One more thing.. Winners take the responsibility for when they fail - losers blame everyone else! I think this alone shows the difference between Miami and Dallas. Whenever Miami lost (playoffs or regular season), they just said "We got beat and we have to play better." Whenever Dallas loses, it's never because they did anything wrong.. always the refs or some nonsense. This also is one of the reasons I like the Rockets and JVG. It's never "Boohoo, the refs hate Yao, boohoo we have too many injuries to win." No, it's "We need to get better, Yao needs to overcome the refs." and so on. Even if you don't like how JVG coaches, you have to respect him and admit he has a winner's mentality.
i think that's my very favorite thing about JVG. he NEVER runs from accountability. and he speaks about it openly. "if i don't have this team playing better, i'll be looking for employment somewhere else." he says that kind of thing all the time. that's a great, great quality to have.
I definitely think the calls were slighted in Miami's favor. You could not get close enough to breath on Wade and a call was made, very Jordanesque. Having said that, the Mavs can not blame anyone but themselves for the loss. I think they chocked....period. In game 3 they had a double digit lead with just a few minutes remaining and Wade became unstopable. It was one of the best performances I have ever seen. Every time the Mavs made a run after that during the series Wade stepped up in a major way. Wade was clearly the best player on the floor during that series and it was not even close. During game 6 when I think the calls were a little slighted the Mavs still should have won that game. They missed wide open shots that they normally hit in their sleep. Dirk missed shots when he was open, Terry missed damn near all of his shots for the last three quarters and the only player that realy looked like he stepped up at all in the last quarter was Marquis Daniels. Dirk looked tired through most of this series but once the Heat stole game 3 the Mavs had the appearance of a dear in head lights. IMO the Heat and more specifically Wade was the better team.
Wow! I have to say that the Heat winning it all has definitely cooled off the high and mighty Mavs fans who were looking down their noses at me for being a "lowly" Rockets' fan. It's been like a morgue here at work and I am loving every last MINUTE of it. I'm especially enjoying the all the blame bombs heading Cuban's way because he is completely out of control with his whining and paranoia. That said: Yes, Dallas did get screwed on a lot of the Wade calls but what really doomed them was their reverting back to a jumpshooting team. If Dirk, Terry, Stackhouse & the rest had forced the issue on offense just like Wade, they would have picked up a bunch of phantom calls as well. Dallas also screwed themselves when they failed to generate any kind of offense from the low post but that's by design given the fact that they have Dampier, Diop & Van Horne at the 5 spot. Once Pat Riley decided to attack them at their weakest point - inside - they failed to come up with an answer. Instead, they chose to start bombing away from outside. To paraphrase Bill Russell: "The first 2 games they lived by the jumpshot. The next 4 games, they died by the jumpshot". Finally, this series should lay to rest once and for all the "Dirk Nowitzski is a superstar" talk. When the time came for him to step up and take control and elevate his game, he choked big time. To me that's the very definition of a superstar - producing when the championship is on the line. This time it was Dwayne Wade who answered the call and not Dirk.
Kharma. Nowitzki's flops and Cuban's whining caught up with them. If there was any fix in it was because Stern was tired of Cuban acting like a 2 year old having a tantrum. We can only hope the refs stay pissed at the Mavs all of next year as well. Dirk has had tons of phantom calls made against his defenders, he has thrown himself into people shamelessly, and he got away with flagrant fouls against others all the time - but never in foul trouble. It was time for it all to catch up with this team. And besides, all of the reffing aside, the better team won.
