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This is Jason Terry. Like I spoke it into existence. 2011 NBA champion with the Dallas Mavericks. We just had to edge up. He's going to take you through their entire championship run. There was nothing you could do to stop this group. Presented by State Farm. It still like to this moment brings goosebumps back. I'm Jason Terry. Welcome to the run. The 2010 to 111 Mavericks were defined by experience. But despite 10 straight playoff appearances, the franchise was still searching for its first title.
Durk Noitzky had come closest in 2006. Now 5 years later, Durk was still chasing that first ring. The regular season was filled with ups and downs. a league high 12game win streak, another allNBA season from Durk, but also injuries, including losing starting forward Karan Butler to a season ending knee injury. The Mavs finished the season with a 57 and 25 record. Is the third seed in the West going into the 2011 playoffs? Dallas prepared for a new run. Questions about the Dallas Mavericks. Are they too old? Are they tough enough? Will they have another early season bow out in the playoffs? Well, we never bought into the too old uh narrative because three or four of us, myself,
Sean Marion, like he had been an allstar. Dirt obviously MVP allstar. So, we're experienced. We're not old. Our point guard Jason Kid was older, but he was so wise and beyond his years. A veteran experienced team will always think like they're the favorite. Like, we never thought about being the underdog. Now, our first year in ' 06, we were the dark worst underdog. We didn't even think about the finals. We just were happy to make it to the playoffs. This time we expected to be there and so we felt like the time is now. And that was actually our mantra throughout our playoff run. The time is now.
First up for the Mavericks were the Portland Trailblazers led by star power forward Lamarcus Aldridge. Dallas won both games one and two at home with dominant performances from dirt. But when the series moved to Portland for game three, the Blazers fought hard with physicality causing the Mavs to drop their first game of the series. In game four, the Mavericks seem to be taking back control, up 23 points with a minute left in the third. Enter Brandon Roy. Yeah, buddy. The greatest player to come out of Washington State, Brandon Roy. In that finals run, this was our toughest matchup and it was in the first round. And I just hate it was against us. He had one of his greatest moments, but
this was a battle. We could not stop him. Literally, we were up 23 or something in the first half and I was cooking. Like I was having a great game. It was like, "Okay, we about to finish these boys off. The series is over." And then B Roy just turned back the clock. Like you see, we had multiple defenders. Everybody got some of it. I guarded them. Sean guarded them. Tyson switched out on him and we could not stop him. So like I don't know what was going through his mind, but our mind is like, "Bro, we got to double. We got to change the strategy. do something. And coach Carlo just kept saying, "No, guard him." He was like, "We trying. He's You can't guard him right now. He's
cooking." And uh and we still had a chance. Like I still had a chance to win. So I was disappointed in that. Hi, Mom. Oh, see that hurt too. This was the longest film session in the history of basketball. Like after this game, Carlile literally we watched like an hour and a half of film. We watched the whole second half. First of all, we probably seen every broy bucket that he gave us. So he made it like stick like, "No, y'all going to watch this. This going to hurt." That's when the media started talking locally like, "Okay, these are the same old Mavericks. They're about to get back door swept. Uh Portland's going to come back and beat them." You just like, "Nah, the time is
now. We not that's not happening." The Mavericks would not let the Blazers win another game in a 33-point showing from Durk led the Mavs to finish off the series in six. Now they advance to the Western Conference semi-finals to face the back-to back champion Los Angeles Lakers. And who did Jason Terry get to defend? Reigning Finals MVP Kobe Bryant. The way he's looking at me though is crazy. Like if this little boy don't get off me, like this is a cold picture. I need a copy of this, please. You knew with Kobe, like for whatever defensive tactic you had, he had a counter. Some of the games I had against him are just blackouts. Like, cuz you knew you had to bring it. If you didn't, you going
to literally die on the court. Also, in this game, he made it a point to tell me, "Jet, like, you too close. Like, why you so close to me?" I said, "Bro, I got to stay on you." He said, "But there's nothing you could do." Like he would say little stuff like that to you like bro we just a game going on like you having a whole conversation. What are you talking about? First of all I didn't say nothing to you. Second of all like bro just play the game. But he always would have little stuff like that. Then he wouldn't say nothing else for like two quarters. Just a killer man. There was a saying that we always lose in the locker room. The road to a championship always goes through the champion. And so we
knew to be champions we had to defeat the Lakers. Game one in Los Angeles looked like it was slipping away when the Lakers built a 16-point lead in the third quarter, but the Mavs clawed back into the game with their defensive intensity, securing two key steals in the final 30 seconds. Kobe missed a potential gamewinner and the Mavericks escaped with a 96 to 94 victory. Game two made one thing clear. The Lakers could not stop Dirk. His 24 points led all scorers, but the mass strength went deeper than their superstar. Their depth continued to come up big. JJ Berea's playmaking and Brendan Haywood's defense providing a
spark that helped lift Dallas to a 93 to 81 win. Back in Dallas for game three, it was more of the same. Durk's 32 points and nine rebounds, plus an offensive boost from Jason Terry and Pja Stoyakovich off the bench brought the Mavericks to a 98 to 92 victory. After three straight wins, Dallas was at home with a chance to complete the sweep. Oh my goodness. How you doing, JT? The Mother's Day massacre was insane. Like, I can literally remember the meal I had. I took my mother to eat. I took her to the um International House of uh pancakes. Like, I had the banana pancakes, extra syrup, side of bacon,
and then you get to the game, you're in your locker, you're listening to your headphones. Like, it was the ultimate moment where you're in the zone. People talk about being in the zone. Like, I was literally in the zone. My first shot was wide open. I was wide open. Like there was nobody within 10 feet from me and it was all net. See wide open. Bang. The hoop was the ocean after that. Like I literally could toss it up. It's going by the Los Angeles Lakers. HOW ABOUT TERRY G. This is like shooting at the playground in the park. You just catch and shoot wide open. Like I do this in my sleeps. And then Paige came in. He's
hitting. JJ's like it just kept going. We look up. were up 30. Fields just sitting over there. He wasn't whistling. He was just sitting there just taking it and Kobe was quiet. That's the first time you ever seen Kobe like just he had no response. Offensively, we figured out a way that we could attack them if we can spread them out and put our shooters in certain spots like either both corners or the high quad and allow JJ to break the defense down uh and pick and roll. Their defense was always over rotating helping. All he had to do is break the paint and spray it outside and he could really pick his poison on which one he wanted to pass to. I just happened to be the recipient on a lot of
those. And for us, it gave us the ultimate confidence. If there was any doubt that crept in, there wasn't within the group, but from the outside, you know, maybe some of the fan base now they're starting to believe, too. Like, oh, this is our year. This is it. The Mavericks were about to get the perfect chance to squash the narrative that they were too old as they prepared to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. This was an ultimate clash of the eras. The veteran Mavericks versus an upand cominging OKC team led by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden. All under 23 years old.
Game one belonged to Durk. He had his greatest playoff performance yet, scoring 48 points on 12 of 15 shooting in a historic 24 of 24 from the line to lead the Mavericks to victory. Game one was huge, but this one I realized like Dirk's on a whole another level and he was serving them up where he's hitting his shots from. The night before every game, we would go to those same spots. I'd be on this end, he's on that end. the moves he's doing. Like I'm watching this play out and he's practicing like a performance. It's a theatrical performance and I get to see it before it happens. You can't get caught up, but you do get caught up and kind of sitting back watching and
forgetting cuz it's greatness and it's looking so good and so smooth, but then you got to snap back out of it. Like I have moments where you sitting on the weak side like watching, oh my god, he's about to cook it, man. just like surgically getting to his where he wants to get to on the floor and it reminds you of Jordan, Kobe, Bird, like all the great players do it. They get to their spot. There's nothing you can do. But the Thunder were not going to go down without a fight. OKC shot 56% from the field and the big three combined for 65 as they won game two, stealing home court. In game three, the story was defense. The Mavs held the Thunder to 36% shooting from the field, stealing
one on the road to go up 2-1. But in game four, the Thunder got their mojo back and found themselves up 15 with under 5 minutes to go. But the Mavericks had one key thing that the Thunder didn't experience. Now, we all know who these guys have come to be, like all Hall of Famers. Westbrook, Katie, James, Hall of Famers, no doubt. But in that time frame, in that moment, they weren't quite there yet on that level. I think they were excited. They was happy to be there. And they were still trying to figure out kind of who they were individually. So, they weren't quite together as a unit mentally where they were. We just had the edge up. An inexperienced team will
fold in those situations. Us, we thrived in it. It's like, oh, 13. Oh, that's nothing. Three. Mark in the rebound. BACK TO DURANT. BANG. LARGEST LEAD OF THE NIGHT. See what I'm saying? Like the youth is showing they celebrating. It's 5 minutes left. What you celebrating? But I get it. You're up 10. You're excited. But dear Dirt, go right there. I mean, there he is getting right to his spot. Look. Bang. I mean, how do you're up 10. How you give up a walk up three to Dirk Niski. I mean, we just walked him down. Deflected by Ibaka. And we go to overtime.
Once they let us get to overtime, we knew we had him. Like, you just gave up a 10-point lead. A young team is not going to respond well to that. I don't care if they're at home or on the road. Like, they're not going to respond well because literally you seen the celebration. They thought the game was over. We like, "Nah, the game just started." Like, we down 10. Okay, cool. We've been here before. But I give a lot of credit to Jay Kid because me, I'm temperamental. I get emotional in a timeout. We're down 10. I'm probably hitting guys in the chest like, "Man, come on, man. Just get He's like, "Hey,
relax. We got this." and he was always the common voice that would settle everybody in and have us engaged and locked into the moment. With their backs against the wall, the Thunder put up a fight until the very end of game five. 13 points off the bench. Durant catching, shooting three. Big bucket for Kevin Durant. But a 26-point performance from Shawn Marian gave Dirk the support he needed to close out the brightest young team in the league in a 100 to 96 victory. The Dallas Mavericks were heading to the NBA Finals. Their opponent, the Miami Heat, the same team that crushed their finals dreams in 2006, except now they also had LeBron James.
These guys were like, I guess they called them the Heels or something. Like they were doing victory tours before they even played one game and parades. and you've never seen that type of energy from a team that hadn't accomplished anything. So, as we watched that play out that summer when it they were putting it together, that was all the motivation we all needed. We're like, "Okay, okay, let them talk about them. If we happen to show up and place against them in the finals, we going to see who come out on top." Miami Heat take game one of the NBA finals. Not winning the first one, we like, okay, it's a series. They have homec court advantage. Our job is to win one of the first two. Cuz all we were looking for was intel and information to
justify what we already knew is that okay, you got to keep them out of transition. Got to take care of the basketball. You got to slow them down, make them play half court. But then you get out there and you're like, oh no, you can't turn the ball over They one dribble. They're on the rim. Like they're throwing alley up. These boys is I don't know what LeBron's vertical was at that time in Dway, but athletically there was nothing you could do to stop this group if you turn the ball over, if you allowed them to get out in transition. We knew it, but now we had to like go through it to see it. So now game two comes and we start off the same way. We're like, god damn it.
We knew we can't turn the ball over. Like we giving them easy opportunities and it took three quarters for us in game two to like settle in and again we get to the point where we're down again. So, I don't know what it is about being down with our group, but we had to like look de in the face. Okay, now hold on. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're down 10. Relax. Let's do what we came to do. And then we locked in that moment. I think it was like 5 minutes left. Here they go again. They're celebrating. I'm watching D Way throw his punches at Braun. They celebrating all in front of the bench. And I'm looking like, "Look, man. First of all, nobody likes to show off. Second of all, they not taking this
from us in this moment. So, let's lock in and do what we got to do and get out of here with a victory. The next five minutes was crazy. Steal, rebound, outlet, layup, bucket, derk, fade away. They And it just kept happening. They're missing. We're coming down scoring. And that pass, we come back and knock them off. Series tied 1-1. A familiar enemy arose in Dallas in game three. Dwayne Wade led the way for the Heat with 29 points and 11 rebounds. puts it in, but it was a Chris Bosch go-ahead bucket with 39 seconds remaining that sealed the victory.
Durk missed a jump shot as time expired that would have tied the game and forced overtime, giving the Heat the 88 to 86 victory. Then down 2-1, the Mavs get news that could change everything. Our routine is the night before each game, he and I are going to come in late. We going to shoot. I'm on this end, he's on that end. We're going to get our routine in. He didn't do his routine. So I'm like, man, what's going on? So then I'm like, ah, must be tired. He'll figure it out. So the next morning we get there, he's already back with the trainer and he just ain't looking good.
Like got the towel over his head. He's like got the co shakes and they're like, "Well, he going to set out a shoot around, see if he can get ready for the game." Like, oh he might not even play. He's that sick. And I'm already in my mind going through it because game three I didn't have a good game and the media started poking at me and they had brought a quote to me that they said Dirk said. Whether he said it or not, who knows? But it's like Jet ain't been showing up and that's all I needed to hear. What? I ain't showing up? Are you crazy? Okay, I got something for you. So, I wasn't really talking to nobody. But then to know that he was sick and all that. Okay, he needs me. I got to show up. But you
could tell like he didn't want to disappoint us. He didn't want to disappoint the city. He's like in this moment like I got to get sick. He never gets sick. I mean he literally walks around with the salute to what is that? Saline. And he's he's he's got all the tricks to stay healthy. Like he never gets sick. And he's thinking in this moment I'm looking in his eyes. He's like in this moment I can't be sick. I'm about to fight through this. Once we got to the game and it was tip off and he was in uniform, we were good.
We're like, sick or not, he's coming to play. We're going to show up. This is a pivotal game in the series. It's 2-1. I don't know what the analytics say, but I know if you go down 3-1, it's not looking good for you. So, we knew we had to show up. And I think the numbers will show. Um, in 2011, we were the best zone team in basketball. And so, we knew we had that in our bag. This is at a point in LeBron's career where he didn't quite have the consistent jump shots yet. So, he didn't really trust it. So, we knew he wanted to get to certain spots on the floor. But, if we can set our zone defense where he can see a wall of three guys and three bodies, he would be less likely to attack. When we were in man,
we wanted to look like a zone. You can see this picture here. It looks like a one, two, two zone where you have three guys in front of the isolated offensive player. So, he has to see three bodies. Again, great players. They see one guy, they don't even see you. They see the basket. But now, if you put two extra defenders there, there's something else for him to look at. He doesn't know if we're going to trap. It definitely closed down the driving lanes. And so, it puts a little indecision in his isolation game. Dwave is a monster at that particular time his career. He there's nothing no defensive game plan you could do to stop him. Like we tried
did not work. So we wanted to focus our energy more on LeBron and kind of eliminate what Chris Bosch could do. It started with Braun though. And the adjustments worked. Dallas held LeBron to just eight points in game four, his lowest scoring playoff performance yet. Meanwhile, Durk fought through his fever and dropped 21 points to lead the Mavericks to an 86 to 83 victory. The series was now tied heading into game five. The Mavericks motto defined the moment perfectly. The time is now. So every game from game four on, we treated as if it was game seven. This was a win or go home type mentality. This was a extreme focus. This was no distractions. This is cell phones are off. Ticket requests are down. Like if
you didn't already have your ticket, don't call none of us. We're not answering. There's no not sports center. There's no USA Today in the locker room back in the day. You know, they got the newspapers. There's no local newspapers. It's strictly game plan, then it's rest. You're getting your rest. But it's a sheer focus and intent is game seven mentality. Win or go home. Oh, did y'all hear me cough? Think I'm safe. See, you got jokes. Got joke. See, I'm like that though. See, I'm a little sarcastic with my joking and I totally understand what they're doing. It's a little joke between them two. But to
catch it on camera is crazy because then they showed they actually showed that to us. Now we didn't need the extra motivation. But seeing it, did it give us a little extra little nudge? Oh, a thousand%. Game five, JJ goes insane. The Puerto Rican Allan Iverson, that was our nickname for him. He was going stupid, but that's who he was. Like he was just such a energy, tough, competitive. It's just who he is as a person. Like that's his DNA. It's like you talk about being an underdog. Look at him like he's 511, 510, smallest dude on the court, but just tough as nails. They used to pick on Jay-Z a lot. Like they I we can go to the depths of saying bullying and stuff, but like they would
put like car seats in his locker, strollers, like just calling him a little baby, giving him baby food. He was easy to pick on because he was the smallest dude. Uh but he was tough. He was funny. just a great teammate, like hard worker, super cerebral, understood the game, but just a fierce competitor. Like he fit right in with the group. The only reason why you picked on him, cuz it's like your little brother. Berea's 17 points and five assists were huge for Dallas in game five. But it was the defensive showcase from Tyson Chandler that pushed him over the edge. In addition to his 13 points and seven rebounds, his clutch block in the final
minutes helped steer Dallas to an 112 to 103 game five victory. The Mavericks were one win away from winning their first NBA championship. Yeah, this was it. There would be no game seven. I'll tell you that. not from this group and played in three or four game sevens already myself to this point in my career and understanding like you do not want that ankle a bad call a cold shooting night like anything. So when you have the opportunity to put the kill shot in, you have to go for the dagger. And our mentality was we're going to all come dressed in black. It's going to be black suits, black shoes, black everything.
Our model was we're gonna treat this like we're going to a funeral and it ain't gonna be ours. You talk about it but then you don't really know how guys gonna respond because it's the little stuff I would do. Just little corgi stuff. I said it but I didn't know if the guys was going to buy into it. It's kind of like the tattoo. Like did nobody else go get a tattoo? Only me. I get off the um bus for as we pull up to the arena. Every single guy had on black. And so I'm like yeah okay we're locked in. The game starts. We get going. I mean we're off to a slow start. I think Durk got off to a cold shooting start.
Weren't really bothered by that. I check in knowing the urgency that we needed a spark, needed a boost, and I get hot quick. It's almost like the Laker game all over again. Like my first shot, wide open. Second shot, didn't even see the hoop. Just threw it up. Goes in. I'm rolling. So that gave us a little breathing room. the road was shaky, but I came in Deshan Stevenson hit some big shots to kind of stabilize us and buy Dirk some time to get over the emotions of the game and then second half he turned it on quick and it was over after that. Um, I think there was a moment where was Mario Chamers and Deshawn Stevenson might have got into it a little bit and then Hlam jumped in and there was like a melee at half court and
then we kind I walked off with my little sly smile and D kind of looked at me and he like we got him. The emotions of Dirk Nitzki what he's always dreamed of. Dirk was out of there. He needed a moment like I feel him on that. I didn't see him. I was down at the other end, but I've seen this footage to know the work, the blood, the sweat, the tears that he put in to get to this point. I knew he needed a moment. He deserved that moment. It's still like to this moment brings goosebumps back. I told you we were going to do it. That's all I kept telling the guys like, "I told you we was going to do it." Like I
literally from the age five to current like I've watched every NBA Finals game and I always will put myself in those moments as if I was one of those guys and at the end I always do the celebration like how would it be to smoke the cigar to get the champagne to hold the trophy to put the hat on like I did it in college did it in high school but the NBA finals I look at the tattoo every morning when I wake up because it's something that I manifest like I actually spoke it into existence. I think the first thing I did was went back to my room, got on my knees and prayed and then it was party time. I think we carried the trophy through one of the famous clubs in Miami on South
Beach called Club Live. Like Cubans in there. Lil Wayne was on the mic. It was un You couldn't create a better scenario to win a championship to go to a club and then have some of your famous artists in there performing and celebrating the moment with you. We made sure Cube had his wallet that night. There has been some occasions now where we didn't been hanging now. We in the club. Cube is in there and you look up and the bill comes and he's gone and you're like 40,000. Who's paying for that? Like he ordered all this and I think he set the record. He bought the biggest bottle of Ace of Spades I ever seen. It came out in wheelbarls. Like wheelbarrels full of ice. The bottles
had to be 3 ft tall. Incredible. cubes the man. He deserved that though. You could tell like that moment and I'm looking at his smile on his face right there. He like, "Yeah, we got it. We got us one.
