For me the 06 finals weren't quite as painful because I was VERY confident that the Mavs would get right back to the finals and win it the next year. It figured it was a learning experience that would lead to greater things, like how the Pistons lost the Lakers in '88 but came back and won the next two titles. I figured that Avery was a rookie coach with great potential and the he would figure a way to counter the kind of defense that Riley through at him. After GS, I didn't have anywhere near as much hope. I knew exactly what Avery was and that we would only go downhill from there as long as he was the coach. I knew the West was only going to get tougher the next year and would never be so wide open for us in the foreseeable future.
Beyond that, even though blowing a 2-0 lead was embarrassing, it didn't come close to the humiliation of being universally favored to win the title all throughout the regular season and being wiped out in the first round (the first time a 1 seed ever lost to an 8 in a seven-game series.) To make things worse, we had to suffer through the indignity of Dirk accepting his MVP award after being eliminated, and every media douche bag in the country saying he didn't deserve it. And then there were the morons in our own metroplex saying that we needed to trade Dirk for Kobe, and even worse, the bigger morons saying that Josh freaking Howard was the real MVP of the team. Not to mention that the GS loss came right after the finals loss; in addition to it. That solidified our status in most peoples' eyes as the biggest playoff chokers in NBA history; we were the Buffalo Bills of the NBA.
I was flat-out embarrassed to be a Mavs fan that entire summer and didn't dare discuss it in public.
|