The 2011 Dallas Mavericks: toppling the superteam

By 2011 the Dallas Mavericks were seen as an ageing team whose best chance had passed. Built around the veteran core of Dirk Nowitzki and supported by savvy old hands like Jason Kidd, Jason Terry and Shawn Marion, with Tyson Chandler transforming the defence, they were experienced but unfashionable. Few gave them a serious chance against the powers of the league. What they carried, though, was a hard-won intelligence and a collective hunger sharpened by years of disappointment.

Standing in their way in the Finals were the Miami Heat, who had assembled a superteam that off-season, uniting three of the sport's biggest stars in a partnership expected to dominate for years. Their arrival had been greeted with enormous fanfare and predictions of easy, repeated championships. When the Finals began and Miami took an early advantage, it seemed the script was unfolding exactly as everyone had assumed it would.

Then Dallas turned the series on its head. Nowitzki produced a run of clutch, unstoppable scoring, dragging his team back into games that looked lost, most memorably fighting through illness to deliver in a crucial win. Around him the veterans played with poise and belief, their ball movement and shooting picking the favourites apart. Game by game the momentum shifted, until the underdogs had seized control of a series almost everyone had expected them to lose.

Dallas closed it out to win the championship, and for Nowitzki the victory carried a special weight: it came five years after a painful Finals defeat to the very same franchise, turning old heartbreak into vindication. He was named Finals Most Valuable Player, the crowning achievement of a long and loyal career. The 2011 Mavericks are remembered as proof that teamwork, experience and sheer will can still overcome assembled star power — one of the sport's most satisfying upsets.