After making quick work of the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Dallas Mavericks are once again headed to the NBA Finals. The last time Dallas was headed to the finals, they were facing off against LeBron James and the Miami Heat, which turned out to be quite the series, as Dallas came back from a 2-1 deficit to win their first championship as a franchise. On the occasion of the Mavericks making the finals once again, “All The Smoke” productions dropped a clip from their 2023 interview with Mark Cuban, in which the former Dallas owner narrated a story of how Pat Riley once talked trash to him during the half-time interval of Game 2 and how he soon came to regret it.
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The entire story began during the 2011 NBA Finals, where in Game 2, the Dallas Mavericks had choked away their lead by halftime. As Mark Cuban walked towards his team’s locker room, he was abruptly stopped by Heat President Pat Riley. The former Knicks Coach told Cuban that his team was just too weak and small, a statement that Riley later came to regret. Recalling the incident, Cuban told his hosts,
“The second game, we’re in Miami, and at halftime, they’re up 15 or whatever, Pat Riley says to me as I’m walking through the middle part. He goes, ‘Not long enough, not strong enough, Mark. We’re just too quick and too long.’ I’m like, I didn’t say anything bad. It’s Pat Riley, right? I’m not going to disrespect him.”
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Mark Cuban’s team quickly turned things around in the second half of the game, as the team, which was down more than 15 points at halftime, rallied together to finish the game with a final score of 95-93. While the Dallas side dropped the next game, they somehow strung together three back-to-back wins after that, cementing their first championship victory, and it couldn’t have come against a better opponent.
Mark Cuban got his revenge for Dallas’s 2006 loss
The Miami Heat losing the 2011 NBA Finals was possibly the biggest upset in NBA history, especially when you consider the difference in star power between the two teams. While Dallas was no slouch, the Big Three in Miami were undoubtedly the favorites to win it all. But as the series played out, the Heat squad completely disintegrated, with Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki completely outperforming the Heatles single-handedly.
But what makes the 2011 win so special has more to do with the NBA Finals that took place five years prior, where the Mavericks were the heavy favorites to win and the Miami Heat successfully pulled off an upset, winning the franchise’s first chip. Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O’Neal formed a deadly one-two punch, which left Dallas’s squad without an answer.
Regardless, Cuban never forgot the humiliating loss the Miami side dished out to him and his team. The former owner has often used the word “hate” to describe his feelings about the Miami side, especially Dwayne Wade. But in the end, Cuban had the last laugh as the single 2011 loss continues to tarnish the legacy that the Miami Heat and its Big Three left behind, while Nowitzki’s single championship is considered one of the hardest championships ever won in NBA history,
