Warriors Believed: Upsetting #1 Mavericks 2007

On May third, two thousand and seven, the number eight seed in the playoffs, the Golden State Warriors, defeated the number one overall seed in all the NBA, the Dallas Mavericks, becoming the first eight seed to beat the number one seed in a seven game series and one of the biggest upsets in the NBA. And for every upset, there's a story behind it, and that's what we'll dive into today 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, back in two thousand and seven, before Steph Curry ever played a professional game of basketball, before Luka Doncik was even ten years old, one of the biggest upsets ever in the NBA happened between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks. Now, how did we get to this point? It actually goes way far back and centers around the Golden State Warriors coach that year, Don Nelson, who was one of the greatest coaches in NBA history and at one point had the most wins all time, passing Lenny Wilkins, who we talked about in a previous episode and later would be passed by Greg Popovich for total wins all time. And he was a player starting back in the sixties and then after he was done playing, he got his start with the Milwaukee Bucks back in nineteen seventy six, and in nineteen eighty eight he took over the Golden State Warriors, where they had that run TMC team with Tim Hardway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullins. And he had a great run there, but the team started to die off, and so he went to the Knicks, and then he ended up at the Dallas Mavericks where he took over not only the head coaching position, also the general manager position. And this was a pivotal moment for the Dallas Mavericks when in nineteen ninety eight during Draft night, they acquired Derk Novinsky, who went on to become the greatest Maverick of all time. But they had also acquired an up and coming point guard in Steve Nash, and with these two players, they were able to create a dominant force in the Western Conference for years, even making it all the way to the NBA Finals in two thousand and six. But after that, don Nelson started to have some conflict with ownership on the direction they wanted to go. A few years previously, they had lost Steve Nash, who went on to become an MVP with the Phoenix Suns, and the team was struggling to sign players and keep competitive despite the fact that they had one of the best players in the league. So Don actually stepped down as head coach to remain GM the following season after losing in the NBA Finals in two thousand and six to Dwayne Way and Shaquil O'Neal led Miami Heat and giving his assistant Avery Johnson the head coaching position. Following that year, he would leave the Dallas Mavericks to take the head coaching job back at where he had a lot of success, the Golden State Warriors, and that was the beginning of the two thousand and seven season. Now, the Golden State Warriors were a struggling team. They had some success. They had some good players in Byron Davis and Jason Richardson, and they had an up and coming player in Monte Ellis. But things really started to change for the team at the trade deadline when they traded When they did a huge trade which netted them Stephen Jackson, who really changed the course of this team because before this trade the team was under five hundred. But they finished the season sixteen to five, only losing one game in April leading up to the playoffs, and in their second to last game, they actually played the Dallas Mavericks, and they had beaten the Dallas Mavericks two times already that year, but the Mavericks had already clinched the number one seed and were their players, and they sat four of their starting five, including league MVP Dirk Kavinski, and this helped beat the Los Angeles Slippers, who they were battling for the final seed, and with this win, it put them over the top to clinch that final seed. This moment came back to haunt the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs, the reason being that the Warriors thrived on emotion with the addition of Stephen Jackson, who was an emotional player. He always played with emotion and that fed into the whole team and led them emotionally to get their way into the playoffs, and they used this drive into their first round. They adopted the mantra of we believe that the whole crowd was shouting and wearing shirts that say we believe. The team believed that they could do anything. And Don Nelson knew everything about the Dallas Mavericks. He had just come from there. He had coached Dirk his entire career. Their coach, Avery Johnson was his assistant coach for years. He knew all the ways to attack them and beat them, and he knew that if they played defense differently on Dirk, who was the MVP, and the Dallas Mavericks offense ran through Dirk that year, they could win the series. See the issue with Dirk and why he was so successful as he stood seven foot tall, which is normally a center in the NBA, and you would normally have a center guard him with how tall he was, but he moved as good as a guard, and it made a challenge to guard him as he could shoot from anywhere on the court. But Don knew if you played hard defense, it didn't matter the size of the player. And Stephen Jackson wanted to take Dirk even though he only stood six ' eight. He was a great defender and he stuck to him like glue. And they came out that first game at Dallas and they took Dirk out of the game. He only scored fourteen points that first game, and Byron Davis led the Warriors with thirty three points. The following game, the Dallas Mavericks got a lot of help from their secondary players. Whereas Dirk scored, Dirk did a little bit better with twenty three points. This game. Jason Terry helped lead the way with twenty eight points and led them to their first win in the series, evening the series as the next game would be in Golden State. But this is where Golden State started to take off. The next game, they won one hundred and nine to ninety one, where they played great defense on Dirk, only managing twenty points that game, and every single starter for Golden State scored ten points, playing a very unselfish game, leading to the win and taking the series lead two to one. The next game was the closest game of the entire series, as Golden State knew if they won, the series would tilt in their favor and Dallas did not want that to happen. It wasn't Dirk leading the way for the Dallas Mavericks. Jerry Stackhouse led the team from the bench with twenty four points as the defense on Dirk was taking its toll, and Byron Davis again came out with thirty three points that game, leading them to a four point win and taking the series lead three to one. They would head back to Dallas and Dirk was on a mission not to lose this game. This is his one game where he had an offensive output more on par what he was used to. He scored thirty points this game, played over forty minutes and would not back down, allowing them to close the gap and win their second game in the series on the brink of elimination. Then on May third, Game six, with their backs against the wall, Dirk fell short and only scored eight points that game when they truly needed it, and when the Golden State Warriors threw everything they could at Dirk and helped lead the way to a one to eleven to eighty six blowout to send the Dallas Mavericks home in the Golden State Warriors on to the second round of the playoffs. But with all that emotion that we believe mentality they had and they used to it all on the Dallas Mavericks because in the next round they met the Utah Jazz, who were led by all stars Darren Williams and Carlos Boozer. They were not able to get to use their emotion to win that series and they lost four to one, but that didn't taint their season. This was the first time they made the playoffs in thirteen years and it rejuvenated the team and they would go on to have a few more good seasons until dropping off until Steph Curry made an appearance in the NBA. But this we believe team holds a moment in NBA history. It goes to show you, no matter how good of players you may have, determination and motivation can win out. And it's not only what's on the court. Every moment in your life leads to the previous moment. And Don Nelson, all the time he's spent with the Dallas Mavericks led to him beating them in the playoffs. And your experiences can help you every single day lead you to success as well. And we believe in you. And if you enjoyed this, the best thing you can do to help support us just keep listening, subscribe or follow wherever you are so that you never miss an episode of Daily Sports History. Because we'll be back tomorrow for more daily sports history,