The 2011 season was one of the best that the Dallas Mavericks have ever seen. The Mavs finished the season 57-25 and entered the postseason as the three seed in the Western Conference. Dallas would eventually go on to play the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals, and after trailing 2-1 in the series, the Mavericks won three straight to capture the title. Shawn Marion was a member of that team, and he recently spoke about that season and why the squad had the success that they did.
“Every player on the team, whether you play or not contributes to winning a championship, and it’s not just one person doing it all,” Shawn Marion said on Scoop B Selects. “Ain’t one person doing it against or beating a whole team! I’m sorry. It’s just not. But, you have guys that step up to the occasion and one of the things that we did was that we always challenged each other.”
It sounds like the Mavericks were a very unselfish team in 2011 and every player had a role. Winning a championship is hard, and every player has to step up when their name is called.
“We rose to every occasion and every obstacle that was in front of us, we rose to that challenge and we just knew that we were the best team out there on the floor and we just had to go out and do it,” Marion said. “And it was just that simple, because Jason Terry, you don’t get a championship tattoo on your arm in the preseason not knowing that this team is capable of doing it, you know? You really have to believe that you’re capable of doing it getting a tattoo on your d**n arm, like c’mon man. If that doesn’t say the mindset that we had that we were capable of doing, I don’t know who the h**l to talk to.”
The Mavs had the success that they did because they were a united team. They stepped up when they needed to and they believed in each other. When everyone is bought in like that, special things happen.