Why the Mavericks' win is good for basketball

Of all the teams the Miami Heat could have lost to, it couldn't be more fitting than to come at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks. Last July, the Heat assembled the greatest team ever on paper. Their goal was a simple one: to circumvent all the necessities of a healthy team (depth, teamwork, leadership, continuity, experienced coaching and chemistry) with stone cold talent. And for most of the year, the Heat got by with their superstars doing 99% of the work, while getting the absolute bare minimum from their supporting cast.

And so losing to a team like the Dallas Mavericks, playing without their second-leading scorer in Caron Butler, was unimaginable. Never was this made more present than in Game 6 of the finals, when the ABC announcers continually spoke of suspensions that could potentially impact Game 7 without even acknowledging that there might NOT be a Game 7.

And who could blame them? For a while, it looked like the Heat's incredible triad was insurmountable. As they walked through the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls, we preemptively began re-teaching the very essence of basketball to ourselves. Teamwork wasn't needed. Depth wasn't necessary. The Heat, after all, did not have a single role player outside of the big three who maintained their status on the team full-time. The nexus of Mario Chalmers, Eddie House, Jamal Magloire, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, James Jones, Mike Miller, Mike Bibby, Joel Anthony, Udonis Haslem and Juwan Howard was completely interchangeable. Not one of those players wasn't out of the rotation at some point in the year, and all of them played in the 2011 playoffs.

How fitting is it then that they lose to the Dallas Mavericks, a team whose composition was 100% different? Whereas the Heat put everything they had into their starting lineup, Dallas constructed their roster with bargain bin role players, guys like Stevenson, Barea, Stojakovic, Chandler, Haywood, Mahinmi and Brian Cardinal, a benchwarmer who's nickname is "The Janitor." Their only other player who could create his own shot was in street clothes; the second-best player on the team, Jason Kidd, averaged less than 10 per game in the regular season and was an offensive liability; and their best remaining scoring threat came off the bench.

On paper, we assumed that Dallas never had a prayer.

But they did have a prayer. They were able to topple the mighty Heat by utilizing the same principles of basketball the Heat had tried to cheat, and in the process, reconfirmed that a full, 12-man team is still stronger than a 3-man fantasy squad. Brian Cardinal picked up a big charge. Mahinmi made a miraculous shot at the end of the third. Terry and Barea were incredible, Kidd provided leadership, Marion and Chandler gave athleticism, and DeShawn Stevenson couldn't miss a shot.

They beat the Miami Heat tonight, a team with three superstars, when their one and only superstar, Dirk Nowitzki, was atrocious, hitting only 9 of 27 shots. Dallas won with intangibles we had begun to believe were obsolete, and Miami lost because it's the one thing you can't buy with a $110 million free-agent.

Training drills still matter, execution still counts, and a series can still be decided by something other than talent. The basketball world is safe for another year.