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Heat Have Mental Edge over Weak Mavericks

You stay classy, Mark Cuban.

I will be honest with you, I had huge doubts going into yesterday’s Mavs/Heat rematch. I was worried for the Champs. As much of a Heat homer I am I could not bring myself to thinking the Heat were going to pull out a victory yesterday. It just didn’t play into there favor. No Shaq, no Riley and no consistency from when they last met in the NBA Finals. The did however play much better then I expected. Which does not bode well for Dallas if the Heat meet them in the playoffs again. With a healthy Shaq back this Heat team is deeper then last years and showed on Sunday that it can “hang” and keep the game close, even when missing the “Big Daddy”. One thing that did ring true about this matchup, the Mavericks are still a mentally weak team and have a weak minded owner leading the pack. It’s one thing to lose and be upset about losing, it’s another thing to be a sore loser. You know the one comparison you can make between Dirk and The Hoff? They both like working on a team full of ninnies wearing bikini’s.

”I zapped through NBA TV the other day and I saw a little bit of the celebration and obviously I couldn’t watch it,” Dirk Nowitzki told Dallas reporters recently. “That’s obviously a sore spot. When they were driving around with the trophy, I made sure I zapped away pretty quickly.

The real bitterness stemmed from the exuberant, yet always classy Mark Cuban, who continued to take digs at the city of Miami and it’s fans as well as the Miami Heat themselves. Cuban, who always has fun, said he didn’t enjoy Miami this trip because he couldn’t go out with all the playful and hostile heckling he was getting. It followed him to his seat Sunday, too…

”It might hurt less if we had lost to a better team,” Cuban said. “But we didn’t.”

Miami wasn’t better?

”Not at all,” Terry said.

Jerry Stackhouse also added…

”We’re the better team,” Stackhouse said. “Doesn’t matter what we think unless you show it and prove it. But man for man, if we’re playing our best and they’re playing their best, we are better. For a four-game stretch, they played unbelievable and we didn’t play well at all, and we were still in every game.”

There was plenty of banter going on before the game on Sunday, one conversation you could easily over hear was Jason Terry and Gary Payton…

”You know you have something that belongs to me, right?” Terry said to champion Gary Payton. “You keeping my ring polished?”

And Payton kept saying back, “Its shiny. Real shiny.”

Anoine Walker, a champion now, has called the Mavs the ”whiniest, cryingest” team he has ever heard.

So here’s to you, the Dallas Mavericks, for getting the SporTech Whiniest, Bitchiest Team in Professional Sports award. You worked hard at it!

This is just more fuel added to the fire. I am DYING for a finals rematch. Hang this post on the wall in the locker room of the Heat and let them go to work.

Your thoughts on the whining Mavs and yesterday’s matchup?

(Update 1: Reflecting via e-mail last week on the Finals and other topics, Mavs owner Mark Cuban was asked if he agrees with Dirk Nowitzki’s earlier comment that Dallas handed the championship to the Heat. ”No question about it,” he wrote. That doesn’t sit well with Heat owner Micky Arison. ”[Nowitzki] should keep saying it and hopefully we’ll meet in the Finals and put that up in the locker room,” Arison said Friday. “That takes away from . . . an absolutely amazing performance from Dwyane [ Wade].”)