Not going quietly

The season ended not with a bang for the Dallas Mavericks, but with almost no sound at all - Jason Terry missed a 25-foot shot that would have tied the game and that was it. No loud cheering (or at least anymoreso then usual) - just the ball almost falling into the hands of the MVP Dwyane Wade, who promptly tries to throw it into the roof.

But hey - can you blame Jason for trying? What would Larry Bird have done? Or Jordan? Or you? Would you go for the 2 and hope to God you get fouled? Or would you go for the three, the shot that would make you the hero if you win (like Raja Bell against the Clippers) - but makes you look almost like a selfish scapegoat if you lose. He's not the reason the Mavericks lost.

And it doesn't really matter anyway - He could have sank that shot to tie and they still would have lost in overtime. Sure, they managed to score 92 points and come within three - but they blew a huge lead early, shot less then 40% and were never really as close as the score said they were. Sure, they had it close and they were determined to go down fighting.

And that's just what happened - they lost the fight, were never close enough and ended up going down - just not all that quietly. And maybe Mark Cuban had a point the other day when he blew a gasket and yelled at the referees - Dwyane Wade and Alonzo Mourning were able to get away with fouls late in the game that could have changed the outcome of the game.

I'm not a basketball professor; I've been really paying attention to the NBA for something like a year now - but if I can tell that someone is getting fouled and the referee isn't... Well, there's something dreadfully wrong there. But that's enough on that ugly tangent...

One thing was for certain at the end of the game tonight, though: that Dwyane Wade deserved that MVP title. He was dominant when he needed to be, he was huge in the clutch and showed composure beyond his years. Nobody - not Dirk, not Shaq, nobody else - deserved that trophy more then he did this year. And his huge free throws at the end (which could have lost the game for the Heat) only re-enforced that fact. I can't wait for his showdown against Lebron in the playoffs next year (you know it's inevitable).