Tag: LeBron James

Mike Monroe: For Spurs fans, Finals offer no good choice

It’s hard to imagine a more compelling 2011 NBA Finals matchup than Mavericks vs. Heat, but most Spurs fans find the prospect of watching it more distasteful than guzzling a gallon of water straight from the San Antonio River.

In San Antonio, these finalists are easy to despise.

This is because one team is owned by a guy who tweaked civic pride by calling The River Walk “that ugly-ass, muddy-watered thing,” and the other is led by a player who ruined his image by letting his entourage hijack it on TV.

Nobody outside South Florida wants to see the Heat succeed, especially not in the very first season after LeBron James made “The Decision” to take his talents to South Beach.

But at least the Heat aren’t the Mavericks, and to Spurs fans, that means they aren’t owned by Mark Cuban.

Cuban never has played one second of a single NBA game, but many Spurs fans deem him evil incarnate.

This proves his marketing genius. As provocateur, the NBA never has seen his like.

This is why some Spurs fans swear they won’t watch a minute of the Finals. They can’t stomach the notion that either James or Cuban will get to hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

This attitude is foolish.

This is a matchup with players who someday will be recalled among the game’s best ever.

And storylines? There are plenty.

Can the Mavericks gain redemption five years after the 2006 collapse that followed their 2-0 Finals lead over the Heat?

If James wins his very first title, will he or his sycophants lay claim to Michael Jordan’s widely accepted status as the greatest player in basketball history?

Will 38-year-old Jason Kidd and 33-year-old Dirk Nowitzki finally get the championship rings that will make their Hall of Fame careers complete?

Can Cuban really keep his mouth shut through the entire Finals?

The most compelling reason for fans from San Antonio to Timbuktu to watch the 2011 Finals: They are likely the last NBA games any of us will see for a very long time.

Even with viewership numbers for this playoff run breaking records and worldwide interest in NBA basketball surpassing even David Stern’s fondest imaginings, the league and its players’ union remain miles apart in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement that would prevent a work stoppage.

The owners presented a second proposal to the National Basketball Players Association a few weeks ago, but players to whom I’ve spoken recently are unanimous in their distaste for what they say remains an utterly unreasonable demand that the players give back most of the past 20 years’ gains of collective bargaining.

This is reflected in the recent complaint of unfair labor practices the NBPA filed with the National Labor Relations Board.

With another round of negotiations tentatively scheduled for sometime during the Dallas portion of the Finals, the complaint was clear indication the union does not intend to give in without a fight, even if it means enduring a lockout most players are convinced is coming on July 1.

Small-market owners such as the Spurs’ Peter Holt, who chairs the owners’ negotiating committee, will point out that between them, the Mavericks and Heat will pay their players more than $151 million this season. They contend this proves that liberal salary cap exceptions must be replaced.

Should Cuban’s Mavericks win the title, how will he feel about the prospect his team may not get a chance to defend it before Kidd turns 40?

Even Cuban might be willing to sip from that ugly-ass, muddy-watered thing if it meant that wouldn’t happen.

mikemonroe@express-news.net

Buck Harvey: Heat edge: Tonight just the usual hatred

DALLAS — This time, they laughed. This time, Dwyane Wade posed in front of the Mavericks’ bench before LeBron James threw a couple of playful jabs.

And when they came apart shortly after? America loved it.

But there was a time when they cried, and America loved that, too. Those days were not unlike the final seven minutes of Game 2: Chris Bosh was as confused as Erik Spoelstra was clueless then, and James dribbled until he missed.

The Heat overcame all of that during the long season, however, and that’s what should worry the Mavericks tonight.

After this circus of a season, isn’t some embarrassment and failure just the usual for Miami?

James and his teammates have learned to live with standards that apply only to them. Kevin Durant heard far less, for example, in the Western Conference finals. Then, he strapped on an imaginary championship belt after swishing the kind of 3-pointer that Wade made Thursday.

The Mavericks rallied in that game, too. But Jason? Terry didn’t say anything about Durant then, nor did the media, when a few comments could have been said.

One possibility: Durant must have really been strapping on an imaginary diaper.

Then there’s the point that James made about Terry on Saturday. “If (Terry) runs down the court doing the whole wings expanded,” James said, “do we count that as a celebration as well?”

A few people in San Antonio have seen the Jet act and are nodding right now. Terry is far from the model of professional comportment.

“I just think,” James continued, “everything gets blown out of proportion when the Miami Heat does things.”

James brought it on himself. Still, somewhere in the middle of the taunts and the blame, with everyone but South Florida rooting against the Heat, the abnormal became the normal.

Maybe the bottom came in March, when James and Wade missed last-second shots and Miami lost its fifth game in six tries. That’s when Spoelstra, trying to emphasize how much his guys cared, said, “There are a couple of guys crying there in the locker room.”

What followed was all-star schadenfreude, and it went far beyond fans and media.

“Wait ’til I call him, man,” Carmelo Anthony said of Bosh then. “I’ll be like, ‘What are you doing?’”

What were they doing? They were enduring harsh criticism and angry arenas as they tried to contend in their first year together. At times it had to be frustrating, if not maddening, and yet here they are in the Finals.

Here they are, too, as a dominant team that threw away Game 2. Miami has played better for longer in the first two games, and it fits with what the Heat did against the 76ers, Celtics and Bulls before.

So what happens now? Bosh is back to his teary days, shooting 26 percent in the Finals. Spoelstra was out-coached Thursday. James ran no offense in the final minutes before missing threes, which is what he was doing in January. And, having given away such a game, there’s reason to wonder how they will respond on the road under Finals pressure.

Still, Miami has a few things to lean on. One is talent.

Another was there Thursday until the end, which is the Heat defense. Dallas plays defense, too, but not like this. Dirk Nowitzki calls it “almost suffocating.”

Then there’s what Wade said Saturday. “It’s going to be a hostile environment,” he said. “Nothing the Miami Heat are not used to.”

Everything has been hostile for seven months, and maybe that’s their edge now. They’ve been able to set aside their failures, and whatever anyone says about them, and the aftermath of Game 2 fits into that.

They celebrate too much?

They’ve heard much, much worse.

bharvey@express-news.net

Nowitzki leads late rally as Mavs tie series 1-1

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Associated Press

MIAMI — Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks put a stunning end to their misery in Miami.

Now they can win their first NBA title without ever coming back to South Florida.

Nowitzki made the tie-breaking layup with 3.6 seconds left, and the Mavericks roared back from 15 points down in the fourth quarter to beat the Heat 95-93 on Thursday night and tie the NBA finals at one game apiece.

Capping a furious rally by scoring Dallas’ final nine points, Nowitzki made two late baskets left-handed — despite a torn tendon on that non-shooting hand. He finished with 24 points.

Dwyane Wade had 36 points for Miami, but his desperation 3-pointer was off at the buzzer.

“I thought defensively we really got into them,” Nowitzki said of the rally. “We pressured them full court and we scrambled defensively. We even gave up some offensive rebounds, but we kept scrambling.”

Game 3 is Sunday in Dallas.

Seemingly out of the game when the Heat led 88-73 with 7:15 remaining, Dallas held the Heat to just one field goal from there, a 3-pointer by Mario Chalmers with 24.5 seconds that tied it just 2 seconds after Nowitzki’s 3 had made it 93-90.

But after a timeout, Jason Kidd ran the clock down before getting the ball to Nowitzki, who drove into the lane, spun back to the left and made the layup.

Jason Terry, largely silent since the first half of Game 1, fueled the comeback with a couple of jumpers and finished with 16 points. Shawn Marion had 20 points for the Mavericks, who had lost four straight finals games in Miami since taking a 2-0 lead in the 2006 series.

They were about to go down 2-0 this time before Nowitzki, who insisted his injured finger wouldn’t hinder him, led a rally even more amazing than the one that won Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, when the Mavs trailed Oklahoma City by 15 in the fourth quarter before pulling it out in overtime.

LeBron James scored 20 points for the Heat.

He and Wade were running by and over the older Mavs for three quarters, and it appeared the only thing that could slow them down was that big trophy they would soon be holding.

Not so fast.

Wade angered the Mavs, particularly Terry, when he held his follow through after his 3-pointer from the corner with 7:15 left capped a 13-0 run and made it 88-73.

The Heat suddenly went cold, holding the ball too long on possessions and forcing James and Wade to attempt long jumpers with the shot clock winding down, instead of playing to their strengths and driving into the lane.

A series of those missed jumpers eventually ended with the Mavs getting possession, and Nowitzki making a layup that tied it at 90 with 57 seconds to play.

The Heat lost for the first time in 10 games at home in the playoffs and will have to win at least once in Dallas to force the series back here.