Miami Heat, Not LeBron James, Throw Away Chance at Game 7 in NBA Finals

Congratulations to the 2011 NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks!

They brought their very best to this series and that was just enough to beat the Miami Heat and its trio of talented superstars.Dirk Nowitzki had a historic playoff run, playing some of the best basketball of his career. His supporting cast stepped up at just the right point.The big story of tonight's Game 6 that iced the series for the Mavericks was Miami's poor play.

It put up an atrocious performance from the free throw line and made a lot of bad decisions. Throughout the game, the Heat players looked tentative. Many possessions yielded several chances for open shots that were passed up, only to lead to shot clock violations and airballs.

Miami also drove the ball into double and triple coverage often. These unforced errors kept the Heat from taking advantage of a Dallas defense that at times was unable to stop Miami from going inside.

Part of the reason the interior defense was off for Dallas is because Tyson Chandler and Dirk Nowitzki both got themselves into early foul trouble. Because of this, they were unable to be as aggressive underneath the basket as they would want, and in the first half, Miami took advantage of this by dishing underneath and creating points in the paint.

After Nowitzki got away with a couple of hard fouls, however, the Heat inexplicably went away from this strategy. It needed to understand that although superstars get a couple favorable calls, the refs would be forced eventually to send Miami to the foul line if it kept dishing inside.

Late in the game, Dallas pulled away as Mario Chalmers and the rest of his teammates continually committed these unforced errors that led to turnovers.

The free throws hurt more than anything, though. Miami hit just 20 of 33 shots from the free throw line. In a 10-point loss where part of the final margin came in the form of late-game intentional fouls, hitting even 25 or 26 of those free throws would have made the game a very even one. Quite simply, the Heat threw away their chance to win the game.

What of LeBron James? He hit 60 percent from the field, had six assists and four rebounds, and even had a block and a steal. However, he had six turnovers, Wade had five and Chalmers had three.

In addition to official "turnovers", these three players and the rest of the Heat team made many crucial mental errors that led to failed offensive possessions. Overall, James had a solid night, but could have asserted himself earlier. By the time he knocked down a three with a minute and a half to go, it was too late.

What of Nowitzki? He scored 21 points on 27 field goal attempts. He shot 33 percent from the field, had one assist and two turnovers, failed to block a shot with that lanky 7'0" frame, and committed four fouls. When he left the floor in the first half with two fouls, his teammates seemed to wake up.

All through the night, his teammates were able to carry the Mavericks. Shawn Marion and J.J. Barea had it going early, and Jason Terry finished strong going into halftime. DeShawn Stevenson and Jason Kidd had their moments. Nowitzki finally managed to score a large portion of his points late in the fourth quarter when the game was already getting out of hand.

Dirk's 0.78 points per field goal attempt was the lowest among all 15 players who recorded a point in this game. His 33 percent field goal percentage was also the lowest of the fifteen players who made a shot during the game. In fact, all 14 other players in this category scored at least one point for every shot they took.

Naturally, this performance earned the German the MVP award. He took more shots than the entire Mavericks bench but got more than doubled up by the benchwarmers in terms of points scored. The entire series followed a similar pattern of Nowitzki taking enough shot attempts to ensure himself personal glory.

Dirk will go down as a beloved figure in history because he stayed with one team his entire NBA career...and because he took enough shots to get his 20 points every night. People talk about a "SportsCenter" culture where people just look at numbers. I think this viewpoint is a little too cynical, but agree that at the ends of basketball games, many people judge players by their point totals.

Dirk scored more points this series than James. However, all throughout the NBA Finals, James was playing lockdown D, getting assists (including on a game-winning basket), and doing the little things. Ultimately, this may have been part of his downfall.

The most just criticism of James, who played better this postseason than people will give him credit for, is that sometimes he can be a little too unselfish. At the ends of games, he needed to be taking the ball to the rim.

Now, Kidd played excellent defense on James, and this is a large part of the reason for his struggles. LeBron still needs to take the ball in the fourth quarter. When he did that in Cleveland, he took the Cavaliers to the NBA Finals. Those are the same Cavaliers who were one of the league's worst teams without him.

Game 6 tonight reminded me of those old Cavaliers days. With his teammates missing free throws, refusing to take big shot attempts, turning the ball over and making poor decisions all night, LeBron would have had to win this game all by himself.

He was good tonight, just not good enough to overcome the team's ineptitude.

Since Miami did not have Bosh grabbing offensive rebounds like Shawn Marion, House and Chalmers knocking down threes like Terry and Kidd, and Anthony playing tough interior defense like Chandler, Cardinal and Mahinmi, they would have won Game 6 BECAUSE of James' performance.

Dallas won Game 6 IN SPITE of Nowitzki's.