Photo Credit: Bleacher Report
After acquiring LeBron James and Chris Bosh in the summer of 2010, the Miami Heat instantly made the impression that they were the team to beat in the NBA around that time. In their first year together, it looked like LeBron James will finally capture his first ring, and the Larry O’Brien Trophy will head back to South Beach.
But they shouldn’t have counted their chickens before they were hatched, as the Dallas Mavericks, led by and incredible Dirk Nowitzki, proved everyone wrong and beat the Heat in six games during the 2011 NBA Finals.
The Mavericks put on a show in the playoffs, swept the defending champions Los Angeles Lakers and beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, yet they were pretty much disrespected by countless of fans who thought the Heat got everything all locked up.
More so, not only fans, but also Dwyane Wade and LeBron James disrespected the Mavericks and Nowitzki especially.
When Dirk Nowitzki suffered from flu-like symptoms in Games 4 and 5, but still managed to perform at a high level, a video of the two Heat stars surfaced in which they mocked Nowitzki by coughing and jokingly discussing how they were getting sick.
While Nowitzki later called Wade and James’ mocking ‘disrespectful’, the German superstar and Wade have since buried the hatchet and become friends, while also having been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame together on August 12, 2023.
In the first episode of Dwyane Wade’s podcast “The Why with Dwyane Wade” the two discussed the infamous coughing incident face-to-face for the first time ever.
Nowitzki and Wade faced off against each other 41 times in their careers, with the Mavericks winning 22 of those games. The two players also met in the NBA Finals in 2006, when the Mavericks lost to the Heat in six games, and in 2011, when they won in six.
While basically hated each other throughout the first decade of the millennium, the two found a grudging respect for each other in the later stage of their careers.
It’s all love now @swish41 Episode 1 of “The Why with Dwyane Wade” now available on my Youtube channel and all podcast platforms! Click the link in my bio to tune in ️ pic.twitter.com/4i60OF3CuH
— DWade (@DwyaneWade) January 18, 2024
