From the Rafters

The Miami Heat beat the Dallas Mavericks for the 2006 NBA Championship!

The 2006 team that was assembled by Pat Riley the General Manager to win a championship, and ended up winning it all with Pat Riley the coach. Before the season started, this team looked invincible on paper. But that was on paper only.

Please do not get me wrong; I love MY HEAT! I have been waiting for this for 16 years. But, any objective person will tell you that this team never played to its potential. In general, you can call them underachievers. And that also include its coach. Still, there are plenty of good stories from these players.

Since the season began the team did not seem to gel. Former stars like Antoine Walker and Jayson Williams who have joined the team during off season trades, struggled throughout the season to find their role. So many times it seems that Dwyane Wade was taking all the shots, and with them, either winning or losing games; everyone else was just watching! It was at times excruciating watching this team play.

The Detroit Pistons played its best regular season ever, even though they had won the last three Eastern Conference Championships, and the NBA Finals two years ago. They had beaten the Heat in a 7-game series the previous year, with the Heat in Control of the series up to a few minutes before that last game ended. They were the Heat first major goal to overcome. Yet, during the regular season Detroit won 12 more games than the Heat. Even the Cleveland Cavaliers almost had an identical record as the Heat except for two games. On the Western Conference three teams, San Antonio, Dallas and Phoenix in that order, had better record than the Heat.

Chicago gave the Heat some difficulty in the first round of the playoffs. But as the series developed themselves, the Heat seemed to start peaking at the right time, dispatching the Nets, and making the Pistons seem like a regular team. And there they were in the Finals against a surging, high-scoring, don't-lose-a-game-seven Dallas Mavericks team.

The Heat committed a bountiful of turnovers in the six games; 15,13,20,18,11,19. Dallas only edge them in two games; one of them in their 14 points win during the second game, the other one during the over time game five. The Heat never had an edge in the free throw area ; missed FT's by game, 12, 12, 14, 13, 17, 14. They split the games when it came to who grabbed more rebounds. The Mavs had a better shooting percentage and took more shots than the Heat during the series. So how did the team win?

One thing I have learned from watching Basketball throughout the years; you need to lose one tough series, and have a heartbreak, before you can come back and perform in that situation. The Mavericks tightened up during the second quarter in the final game, and could not do one of those patented runs they had several times during all the preceding games. During the warm-ups I called my cousin and told him to call Vegas and bet on the Heat for game 6. He asked why; 'I can see the fear in their face. Nowitzki is jumping up and down like the energizer bunny, and Jason Terry does not stop staring at the basket. Meanwhile Shaq and Wade are laughing while gauging the air pressure of the basketballs'. That what it takes. Coolness under stress.

While Dallas stood around thinking, the Heat were reacting. The Mavericks could not execute in those last minute. If it was not for his seven feet tall frame, I would have asked where was Dirk. But I knew where he was on game 3; missing a last minute free throw. Terry, who shot 57% on game 5, shot only 28% on game 6, and missed that last open 3 pointer. And by the way, he took two more shots on that last game. Josh Howard mili-second mistake of calling a time out on the last 1.9 second of game two, is recorded on TV for anyone to see, and for him to spin around. And you all remember Stackhouse dumb play on a streaking Shaquille O'Neal. on game 4, making himself unavailable for game 5.

Everytime the Heat played strong, the Mavs could not match up. But that was not often. As Riley put in the post game conference, "it was not always pretty". Pat, most of the time it wasn't pretty. But they were too good, than even when they played bad, they were able to pull out the victory.