2006 NBA Finals

• 1. Introduction

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  In June 2006, the Dallas Mavericks walked into the NBA Finals as heavy favorites. They had swept through the Western Conference bracket. They had Dirk Nowitzki playing some of the best basketball of his career. And they had just dismantled the Miami Heat in the first two games of the series. By every measure, the trophy looked like theirs.

  Then Dwyane Wade scored 42 points in Game 3. Then 36 in Game 4. Then 43 in Game 5, setting an NBA Finals record for made free throws in a single game with 21. What happened between that 0-2 deficit and the final buzzer of Game 6 is one of the more startling reversals in Finals history. How did a franchise that had never won a title pull it off? And what became of both teams in the years that followed?

• 2. Road To The Finals

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  Miami's path to that 2006 Finals was not straightforward. The Heat had joined the league in the 1988-89 season and spent their early years in relative obscurity. Their fortunes shifted when they hired Pat Riley as head coach and president before the 1995-96 season. Riley's first stint brought playoff appearances regularly between 1996 and 2001, though the Chicago Bulls and New York Knicks blocked every championship run.

  The turn came in 2003, when Miami drafted Dwyane Wade fifth overall. The team went 42-40 under interim coach Stan Van Gundy and returned to the playoffs after a two-year absence. Then came the 2004 offseason acquisition of Shaquille O'Neal. With that pairing in place, the Heat won 59 games in 2004-05 and pushed the defending champion Detroit Pistons to seven games in the conference finals.

  The following season started poorly, at 11-10, before Van Gundy resigned and Riley returned to the bench. Despite injuries and inconsistency, Miami won 52 games. When momentum gathered just before the playoffs, the Heat defeated the Bulls in six games, then swept the New Jersey Nets in five, and then knocked out the 64-win Pistons in six to reach the Finals for the first time in franchise history.

  Dallas took a different western route, coming in as the fourth seed but posting the third-best record in the league. They swept the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round, then edged out the San Antonio Spurs in seven games, before beating the Phoenix Suns in six to claim the Western Conference title.

• 3. Records And Oddities

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  Before a single jump ball, this Finals was already notable for several firsts. It was the first NBA Finals since a year that no longer appeared in the source in which both teams were making their first Finals appearance. Neither franchise had ever won a championship before. It was also the first Finals since 1995 that did not feature Phil Jackson or Gregg Popovich coaching one of the sides.

  Among the players, Shaquille O'Neal and Gary Payton became the sixth and seventh players to appear in the Finals for three different teams. O'Neal had played in the 1995 Finals with the Orlando Magic and four more times with the Los Angeles Lakers. Payton had reached the Finals in 1996 with the Seattle SuperSonics and again with the 2004 Lakers.

  There was also a striking coincidence in the Miami front office. O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning had both been first-round picks in 1992, O'Neal going first overall to the Orlando Magic and Mourning going second to the Charlotte Hornets. Winning a title together made them a rare pairing: two first-round picks from the same draft class claiming a championship with the same club. The third pick in that 1992 draft, Christian Laettner, had been a member of the previous year's team, his final season before retiring.

  The series also carried an unusual corporate footnote. For the first time in Finals history, the same company held the naming rights to both home arenas. American Airlines' name appeared on American Airlines Center in Dallas and on American Airlines Arena in Miami. Miami's building has since been renamed Kaseya Center.

• 4. The Six Games

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  Dallas's Jason Terry scored a playoff-high 32 points in Game 1, as the Mavericks overcame a first-quarter deficit to win 90-80. Game 2 saw Dirk Nowitzki put up 30 points and 12 rebounds in a cruise to a 99-85 win, giving Dallas a 2-0 series lead.

  Game 3 is where the series turned. Wade scored 42 points and pulled down 13 rebounds. The Heat trailed by 13 points with six minutes left in the fourth quarter. Gary Payton hit a field goal from just inside the three-point line with 9.3 seconds remaining to seal a 98-96 win. Nowitzki had a chance to tie at the free throw line with 3.4 seconds left and missed one of two attempts.

  Game 4 was a blowout. Wade scored 36 and Miami held Dallas to just seven points in the fourth quarter, which stands as the lowest single-quarter point total by any team in Finals history. Jerry Stackhouse committed a flagrant foul on O'Neal that resulted in his suspension for Game 5. He was the last player suspended in the Finals until Draymond Green in 2016.

  Game 5 produced the series's most controversial finish. Wade shot 25 free throws, matching the entire Dallas team's combined free throw attempts, which frustrated Mavericks head coach Avery Johnson. With 9.1 seconds left in overtime and Miami trailing by one, Wade received an inbound pass and came down in the backcourt. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban believed that constituted a backcourt violation. Instead, officials called a foul on Dallas. Wade converted two free throws in the final 1.9 seconds of overtime to give Miami a one-point lead. Devin Harris missed a half-court attempt as time expired. Wade finished with 43 points. Dallas's Jason Terry scored 35 in the loss. An angry Nowitzki kicked a ball into the stands, earning a $5,000 fine. Mark Cuban's conduct drew a $250,000 fine.

  Game 6 required another comeback. Miami trailed by 14 at halftime. Wade scored 36 points, and Jason Terry missed a late three-pointer that would have forced overtime. The Heat won 95-92, capturing their first championship in franchise history.

• 5. Wade's Series

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  Dwyane Wade averaged 34.7 points per game across the six games, a figure that earned him the Finals MVP award. His performances in the final four games of that series placed him among the most dominant individual postseason runs of the era.

  The free throw numbers from Game 5 in particular drew sustained scrutiny. Wade attempted 25 free throws in that game alone, matching all the Dallas players combined. The final sequence in overtime, where officials called a foul on Dallas in the closing seconds rather than a backcourt violation on Wade, became one of the most debated officiating moments of the decade.

  Still, the statistical record is clear. Wade's 43 points in Game 5 set a new NBA Finals record for made free throws in a single game, with 21. In Game 6, his 36 points drove a comeback from 14 points down. The Heat became only the third franchise at that time to win a championship after falling 0-2 in the series, joining the 1969 Celtics and the 1977 Trail Blazers.

• 6. Broadcast And Cultural Moment

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  ABC held the exclusive television rights for the series in the United States. Mike Breen called the play-by-play, with Hubie Brown providing color commentary, and Lisa Salters and Stuart Scott reporting from courtside. On radio, ESPN Radio broadcast the games with Jim Durham and Dr. Jack Ramsay.

  The featured song throughout the broadcast, aired across the playoffs, was Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Runnin' Down a Dream."

  Game 2 aired on the same evening as the 60th Tony Awards on the 11th of June 2006, and won the night, with ABC posting a 3.5 rating and 10 share while CBS's broadcast of the Tonys came in fourth with a 1.5/4. Game 6 on June 20 drew a 4.4/13 among viewers aged 18-49. The local ABC affiliates for the participating teams were WPLG in Miami and WFAA in Dallas.

  2006 also marked the last Finals to carry the ABC Sports branding. That label was retired three months after the series ended, replaced by ESPN on ABC. For Mike Breen, however, this was just the beginning. The 2006 Finals was the first of 20 consecutive Finals he would call, making him the most prolific play-by-play voice in Finals history by that measure. The only games he missed in that stretch were Games 1 and 2 of the 2022 Finals, when Mark Jones substituted due to Breen's COVID-19 quarantine.

• 7. Aftermath

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  Dallas's loss carried consequences that stretched across the decade. The Mavericks posted the best record in the league the following season, winning 67 games, but fell to the eight-seeded Golden State Warriors in the first round of the 2007 playoffs. That defeat marked the first time a top seed had been eliminated in a seven-game first round since the format was introduced in 2003. Nowitzki was named regular season MVP that year despite the playoff exit.

  After another early exit to the New Orleans Hornets in 2008, with Jason Kidd added to the roster, the team fired Avery Johnson and replaced him with Rick Carlisle. The Mavericks returned to the Finals in 2011 and won in six games over Miami, with Nowitzki named Finals MVP. That championship was their first. They were then swept by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round of the 2012 playoffs.

  Miami's post-championship fall was swift. On opening night of the 2006-07 season, the Heat lost to the Chicago Bulls by 42 points, the worst opening-day margin of defeat for a defending champion in NBA history. Injuries limited the roster. They won only 44 games and were swept by the Bulls in the first round of the 2007 playoffs, the first four-game first-round sweep since 1957. The following season was worse: Miami won only 15 games, matching the total from their inaugural year, a season in which O'Neal was traded to the Phoenix Suns mid-year and Wade missed 31 games.

  The Heat rebuilt. LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Wade. Miami won 58 games in 2010-11 before returning to the Finals, where they faced Dallas again in a 2011 rematch. The Mavericks won that rematch. Miami went on to win championships in 2012 against the Oklahoma City Thunder and in 2013 against the San Antonio Spurs before falling to the Spurs again in 2014. The 2006 title remained the franchise's first, and Nowitzki's eventual 2011 ring came against the same team that had denied Dallas five years earlier.