2011 NBA Finals: Mavericks' Take Down Big Three

On June twelfth, twenty eleven, one of the greatest underdog moments happens when the Dallas Mavericks, who were eighteen to one odds of winning the title versus the Miami Heat with Dirk Navinski beating the historic Big Three of Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh. To day, we dive into that series on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Now, let's dive into these two teams and how they got to the NBA Finals in twenty eleven. And we're gonna start with the Miami Heat, the heavy favorite coming into the season after not only acquiring perennial All Star Lebron James, the face of the league at the time, as well as another perennial All Star, Chris Bosh, to add with their face the franchise, Dwayne Wade, giving the a Big three as they called it, which was popular at the moment after the Boston Celtics had just done it a few years earlier, and this team was stacked at the top with those three talented players. But that didn't mean, they were a great team. Everyone thought with that talent they were definitely gonna win the series no matter what, and they did okay, winning fifty eight games, finishing behind the Chicago Bulls, who were led by the most valuable player that year, Derek Rose. And that just goes to show you even though they had these great stars, they weren't the best team even in their conference. But by the time they got to the playoffs, they were off to the races, defeating the Elton brand On Andre Goudala's seventy six ers in five games, defeating the Boston Celtics, who had their own big three in Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett in five games, and then they got to Chicago, who were the number one seed that year, and defeated Derrick Rose's led team also in five games. So they made it easily through the Eastern Conference all the way to the NBA Finals. And who would they face that year, Well, it was a team that didn't have the hype of the Miami Heat. It was the Dallas Mavericks, led by head coach Rick Carlisle. They finished third in the West, behind the San Antonios burs and the Los Angeles Lakers, and they were led by the face of their franchise, their Hall of Famer Dirk Dvinski, and they made some key moves in the offseason and that really helped them. Of course, they already had Dirk and future Hall of Famer Jason Kidd was back around for his second stint with the Dallas Mavericks, and then another great role player in Sean Marion. But they made a trade getting Tyson Chandler. If you don't know Tyson Chandler, he's a sinner listed at seven to one, and this was also his second stint with the Dallas Mavericks and the year after this he would go on to win Defensive Player of the Year, and that's what really helped them, gave them a defensive identity. And so they finished third in the West and go on to face the Portland Trail Baileys led by LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy, who they would beat in six games, and then they would go on to face the Los Angeles Lakers, who were coming off winning the twenty ten championship. They were led by Kobe Bryant and Paul Gasol, and despite them being heavily favored the Mavericks were able to sweep them in four games, and then they went on to face the Oklahoma City thunder who at this time had three future Hall of Famers and Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook all on their team, and despite all that, Dallas beat them in five games, setting up a final against the heavily favored Miami Heat. Now coming into the game, the Dallas Mavericks were an eighteen to one shot of winning the title, which made them a huge underdog, and the game was set to play in Miami on May thirty first. And despite my having these great scorers on the team, you might notice how low the scores are in this final as I go through them, because it is interesting how much defense was a higher priority back then in these games. Because this first game, the first quarter ended with the Mavericks leading seventeen to sixteen. There wouldn't be a whole lot of scoring after that, as the Dallas Mavericks led by one point at halftime, but the Heat came back in the third quarter to go on a twenty two to ten run, taking the lead five to sixty one going in to the fourth quarter, and Dallas Delta blow when their leader Dirk had injured his fingers with four minutes left to go in the game. Although he remained playing, it caused him to be less effective and let the Miami Heat take Game one ninety two to eighty four. Then in Game two, again in Miami, they come out and they end up tied at the end of the first quarter in the end of the first half, but the Heat took off in the third quarter, just like they did in the first game, being up by fifteen, but the MAVs kept fighting back and with under thirty seconds left to go in the game, Dirk hits a three pointer, giving them the lead ninety three to ninety although Heat's role player Mario Chalmers hits a three as well just two seconds later. Then, in the final possession of the game, the MAVs have the ball, drain the clock and Dirk hits a shot fading away as the buzzer rings to give them the lead and then win to tie the series ninety five to ninety three. In Game three, they head to Dallas to play for the first time, where the Heat took the lead in the first quarter and would not relinquish it. Although the Mavericks attempted to stay with them, they did not prevail, and Dirk hit took one final shot to tie the game at the end of regulation to send it to overtime, but missed his fade away, giving the Heat the lead in the series two to one. Game four, again was in Dallas, and they come out of the quarter tied twenty one to all. Then the Heat take a two point lead at halftime. It was a back and forth affair with twelve lead changes and fifteen ties, but Miami started to heat up in the third quarter as they normally had in the series, and took a nine point lead into the fourth quarter at seventy four sixty five. But Dallas fights back after this where their six man Jason Terry scores six points and the whole team scores ten total points in a row, giving them the lead which they would not look back from and take the win eighty six to eighty three. Despite Dwade's effort in this game where he scored thirty two points, the Mavericks took the game and tied the series. Then we go to Game five and this is still in Dallas, and this was one where they kind of opened the floodgates for scoring with the Miami Heat leading thirty one to thirty, but the Dallas Mavericks would take a three point lead at halftime and win and continue to lead. In the fourth quarter, they went on a fifteen to three run, giving them the lead and the game, winning the game won twelve to one oh three and giving them the series lead three to two. Now heading back to Miami, it put the pressure all on the Heat. They were the favorites, they had the Big Three, but the Dallas Mavericks switched their defensive strategy in this game and went to his own defense for a large portion of the game, helping them with a twenty one to four run, giving them the lead which they would not relinquish the entire game, and they had stretched the lead all the way up to twelve in the final quarter with only eight minutes left. Des By everything that James, Wade and Bosh tried to do, they could not get back to the lead and they ended up losing the game and the series four to two, and Dallas became one one of the biggest upsets in NBA Finals history. In the Finals, Dirk led the series and became the became the Finals MVP, but they really helped out by their big and their sixth man, Jason Terry, who averaged eighteen points for the entire series. But a big reason that people put the blame of this series on Lebron James is he averaged under eighteen points the entire series, which is well below his career average and is one of his worst scoring performances in the playoffs. Everyone remembers this mainly as the Heat not living up to expectations. It should be more remembered for the great team effort that Dallas Mavericks had. Yes, they had an MVP in Derk Novinsky who was great throughout the series, but it was all their other players such as JJ Burrella, Jason Terry, Sean Merriman, Jason Kidd. All these players together helped round out this team and give them the very first title in Dallas Maverick's history. And I want to thank Iron, Mike and Jeremy s from Twitter for suggesting this topic. If you have a topic you would like us to do an episode on, please leave us a review wherever you're listening. We would love to do an episode for you. Just leave us your name and the topic you would like us to cover and we would love to do that just for you, And come back tomorrow for more daily sports history.