help them prevail against the three-man squad from Miami.

As it turns out, depth really does matter. The determined, passionate and humble Mavs emerged victorious on Sunday night, winning the first championship in franchise history behind an incredible team effort.

“(I’m most proud of) the collective toughness of the group,” Mavericks head coach Rick Carlisle said after his team won Game Six 105-95. “It’s a team that when you view it from afar, it doesn’t look like a physically bruising-type team. So a lot of people don’t think we have the grit and the guts and the mental toughness. This is as mentally tough a team I’ve been around. I was fortunate to play in the ’80s with Boston teams. They were mentally tough. Those were four Hall-of-Famers on those teams. What these guys were able to do collectively, guys like Cardinal, Mahinmi, Barea, these guys played major, major roles in an elimination game in a championship series. You can’t dismiss how everybody stayed ready and how everybody answered the bell. So I am just really proud to be around this group.”

Early in the series it looked like Dirk against the world, and we all wondered if his teammates would show up to help him fight the last battle. That certainly wasn’t a problem over the last three games, all wins for the Mavs. There were plenty of heroes for Dallas, but none bigger than Jason Terry, who carried the Mavs through much of Game 6 while Dirk suffered through a miserable shooting night.

“Was he unbelievable tonight or what?” asked Dirk post-game. “Coming out right away in the first half and setting a tone. I think he watched me struggle there early, and he took it upon himself to really attack and look for his shot early and get going early. Man, he kept coming all night long. He was phenomenal. That one timeout he said to me, ‘Keep pushing. Remember ’06.’ He said that to me in the fourth quarter. We kept plugging. It wasn’t pretty for me, but I had to keep plugging and keep fighting.”

Terry would finish with 27 points, earning Player Of The Game honors . . .not that he would take any credit for his own brilliance.

“My faith, first of all, is in God,” said Terry. “With that comes the confidence, knowing that you can be successful when you play with guys like we have on this team. You look at what Dirk was able to accomplish this postseason . . . he played like none other. The year he won MVP doesn’t even compare to what he did this year in the postseason. All the critics talked about what he couldn’t do, where he fell short. But to carry this team the way he’s done is just phenomenal. I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

JJ Barea joined the starting lineup and added a much-needed element of unpredictability to the Dallas offense; Tyson Chandler was a catalyst on both ends of the floor; DeShawn Stevenson embraced his role off the bench and was huge as a reserve; Shawn Marion’s defense of LeBron James was suffocating . . .there were no shortage of good stories on the Mavericks’ end of the floor, as nearly everyone on the team had at least one moment to shine.

The HEAT may have had most of the star power, but no three players, no matter how great, can realistically expect to win a championship. It takes a team to win a title, and the Dallas Mavericks were able to overcome Miami’s big three with superior depth and veteran savvy. It was an old-school championship . . .and a great pleasure to watch.

Congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks – 2011 NBA Champions!

ABC’s Highest-Rated Finals Game Ever!

The 2011 NBA Finals Game 6 on ABC, in which the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat 105-95 to win the franchise’s first NBA championship generated a 15.0 overnight rating, the highest-rated Game 6 ever on the network (ESPN reacquired rights to the league in 2002-03), and the highest in 11 years, according to Nielsen. Last night’s Game 6 was the highest-rated program of the night in prime time, propelling ABC to win the night among households. It is the 25th consecutive time The Finals have generated the highest-rated program of the night.

The 15.0 overnight rating was up 35 percent compared to an 11.1 overnight rating for Game 6 of the 2006 Finals, when these same two teams met in The Finals. The overnight rating for last night’s broadcast was an increase of 22 percent over a 12.3 overnight rating for Game 6 last year between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers.

Last night’s Game 6 generated the third highest overnight rating for an NBA game on ABC, trailing only last year’s Game 7 (18.2 overnight rating, Lakers/Celtics) and Game 5 of the 2004 NBA Finals (15.5 overnight rating, Lakers/Pistons).

The game peaked with a 20.9 rating from 10:30-10:45 p.m. ET. Game 6 netted the highest-rated metered market rating ever for an NBA game in both markets (records through 2002-03) with a 39.8 in Dallas and a 36.2 in Miami.

LeBron’s Parting Shot

At first, it seemed like real progress for LeBron. He actually stuck around long enough to talk to the media after losing Game 6 of the NBA Finals last night. In the past he’s been unwilling to address the media after losing a playoff series. Perhaps, we all thought for a minute, LeBron was really starting to grow up.

But then he opened his mouth.

“At the end of the day, all the people rooting for me to fail, they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before they woke up today,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live. . . . They can get a few days or a few months on being happy about not only myself but the Miami HEAT not accomplishing their goal, but they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

{AUTHOR_BOX}It’s no secret that I dislike LeBron James, and now that he’s been under the 24/7/365 scrutiny of an entire team of beat writers and ESPN crews for 82 games plus the playoffs, the feeling is starting spread like wildfire. The more you’re around LeBron, the more you see him, hear how he talks, and watch how he carries himself, the less you like him. The above statement is just fuel for the fire, but where to begin?

First of all, LeBron is making a huge assumption that everyone else is just a poor, unfortunate soul compared to him. Everyone else just has to find a little bit of respite from their miserable lives by taking a small amount of pleasure in LeBron’s failure . . .and then it’s back to being miserable all the time.

Second, he proves he hasn’t learned anything at all. He’s going to continue to live the way he wants to live. Remember the old story of the fox and the sour grapes from Aesop’s Fables? The fox can’t reach the delicious-looking grapes that hang from a very high branch and eventually decides they are probably sour anyway and just moves on.

Trust me, LeBron, the grapes aren’t sour. Winning a championship is the single most distinguished accomplishment a professional athlete can achieve, no matter the sport. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of determination, some degree of luck, and even a significant amount of soul-searching to be the absolute best. In the case of the Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki had to learn to be a verbal leader, Jason Terry had to shake his annual playoff slump, Jason Kidd had to learn to hit the three consistently, and Mark Cuban had to learn to keep his mouth shut. All of these guys were able to look at themselves in the mirror and recognize that something had to change.

What about you, LeBron? Chosen One? King? What are we Witnessing, exactly? Narcissism at its worst?

The hope of the poor miserable souls who continue to hope for more out of you is that you’ll take this loss to heart, learn something from it, maybe even come back a better player and a better person next season. But is that a rational hope?

“I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live. . . .”

How is that, exactly? Does it involve a commitment to being an NBA Champion one day? If so, you have a long way to go.

The mirror would be a great place to start.

As for the miserable souls around you, we’ll be fine. We’ll start by celebrating an amazing championship with some of the classiest professionals to ever put on an NBA jersey, and then we’ll all go about our lives. We’ll have new children, we’ll enjoy hot summer days on the beach or at the lake, we’ll work hard and we’ll play hard, we’ll have successes and we’ll have failures, and through it all we will, hopefully, grow into ever-better people, day by day. 

No need to have pity on us, LeBron, though we thank you for the patronizing and self-aggrandizing thought.

So long and thanks for thanks for all the fish, King James. I’m off to buy some Mavs championship gear, after which I will have some friends over for a backyard barbeque. We’ll take a dip in the pool and celebrate summer, a Mavs championship, and the baby my wife is about to bring into the world. And yes, I’ll raise a glass in your honor, thanking the basketball gods that for the next 12 months we can celebrate a true NBA champion like Dirk Nowitzki and perhaps hear a little bit less about overhyped players who don’t understand what greatness really is.

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