Originally Posted by rocketeer

i thought the mavs did a pretty good job finding complimentary pieces when they made the finals(and were robbed) and then won 67 games the following season. problem was they faced the one team they couldn't beat in the playoffs, tried to match the 8th seed's style(bad call by avery), and dirk had a meltdown going against don nelson and a bunch of athletic defenders. i realize they were having a down year this year, but they were still 35-17 before the kidd trade so it's not like they were terrible and a lot of that could probably be attributed to them realizing the regular season didn't mean all that much because of what happened the season before. had dallas just kept things together, i imagine the team would have probably started playing better as the playoffs got closer and there's a good chance they'd still be alive right now. instead the team panicked, made a bad trade that didn't help the present and gave up the future and they have to deal with that.

but to say they never really found the pieces to go around dirk? then why did they make it to the finals and then have the best record in the league back to back seasons?