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Dirk Nowitzki, After Losing to 325lbs Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade, Went on a 3-week Drinking Binge

Jeet Pukhrambam
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Dirk Nowitzki, After Getting Beat by Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade, Went on a 3-week Drinking Binge

Dirk Nowitzki the soft-spoken German NBA legend has one of the most legendary NBA titles in history. A true underdog tale that still is set as the benchmark of what an NBA title should be. But before that, he lost in 2006 and that loss put him in a blender.

Of course, we can sympathize with him. Watching your team lose an NBA Finals matchup, after being up 2-0 must be tough to swallow. And what’s more, it was Dwyane Wade that single-handedly did it all. Shaquille O’Neal, despite weighing a slim 325lbs, was in a bit of a downturn and posted rather sad numbers.

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Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade beat Dirk in 2006

Of course, the real story is how the Mavericks were simply overrun by the brilliance of Dwyane Wade. But Nowitzki was in the form of his life. He had done stuff like this:

And even the Miami players were very confused as to how they can deal with a player of Dirk’s caliber.

Call it fate, call it luck, the Mavericks would go on to lose in 6 games and Nowitzki would be sad.

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Dirk Nowitzki drank for 3 weeks after the loss. 

Of course, like any sane man, he would go on to drink for three weeks after such a loss. We didn’t get to know of this till 2011 when he finally won and he revealed a lot about what went into winning.

He thanked fans for believing in him and how they thought he deserved it, he said, “how devastated I was after losing the Finals in ’06, so I had to go on a three-week drinking binge just to forget everything.”.

Dirk also confessed that he partied harder in the loss than in the win. He said, “I actually think we partied harder in ’06 when we lost just to forget about it than we did now”.

But all is good, Dirk went on to win and beat a much more stacked Miami team in the 2011 NBA Finals. He dropped a clinic and $100,o00 at a club on drinks.

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About the author

Jeet Pukhrambam

Jeet Pukhrambam

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Jeet Pukhrambam is The SportsRush's Lead Editor for Basketball. After freelancing for five years as an independent writer, Jeet created thousands of blog posts and articles. He now covers intriguing news reports and throwback stories on all things NBA. His interest in NBA started with the ascendancy of Giannis Antetokounmpo in the 2016-17 season. Since then, Jeet has managed to coalesce his knowledge of the game and his writing to create pieces that are reflective of the current state of the league. Now, he ensures that The SportsRush produces the highest quality of writing. In his free time, he enjoys playing football, cooking, traveling, and dancing to techno. Jeet takes pride in his critical thinking, music playlists, and his love for spaghetti.

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