I don't believe the 2007 Dallas Mavericks have the collective heart to prevail in Oakland, not with the Warriors' fans smelling blood and providing one of the all-time electric/rabid/emotional/crazed atmospheres in recent sports history. As good as they were in Game 3 and Game 4, the fans will be better tonight. They will rise to the occasion. They will. I am convinced. They have been waiting for a night like this for 30 long years. Literally.
Maybe a veteran team such as the Spurs wouldn't be fazed, but the Cuban-era Mavs have proved time and time again -- in Miami last June, against Phoenix two years ago, even last weekend in Oakland -- that they have no qualms about folding at the worst possible times. The right crowd can get to them. The right mix of shaky calls can get to them. They fall apart when you least expect it. In fact, they squandered a 21-point lead in Game 5 and would have ended up on one of TNT's "Gone Fishin'" cards if (A) the Warriors hadn't stupidly slowed things down with a six-point lead, and (B) the Mavs hadn't gotten four major calls in the final 50 seconds: Barnes getting whistled for a clean strip of Nowitzki, Nowitzki not getting whistled for clobbering Richardson on a go-ahead 3, Davis getting a sixth foul for not touching anyone and Nowitzki going over-the-back on the biggest rebound of the game. Whatever. The league wanted this series to go back to Oakland, and it did.
To beat this particular Warriors team -- an undersized group that thrives on dunks, killer 3s, alley-oops, energy plays and everything else that ignites a great crowd -- when they're playing at home, you need five guys who won't be afraid (as far as I can tell, Dallas has Nowitzki, Stackhouse and Howard and that's it), and one special player who can pull a Clint Eastwood and jam a stake in the crowd's collective heart. On paper, Nowitzki should be that player -- we even caught a glimpse in Game 5, when he did a superb impression of the 2007 MVP during the final three minutes -- but as I wrote in Tuesday's piece, he has looked like a mess for most of this series. Even in Game 5, Nowitzki disappeared for nearly the entire second half. This was an elimination game! How could a team's best player attempt only two shots in the first 21 minutes of the second half against a surging Warriors team that clearly smelled an upset?