Going into the 2011 playoffs, the third-seeded Dallas Mavericks had a bit of an underdog feeling about them. Despite winning 57 games that season, the franchise had never won a championship. They faced the more experienced Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs ahead of them, not to mention a brand new Big 3 in Miami.
After losing just three times in the first three rounds, the Mavericks were on a roll. Still, in the finals that year the team had the daunting task of facing off against LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
However, if you ask Dallas small forward Shawn Marion if the Mavericks felt like underdogs, his answer is simple. In a Q&A with HoopsHype, the four-time All-Star reflected on the 2011 Finals.
“People always feel like they have to pick an underdog, to a certain degree. I guess you don’t have to; you could actually say, “We have these two great teams here and it’s even – winner-winner.” But people always want to say that somebody is better than somebody else or that they’ve got a better chance at winning. But a lot of times, they’re picking wrong. They’re picking based off of something that they don’t know sh** about,” Marion said about the Mavericks' underdog status. “… There’s so much about this game that’s speculated about and people say what they see, but you don’t really know what’s going on out there unless you’re really in it and you really dug down deep in it.”
Known as a great defender throughout his 15-year NBA career, Marion was tasked with guarding James throughout much of the Finals.
“There’s so much about this game that’s speculated about and people say what they see, but you don’t really know what’s going on out there unless you’re really in it and you really dug down deep in it,” Marion said.
In the six-game series, the 32-year-old forward averaged 13.7 points, 6.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game while shooting 47.9 percent from the floor.
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