Dwyane Wade on J.J. Barea’s 2011 NBA Finals: ‘We Had No Answer For Him’
It has been 12 years since the Dallas Mavericks climbed the mountain top and won their first championship in franchise history, but the run was so legendary that it still gets brought up every year in comparison to the path the new champions had to take to reach the ultimate goal.
Led by Dirk Nowitzki, the Mavs fought through Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge's Portland Trail Blazers, Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol's two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden's young-and-upcoming Oklahoma City Thunder, and LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh's Miami Heat en route to hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Wade recently joined Shannon Sharpe's "Club Shay Shay" podcast to talk about what went wrong for his star-studded Heat in the 2011 NBA Finals.
"We got out-coached by Rick Carlisle and his staff, and we got outplayed by by Dirk [Nowitzki] and Jason Terry and [Jason] Kidd. But that little J.J. Barea, nobody gives him credit. J.J. Barea was the one who changed the series. We didn't have no answer for him," Wade said.
"Ok Dirk, you know what he's gonna do. [Udonis Haslem], make his shots tough, make it hard on him. Try to make him not shoot 50 percent. Make him have an off night, but he's gonna get 20. Jason Terry, going right, you can't stop him. We knew all these things. But no one planned for little J.J. to come off the bench and do what he did."
After the Mavs went down 2-1, former head coach Rick Carlisle made the decision to plug Barea into the starting lineup. That move provided a spark for Dallas, as it went on to win the final three games of the series. Barea averaged 13.3 points and 4.7 assists while shooting 50 percent from the field and 50 percent from deep in those three games.
"I look at it and I say ... not from an MVP as an award, but from an MVP as a player who really helped push the series over, and I give it to J.J. 'cause we didn't have no answer for him," Wade said.
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