Dallas Mavericks’ Quest to Defend NBA Title Was Over Before it Ever Began
The Dallas Mavericks’ quest to defend their 2011 NBA Championship crown was over before it ever really began.
With the departures of key players on last year’s title team, most notably the NBA Defender of the Year, Tyson Chandler, as well as J.J. Barea, and DeShawn Stevenson, Mavs fans got the feeling that a repeat would take a miracle.
Sure, Mark Cuban had his reasons (salary cap) for blowing up the championship team before they had a chance to defend their title, but that doesn’t make it any easier for Mavs fans to stomach.
Most fans, if they were honest, knew that this season would end much differently for the Dallas Mavericks than last season when Dirk Nowitzki and his Mavs tore their way through the post-season and defeated the highly-favored Miami Heat “Dream Team.”
What they didn’t figure, however, was that it would end so abruptly and in such ugly fashion.
The Dallas Mavericks, the oldest team in the NBA, didn’t match up well with the young Oklahoma City Thunder team from the very beginning. It was actually quite surprising that Dallas played them so closely in games 1 and 2, coming within 1 and 3 points, respectively, of stealing a game (or even two) on the road.
Then the Mavericks, down 0-2, headed back home with a slight glimmer of hope remaining.
That hope was all but squashed in a 95-79 route in game 3 on their home floor.
Fighting for their last breath, it appeared that the Mavs would at least avoid a sweep, up 13 points heading into the 4th quarter in game 4, but James Harden and Kevin Durant had different plans and the Thunder rallied to a clean sweep of the defending champions.
The Dallas Mavericks became only the fifth team in professional basketball history to fail to win a post-season game the season after winning the title. The last team to do so, ironically, was the Miami Heat in 2006 when they were swept by the Chicago Bulls in the first round of the playoffs after defeating the Mavericks in the 2005 NBA Finals.
Prior to that, the Philadelphia Warriors (1956-57) were also swept in the first round of the playoffs, and the 1969-70 Boston Celtics and the 1998-99 Chicago Bulls failed to even reach the post-season.
No, it wasn’t the season that Dallas Mavericks and their fans hoped for, to say the least. And to be honest, the future isn’t looking too bright either.
However, they’ve done it before and they can do it again.
But in reality, it could take quite awhile.
