AP Photo/David J. Phillip
The Dallas Mavericks are the NBA champions. Karmically correct for a number of reasons. The Mavs worked hard, meshed like a championship team and displayed class in winning their first NBA Chamionship. The Miami Heat, surrounded by pomp and circumstance at the beginning of the season ended frayed and lacklustre displaying anything but in the last three games.
Miami’s season began with The Decision and a promise to win another championship adding Lebron James and Chris Bosch to their line-up. As the villains, the Heat were not gaining many additional supporters outside South Beach. With each game and each questionable interview by James, the Heat’s scrutiny under the media’s eyes only grew larger.
The Heat showed at times during the season their inability to gel as a team causing collapses during games and questionable losses. However, early in the playoffs it seemed the Heat found their stride only to lose it in the NBA Finals when the pressure was at its greatest.
The Dallas Mavericks meanwhile compiled a 57 –25 record - 5th best in the NBA with no fanfare just hard work. They were criticized for their heart and some critics even foolishly suggested they would lose in the first round of the payoffs.
Wade and LeBron's decision to make fun of Dirk's illness on camera last week was more than a passing mistake. It was tasteless and childish, yet Dirk Nowitzki showed no concern for the comment by suggesting he needed no additional fuel on his fire to win an NBA Championship.
On Sunday night, after an absolutely abysmal 1-of-12, three-point first-half, Dirk Nowitzki did what LeBron James has proven he cannot: He embraced the enormity of the moment and chanelled every bit of talent and greatness he had inside of him. His second half was the thing of a champion, literally. He went off for 18 points, he shot 8 of 15 from the floor, and with the game close to begin the final 24 minutes of play, he assured through excellence and clutch play that it would not be as it ended.
In the end, it is not just the question of the frailty of LeBron James that was answered in obvious and brutal form as he vanished with a hollow look in his eyes at the ends of Games 4, 5 and 6 (Tuesday night, he scored three points in the tightly contested third quarter and seven in the fourth, most of them after the game was out of hand). James average 15 points per game over games 4, 5 and 6 and just 17 during the entire finals.
It was the question of the Miami Heat experiment, the idea of talent versus teamwork, of stars with an edge versus a team with absolute resilience that also found its answer.
"This is a win for playing as a team on both ends of the floor, of sharing the ball, of passing the ball," Dirk said.
"I learned chemistry matters," team owner Mark Cuban said. "That it's a team game."
And the world learned this: Dirk Nowitzki is a better basketball player than LeBron James. Maybe Dirk is not more talented or more athletic. Maybe he is not more meaningful to the masses or marketable on behalf of big companies. But Dirk Nowitzki showed he was better.
There will be plenty of time in the days ahead to deconstruct the disintegration of the Miami Heat and enormous failing of Lebron James. But for now, for this moment in time just after the end of one of the finest NBA Finals in many years, it is enough to know that a true team won a championship. And that its leader is one of the game's greatest.
Dirk Nowitzki, the 2011 NBA Finals MVP rose above LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosch and the entire league.
