Back when the finals were fun to watch for me. I can remember more iconic moments from that series from the top of my head, than I can from any moments from the last 2 finals. I hate the mavs, but boy did I hate the idea of super star team up way more.
My body is ready for this thread to blow up. Real talk, though - it wasn't hard to root for Dirk, that year.
Some thoughts: Online NBA stat heads gave the Mavs a nil chance to win the series. After game 1, I remember thinking if the Heat played defense like that the entire series, Mavs had no chance. But I doubted they could maintain the effort. In the first round, the Mavs went up 2-0 against the Blazers. This was when Brandon Roy's knees were shot and he wasn't even a starter. In games 3 and 4, he turned back the clock and erupted on the Mavs. They evened the series 2-2. Game 4 was one of the most unbelievable playoff comebacks I've watched in my life. After the Mavs finished them off 4-2, I remember thinking the mental toughness they gained beating the Blazers could make them a tough out in later rounds. In the 2nd round, Mavs swept the Lakers. It made me so happy to see the Lakers humiliated, I gave the Mavs a pass through the rest of the playoffs and was OK with them beating OKC in the WCFs. I was a HUGE KD fan at the time and followed OKC very closely. IIRC, in the WCFs, OKC had sizable 4th quarter leads in all 5 games but couldn't score when the Mavs locked them down on defense. The one exception was when Harden erupted and took over with WB on the bench. However, WB almost single-handedly threw the game late with a string of bizarre TOs that left people shaking their head. For some weird reason, I have a clear memory of every single WC playoff series that year. One thing most everyone can remember was the Grizzlies deliberating tanking to #8 and beating the #1 Spurs in the 1st round. Shane Battier hit the go-ahead 3 late in game 1 and the Spurs just could not snag a win in Memphis. Those were the days when I inhaled 2+ hours of NBA action every night. The lockout that summer and shortened season following cured my harmful NBA addiction (not joking).
That year when somebody asked me, "who I was going for in the finals?" My answer was, "Im not watching, I hate both teams, I hope a terrorist group flies a 747 into AAC or AAA."
I didn’t get to watch that series because I was overseas at the time and damn waking up at 2am to watch the Mavs. I have no idea how the heat managed to **** that up
yesterday i was watching games 4 and started game 5..deshavn stevenson was ballin then he got hurt and some bald white guy called Cardinal that shoots 3s and hustles got some minutes vs lebron
today i rewatched wcf 2011 game 5... my god it was very insightful... 1 westbrook playing off the ball destroying dallas 2 harden being favorite player of van gundy and him and jackson non stop calling to make harden playmaker because good things happen 3 a spicy detail, jason terry did the same thing to westbrook that beverley did to him, westbrook reacting by pushing tery out of bounds with the ball -got technical
N Not a popular sentiment, but Westbrook would be a much better player off the ball. If OKC had point guard or shooting guard to run the offense, I think it would take the load off of Russ and cut down on some of his questionable plays.
watching game 4 of that series right now, they were up by 15 with 5 minutes to go, and harden fouled out, the game went to OT
