After a trying, decade-long run that consistently placed them along the title’s periphery, the Dallas Mavericks finally claimed their first ever NBA championship last June. The fact that Dirk and the Mavs are the reigning champs still seems like a hazy dream — a vision almost too similar to a storybook to be real, and an image obscured just enough by the lockout to give it that ethereal glow. But the trophy itself is no fantasy, and the Mavs will set out this season to defend their right to another one just like it with every resource at their disposal.

It won’t be easy. Even with an impressive run of low-cost off-season additions, the Mavs are hardly in a position to repeat as the league’s champions:

Losing the “best offense”

Contrary to their offense-first reputation, the Mavericks were a surprisingly balanced team last year, as they finished the regular season ranked eighth in both offensive and defensive efficiency. It was that two-way effectiveness that really pushed Dallas over the top in the NBA Finals; although Dirk Nowitzki was a certifiable terror all throughout the Mavs’ playoff run, it was the team’s defensive flexibility that allowed them to corral LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with the title on the line.

Dwane Casey, the former Mavs assistant who now sits at the head of the bench for the Toronto Raptors, was a big part of that. It was Casey’s system that put Dallas’ many defensive elements into their appropriate context, and turned Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, and Tyson Chandler into versatile, switchable, and highly deployable defensive weapons. Dallas just had so much size and mobility across the board, and that positional flexibility gave the Mavs an uncommon success in defending the pick-and-roll.

Things could get slightly tougher without Casey, even though his system has been handed off to assistant coach Monte Mathis. Yet they’re assuredly going to be more difficult without Tyson Chandler, who didn’t receive the long-term security or financial commitment he desired from the Mavs in free agency. Chandler is now a New York Knickerbocker, leaving some combination of Brendan Haywood, Ian Mahinmi, Dirk Nowitzki, Lamar Odom, and Brandan Wright to fill in minutes as Dallas’ defensive anchor. Haywood is still quite underrated in that regard, but even at his best he’s a few steps below Chandler. He’ll battle opponents in the post, do his best do hedge screens, and generally make the right rotations, but Haywood consistently lags behind Chandler in terms of overall defensive efficacy.

It’s the depth at center that could give Dallas more significant problems, though. As is usually the case, Chandler’s one-time backup is ready to step in and produce. But what of the players behind him? Ian Mahinmi may be the most talented fouler in the NBA. Nowitzki and Odom would give Dallas a virtually unmatchable offensive alignment if they played center, but don’t have the same rotational value as Chandler or Haywood. Wright is athletic, but is undeniably a work in progress. Yet that group will have some huge responsibilities when Haywood is resting or plagued with foul trouble, and it’s hard to imagine them living up to last season’s benchmark.

The never-ending quest for improvement

Even though the Mavs will enter the 2011-2012 season having accomplished their greatest goal the year prior, they still face the same pressure that falls on every defending champ: the burden of being even better. Dallas can’t just be as good as they were last season; in order to counter all the moves that have been made, the development of young players around the league, and the more nuanced understanding opposing coaches now have of how to use their respective rosters, the Mavs will need to find some legitimate means toward actual improvement.

And looking up and down this roster, it’s hard to find compelling reason why Dallas would actually be a better team this season. Chandler’s departure obviously hurts quite a bit, as do the losses of Caron Butler and J.J. Barea. But above all, it was Dallas’ decision to value financial flexibility over all else that’s put them in their current position.

The Mavs have done an incredible job of upgrading their roster under these circumstances; the additions of Lamar Odom, Vince Carter, Delonte West, and the aforementioned Brandan Wright are downright gaudy considering their minimal financial costs. But how does the shift in personnel impact Dallas’ ability to field competitive lineups? They’ve bolstered their depth virtually across the board, but what have they given up at center in order to make that possible?

I think at best, you’re looking for a Mavs team that would essentially be a wash in terms of overall quality, as they compensate for some defensive slippage with offensive gain. Yet it’s hard to see — even in that best-case scenario — how the defending champs would meet their burden for improvement beyond their performance last season. Dallas’ moves to date have done well to mitigate some of the team’s free agent losses, but aren’t quite robust enough to completely erase them.

If you keep rolling the dice…

On the Mavs’ Media Day, new Maverick Vince Carter may have summed up Dallas’ playoff run best.

“[The Mavs] just made it happen,” Carter said. “It takes a lot of luck and opportunity, and they seized the moment. Could people honestly say they were going to win it at the beginning of the year? No, not really. Not even in the middle of the year. When you put a team like this together that’s committed and when you get a bunch of veteran guys, anything could happen.”

With a team like the one the Mavs had last season, anything could happen. Dallas put itself in a position to succeed time and time again, and rolled the dice. On the ropes against the Portland Trailblazers? Rolled a six. Comeback victory against the Lakers on the road thanks to a favorable call? Rolled a six. Need a knockout punch in Game 4 against the defending champs? Six. A complete blitzkrieg en route to an impossible comeback against Oklahoma City? Another one.

You get the idea, because we all witnessed it: Dallas got every single break they needed in every single series of last year’s postseason, and while that made their championship run one for the ages, it also makes it incredibly difficult to replicate. Dallas is a very good team, but thanks to surges and breaks and explosions at the best possible times, they — if only temporarily — became a truly amazing one. You, I, and the history books will never forget it.

As Carter says, anything could happen. But it’d be silly to expect the same result, even after the Mavs again put themselves in a position to roll the dice with quality regular season performance.

Oct 11, 2011 8:00am

David Karp/AP Photo

The Dallas Mavericks’ defense of their 2011 NBA Championship title will have to wait, indefinitely.

NBA Commissioner David Stern canceled the first two weeks of the NBA season Monday after owners and players failed to reach agreement on a labor dispute despite 13 hours of negotiations over two days.

“We remain very, very far apart on virtually all issues,” Stern told reporters in New York Monday.  “We just have a gulf that separates us.”

“We are so far apart.  We can’t close the gap,” Stern said, adding that it’s doubtful a full 82-game season can be played.

The players and owners of the NBA’s 30 teams are fighting over how to divide $4 billion in league revenues, and over the league’s system of rules that govern team payrolls and player salaries.

Opening night was scheduled for Nov. 1 but will now not be played until Nov. 14, assuming the two sides can reach agreement by then.  The cancellation includes 100 games in all.

Representatives for the players and and the owners said they would remain in contact, but didn’t schedule additional formal talks.  If no labor deal is reached by the end of the month, the remainder of the November schedule will likely be canceled as well.

The delay in the season means that the NBA will play less than an 82-game schedule for the second time in recent years.  The league’s last labor strife, in 1999, did not come to an end until the first week of the calendar year, just before the deadline to cancel the entire season.

Under the new delay announced by Stern, each team will lose between six and eight games, costing the teams’ owners more than $83 million in lost ticket sales. The league is expected to lose at least $700-$800 million in revenue for each month of lost games.

Claiming that the nearly all of the league’s 30 teams are facing deficits, the NBA is demanding that players’ current 57 percent share of all “basketball-related revenue” be reduced.

Because of the failure to reach a deal, most players will now miss their first paychecks on Nov. 15, and see their offers reduced because of teams’ lost revenues.

“I think our players have been clear from the beginning that we want to play basketball,” Fisher said.

Derek Fisher, president of the players union, characterized the cancellation as disappointing, but expected.

“This is what we anticipated would probably happen, and here we are,” he said Monday in New York.  “We’ll deal with this with our chin up.”

“I think our players have been clear from the beginning that we want to play basketball,” he added.  “Our players are the best in the world…and that will continue to be our position as we try and find a resolution.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Guard J.J. Barea(notes) has spent his entire five-year career with the Dallas Mavericks, and he’ll be a free agent for the first time whenever the league and its players finally come to a consensus on the next CBA.

According to ESPN Dallas, Barea is feeling fairly strongly that he’ll end up returning the NBA champion Mavs. “If you want to go by percentages, I think 75 percent I’ll be back in Dallas and 25 percent something else happens,” Barea said, according to the site. “My first option is going to be Dallas.”

The 27-year-old posted career-high averages of 9.5 points, 3.9 assists, and two rebounds per game last season.

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Source: ESPN Dallas

Related: Dallas Mavericks

Dirk Nowitzki sparked Dallas to a stunning fourth-quarter comeback as the Mavericks fought back from a 15-point deficit to beat the Miami Heat 95-93 and even the NBA Finals series at 1-1 on Thursday.

Nowitzki, who injured the tendon in the middle finger of his left hand in Tuesday’s series opener, scored on a driving lay-up with three seconds remaining to seal a dramatic victory for the visitors.

Miami’s Dwyane Wade launched a 28-foot, three-point attempt at the buzzer but his desperate shot hit the back of the rim, eliciting a collective groan from 20,000 home fans at American Airlines Arena.

“In this league you have to play ’til the end,” said Nowitzki, who overcame a woeful first half to finish with 24 points and 11 rebounds. “This is the finals.

“You can be down 20. You have to keep plugging. You never know what’s going to happen in this league. And we kept on fighting.”

The best-of-seven series shifts to Dallas for the next three contests, with Game Three at the American Airlines Center on Sunday.

Miami looked to have seized control of the game, and the series, with a 13-0 run in the fourth quarter that padded their two-point advantage into a 88-73 lead with just over seven minutes remaining.

Wade, who scored 36 points on a variety of long jump shots, running one-handers and fast breaks, scored nine points during the run, triggering a party atmosphere in South Florida.

“Seeing them celebrate like that, man, it really was disheartening for us,” said Dallas guard Jason Terry, who had eight of his 16 points in the final quarter.

“Then I took another glance at the score and there was a lot of time left. And so in that huddle during a timeout we looked at each other to a man and said: ‘Hey, we have one more opportunity. Let’s go make a run at this.’”

Dallas embarked on a 20-2 run and Nowitzki’s 25-foot three-pointer with 26 seconds left gave the Mavericks an unlikely 93-90 lead.

“I don’t really know what happened,” said Heat forward Chris Bosh, who had just 12 points on four-of-16 shooting. “We had everything going. We had the momentum going.

“They took us out of our rhythm. They showed us some different looks, and we were playing against the shot clock pretty much the whole end of the fourth quarter.”

Miami reserve guard Mario Chalmers nailed a three-pointer with 24 seconds left to knot the score at 93-93, setting the stage for Nowitzki’s game winner.

“Hang out. Hang around. Keep believing,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle added. “This team has been through some difficult situations. We’ve been down big a couple of times in the playoffs.

“We have shown that we have the ability to come back and the guys believe that if we get stops, we’ll always give ourselves a chance.”

Miami’s LeBron James scored 20 points and grabbed eight rebounds but had five turnovers in a quiet night for the two-time NBA Most Valuable Player.

“We said in the huddle we were up 15, that this team is very capable of coming back,” Wade said. “They’ve proven it. They’ve shown it.

“We didn’t have to score another point to win the game. Our defense is what we lay our heads on. We didn’t play it the way we normally play. They deserved it. And we didn’t.”

The Heat now has to win one on the road to extend the series back to Miami and deny the Mavericks their first NBA crown.

“All year our guys have believed,” said Carlisle. “And tonight was another good example. They had to win the game. It wasn’t easy.”