How's everyone feeling today? I feel like a million bucks and couldn't be happier. I had really put myself in a bit of a hole... I got myself to the point where I didn't think I could enjoy NBA basketball ever again if the Heat won the title this season. The reason why: if the NBA isn't about team basketball and playing the sport the right way and working hard 11 months of the year to get the title, but instead is about superstars colluding together to join forces and have fun on the beach and create a dominant team consisting of 3 players... well, then I couldn't have any interest in the NBA anymore. That's not a true sport to me. Sure, the Mavericks had two guys who you knew were going to score. Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry are going to put up points. But can the Mavericks win without the defense and quick hands of Jason Kidd, or the explosiveness of JJ Barea, or the interior presence of Tyson Chandler, or the quirky effectiveness of Shawn Marion? Heck, even the 3-point shooting of DeShawn Stevenson was huge. They needed all of those guys to win. They needed Rick Carlisle to make a brilliant switch of the hard-working Brian Cardinal for the ineffective Peja Stojakovic (even though Peja was magnificent against the Lakers). They don't win the title without all of those guys. Do the Miami Heat play any better if you switch out Mike Miller for James Jones? Probably not. Did they get better when Eddie House replaced Mike Bibby? Not at all. Was Joel Anthony key in the series. Not in the least. The only truly important players on the Miami Heat are the three stars who couldn't make their former teams better and can't seem to make each other better.
I'm still a Cleveland Cavaliers fan and will be until the day I die (or until the NBA morphs into a league that doesn't interest me anymore), and I was certainly rooting for the Dallas Mavericks from the beginning of the finals because I hate the Miami Heat, but somewhere along the way before they even met up in this series, I started to love the Dallas Mavericks as well. It couldn't have been a better story. Guys on the downside of their career looking for a championship as the only accomplishment they still crave... and they had so many. Dirk, Kidd, Terry, Marion, Chandler, Stojakovic, Cardinal... all those guys are on the wrong side of their prime and most had already been to a conference championship or finals and lost. Team basketball in its truest sense, I mean, Dallas was basically the only NBA team to play an effective zone defense and stick with it for several minutes of play. They're unselfish guys with great personalities who say the right things to the media and the fans. I'll be rooting first and foremost for the Cavs next season, but I think that I will be rooting for the Mavericks to win their second title knowing that Cleveland won't be ready to get there just yet.
My wife was going crazy last night. I mean, she was even more excited than I was. She was pacing around our house during commercial breaks. She was living and dying with every shot, asking me to explain rules at different times or why as Dallas player had fouled a Miami player. She screamed and squealed with delight as the last seconds came off the clock, probably waking up our neighbors. It was fun. The whole series was so fun. It's almost as good as having a Cleveland team become champion... note quite, but at least I can understand that feeling a little bit now.
Today is a good day, even for us people "with [our] same problems and same lives." Thanks LBJ... that's the icing on the cake, buddy.
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