Dallas Mavericks NBA champions
For the first time in the history of the franchise, the Dallas Mavericks claimed the 2011 NBA Championship. They began their run slowly with a win over the Trail Blazers, but it wasn’t until they swept the Lakers that people began to really take notice. Once the Thunder were disposed of, they set up another Finals appointment with the Heat. Basketball betting backed the Heat but that was more due to the Heat’s superiority on paper.
It was the classic team of champions against a champion team and many on the Mavericks roster would give anything to fill the void on their resume. In the form of veterans Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion , Jason Terry and Peja Stojakovic there were a collective 59 seasons in the NBA without a title.
What the Mavericks had over the Heat in the final was that they played like a team and were all on the same page. With Le Bron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all playing more like individuals than a team, friction was never far away.
The Heat hosted the first two games and won the first easily but blew a 15 point lead in the fourth quarter of game 2 making it 1-1 in the series. The Heat then resumed the overall lead thanks to a 2 point win in game three, after which The Mavericks won a closely fought Game 4 by three points to level the series yet again – causing basketball odds to swing back and forth.
With the final two games to be played in Miami, Nowitzki labeled Game 5 as the biggest game in franchise history and he came through with 29 points. They then went to Miami to claim Game 6 and finally win the title that had eluded them and some of their stars for so long.
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