I actually found the whole article for free at the Boston Herald website:
Mentor says Dirk Nowitzki was more ill than most realized
By Eddie Sefko / The Dallas Morning News
Saturday, June 18, 2011 - Added 8 hours ago
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DALLAS — For a week, the Mavericks have partied and reveled in the glow of their NBA championship.
Sipping from an oversized bottle of champagne that cost $90,000 and riding around town in snappy cars and flatbeds so a city could show its appreciation has been almost enough for Dirk Nowitzki to forget about how tough it really was to accomplish.
Almost.
What many people — in particular, the Miami Heat — don’t know is just how lousy Nowitzki felt when he was on the court but unable to play with any gusto during Game 4 of the Finals.
"He was the best decoy in NBA Finals history," says Holger Geschwindner, Nowitzki’s mentor for the last 16 years. "He couldn’t even walk around for very long. When he tried to drive, he died on the first step."
That’s the way it is when you have a fever well over 100 degrees, and you just don’t feel like doing anything, much less trying to go to work when your job is to physically outperform younger, stronger, healthier specimens.
If you go back to the turning point in the NBA Finals, it was the fact the Mavericks got away with Nowitzki being the red herring, the lure that sucked in the Miami Heat. In the first half, nine of his 10 shots were jumpers. He did not go to the free throw line. And the Mavericks were only two points down.
"We told him he had to conserve his energy for the fourth quarter," Geschwindner said.
Nowitzki didn’t make a single basket in the third quarter, and when the fourth came around and the Mavericks were four points down, Nowitzki overcame the wheezing and coughing and weakness in his body to score 10 points and grab five rebounds in a quarter that yielded an 86-83 Mavericks victory and forever changed the course of NBA history.
Then came the ultimate insult when, a day after Nowitzki overcame the illness, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James mocked him after their practice at American Airlines [AMR] Center.
"We tried to play it down," Geschwindner said. "But they made jokes about it."
It was the difference between class and, um, something that’s not class.
It was intended as a joke, but Nowitzki did not appreciate the ill-advised fun that Wade and James poked at him. He’s as tough as there is when it comes to playing through pain.
This was another notch to add to the many other notches on Nowitzki’s belt of doubt. So many people had wondered whether Nowitzki could ever win a championship. He’d finally had enough. He was good enough to overcome the illness and smart enough to ride his teammates when he had to.
"This was a team America got behind because of how they played, because they played smart, with savvy, were skilled, were talented, but more than anything, they were a true team," Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. "They needed each other to be successful."
In terms of gratification, it doesn’t come much better than what Nowitzki has experienced during this run. He hushed all the doubters and then, at the end, put a muzzle on the two Heaters who showed him disrespect.
"After 13 years, to finally be on top of the world is amazing," Nowitzki said.
Even if he had to spend a recent part of the journey as a decoy.
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Non-Dirk basketball related news
Dirk wouldn't deny nor confirm his engagement to Jessica to Bild magazine. The writer seemed to speculate that they are already married and his 2 week vacation on a beach will be their honeymoon.