The inside story of the 24 hours after the Mavericks won the 2011 NBA Finals

This excerpt of 100 Things Mavericks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, by Tim Cato, is presented with permission from Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy please visit www.triumphbooks.com/100mavericks.

The scoreboard reads “MAVERICKS 105 HEAT 95” when the final buzzer sounds on June 12, 2011.

DIRK NOWITZKI: All the work you put in, all the people that have stuck with you and you’ve worked with, all the disappointments from year to year, from the MVP season to losing in the playoffs all the time. A little bit of everything. It just overcame me with emotions. I felt it already before the buzzer, because it wasn’t really a close game.

SCOTT “SCOOTER” TOMLIN, Mavericks media relations: Dirk is going to do an interview with Doris Burke (later) on the stage, so he doesn’t have to do a walkoff interview. So, I go and I’m actually standing next to Jason Kidd.

SARAH MELTON, Mavericks media relations: You didn’t think he was going to go anywhere!

SCOTT TOMLIN: I see Dirk walk back to the tunnel, because the tunnel’s basically towards the center of the court. And I’m thinking, That’s strange. Where’s he going? Then I see Tim Frank, (vice president) of communications with the NBA, kind of walking behind him like trying to also figure it out, so I thought, I don’t know what’s going on but Dirk’s about to accept the MVP award.

DIRK NOWITZKI, on NBA TV afterwards: I had to get away for a moment. I went to the locker room, I had to go lay down. I cried for a second there and I had to get my composure back for a second there. If you put so much work into something and you finally achieve it, it feels amazing and be by myself for a few minutes and then I was able to make it through the trophy presentation.

TYSON CHANDLER: I didn’t recognize Dirk (had left) until he had come back, but it makes complete sense, it made all the sense in the world ... he felt the same way I felt.

DONNIE NELSON: I totally, totally understood. When you go through something like that, it’s hard to put into words, you know? Let’s just say the other time we went to the Finals was probably, there’s not a lot of people that could have recovered in the way that he did.

SCOTT TOMLIN: Tim and I see him in the shower, I walk over to him, and I said, ‘You need to get back out there. They’re going to present the trophy and you’re about to get the MVP of the Finals trophy.’ He said, ‘OK, give me 30 minutes.’ and I said, ‘We don’t have 30 seconds. We’ve got to go.’

DIRK NOWITZKI: I remember Scooter and Tim Frank from the NBA following me, and I was laying there. They have a bench in the shower and I laid down and they’re like, ‘You’ve got to go back out there. They’re about to present the trophy.’ And I said, ‘Give it to somebody else.’’

SCOTT TOMLIN: I said, ‘Look man, when they hand that trophy to your team, you’re going to want to be there. You’re going to want that picture. You’re going to want to be on the stage with your teammates. You don’t want to miss out on that.’

DIRK NOWITZKI: I actually went back out, and it actually wasn’t bad anymore. After that first emotional wave, I got over it, I needed five minutes, and then I was fine.

Nowitzki returns to the court, where his team is crowding onto a podium to accept the Larry O’Brien trophy.

EDDIE SEFKO, Mavericks beat writer since 2004: After the game, everything’s a zoo. Everyone’s racing around trying to get stories in the paper, stories online, and everything else. And I just remember, there was always something else to do, you couldn’t give people enough, they wanted to know everything.

DONNIE NELSON: I was initially looking for Pat Riley just to shake his hand as you do, couldn’t find him, ended up finding (Heat vice president of operations) Andy (Elisberg) who’s his right hand man and he said Pat was kind of in a meeting or something like that. Couldn’t come out.

JEFF “SKIN” WADE, Mavericks announcer and Dallas radio host: I’m (shown) on the ABC broadcast as the camera’s floating around, interviewing JET (for ESPN radio). I’m wearing a goofy green T-shirt with a robot on it. So my memory of the trophy presentation was the chaos of being on the floor, making sure I took care of my radio gig, and also just trying to be professional as I was losing my shit.

BEN ROGERS, Wade’s longtime radio co-host: All season long, I’d be calling them the ‘one-and-done’ boys. Even when they get to the playoffs, I have no confidence they’re going anywhere. So meanwhile, we’re traveling on the team play. Every single person on that team plane either works for the Mavericks or is on the broadcast, they’re wearing a Mavericks logo on their shirt, except me. I’ve been a diehard Mavs fan my whole life but in that case, I was on the radio every day saying I don’t believe in this team.

The minute they won, they handed Mark Cuban the trophy, and he said, ‘They called us the one-and-done boys!’ So I’m on the court in Miami listening to Mark Cuban saying, ‘They called us the one-and-done boys,’ and I’m like, ‘Holy shit, this is surreal, did that really just happen.’

MARK CUBAN: At the dais, I was screaming for (the Mavericks’ first owner) Mr. Carter. ... (I remember) my wife screaming, wait for me. Looking for Don Carter. Having it cross my mind that I should get naked, just to fuck with (NBA commissioner) David Stern. And just thinking, Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.

TYSON CHANDLER: I used to hate watching celebrations. Up to that moment (when I took the stage), every single time, I would watch the end of the finals, and then I would leave because everybody would be watching it at my house ... I just couldn’t stomach it, because I wasn’t sure it if it would ever happen for me.

SCOTT TOMLIN: Before I left (on vacation that summer), I framed the picture (of Nowitzki) holding the trophy, and went over to his house and gave it to him, because I know that he wanted that.

JEFF WADE: (The trophy) is a heavy bad boy.

The celebration moved back to the Mavericks’ locker room, where the champagne was all set up.

RICK CARLISLE: All that stuff (champagne) went fast. It was being squirted all over the place.

MARK CUBAN: Tyson did the nicest thing ever. When everyone was getting ready to blow out the champagne, I was in the hall, and he went out and got me. So that picture over there (in the Mavericks training room) with the champagne, that doesn’t happen with me in it unless Tyson goes and gets me. That was really cool.

TYSON CHANDLER: I remember going into the shower area, pausing, taking a break from the celebration and I remember DK (Mavericks director of sports psychology Don Kalkstein) coming up to me, and I remember being able to tell him, ‘I don’t get it. I can’t shake it.’ Because it was hard for me to imagine that it was actually over, that we had won the championship, and I was in such a zone (to have) a competitive edge that it was hard for me to actually celebrate.

RICK CARLISLE: I had to go do the media, that was probably 30 minutes. After that, I was in my office in the locker room with my friends, I had four very close friends at the game, and we got together and had a beer.

The Mavericks then move to Club LIV to continuing celebrating.

JEFF WADE: Sunday night was Lil Wayne night. He was the host of that night, every Sunday there in Miami.

MARK CUBAN: I don’t know if I’d rather spend $140,000 on the championship rings or the bar tab that night.

BEN ROGERS: It almost felt like a convention center, it was so big, but the area the Mavs had roped off wasn’t like a club in a club. It was right in the middle of everything. There was just velvet ropes and couches squaring off a little private area, and so the Mavericks were in that roped off area and the rest of the club was raging and people were trying to get as close to the Mavs as they could.

IAN MAHINMI, Mavericks backup center: There’s still some parts of the night that are still blurry, but we had a hell of a time.

TIM MACMAHON, Mavericks beat writer since 2008: Dirk (was) wearing Ian Mahinmi’s glasses. Dirk, and the Custodian (Brian Cardinal), and Mahinmi all standing up and dancing together.

BEN ROGERS: It was so crowded you could barely move. I just remember all drinks were on Cuban, it was so loud you couldn’t really talk, it was just smiling and laughing.

MARK CUBAN: My AMEX got declined. It was a new card. It hadn’t gotten authorized yet.

COREY BREWER, Mavericks forward: (Cuban) partied hard that night. I think everyone partied really hard. But to win a championship, that’s worth it.

TIM MACMAHON: Cuban (was) a sweaty, hugging mess.

JEFF WADE: Lil Wayne night was a $100 cover charge, and so I did one of the douchiest things I’ve ever done. Went to the very front of this long line, I went up to the guy at the door, I said, ‘I’m on the Mavericks TV broadcast, I’m supposed to be in there at that party.’ I don’t have a Mav credential or anything, and he looks at me like I’m an idiot. I googled myself, and showed him a picture, and he said, ‘Come on in.’

BEN ROGERS: I went to my room and fell asleep. ... I finally wake up, my phone’s ringing and I missed it, (Wade) had left me a message, and it’s like, this loud music, ‘DUDE WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WE GOT A CALL TO GO CELEBRATE, WE’RE AT THIS CLUB. YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS.’ I felt like I woke up late for a test or something, and I’m panicking.

JEFF WADE: Nowitzki looks over at me and yells, ‘Where’s Ben!?’ I go, ‘He’s at the hotel, I think he’s sleeping.’ An hour later I look down and Ben is in the middle of the party.

TYSON CHANDLER: I remember walking in, saw my teammates, walked to the top level and I walked down, and I walked down for literally three minutes. And I left. Because I didn’t want to celebrate with the rest of the people in Miami.

RICK CARLISLE: Mark had a group of people who went out somewhere. They hooped it up a little bit. I didn’t go with them, but there were pictures tweeted and stuff like that. That night, the next day, that stuff got out there. But from my standpoint, it was pretty low-key.

EDDIE SEFKO: I got back to the hotel and I sent a text to Rick that just said, ‘Congratulations, you guys did a great job, happy for all you guys.’ He sent me a text right back that said, ‘Where are you.’ And I said, ‘I just got back to the hotel.’ He said, ‘Come up to my room.’ So he tells me where he was and I went in there, and I took a couple of cold beers I’d stolen from somewhere, and we sat there and drink a couple beers and just kind of reminisced and relived the whole thing. He had a big grin on his face, naturally.

TYSON CHANDLER: I went back to my hotel, and my mom was there, and my brothers and sisters. And my wife and some friends. We ordered room service and we just sat and kinda reminiscenced and that was it. I had a quiet night.

Club LIV was still going strong, though.

DIRK NOWITZKI: The craziest thing is we had no food. We had no food in the locker room, they had no food in the club, so I just remember being completely exhausted. I even ordered food at like five or six in the morning. Ordered a hamburger or something, this was back at the hotel.

JEFF WADE: (Dirk’s mentor) Holger, who is sitting underneath the landing, (is) having champagne poured all over him. He doesn’t look up. He is sending messages, obviously, to Germany I’m assuming. He’s sitting there on this landing (underneath a staircase), it’s like a cave. It’s like a mystic cave (and he’s) sending messages to Germany.

I’m five feet away from Dirk. And at this point, it’s 1 in the morning, and I’m like, ‘I am not fucking moving from this spot until the night is over.’ I’m standing on a platform five feet away from Dirk and I stand there all fucking night.

BEN ROGERS: We did not sleep the entire night and went and did a show on ESPN sleepless, and just did three hours (of radio) celebrating. You know what, I would be willing to bet if you went back and were somehow able to listen to the show, it would have been just terrible. I mean, if you were a Mavs fan, and you had stayed up all night, maybe it would have been the best show ever, but anyone else, we were probably delirious and overly excited fanboys. But I don’t even remember the show.

EDDIE SEFKO: Of course the next morning almost all the players had not slept. Getting on the plane, Cuban and they were all still drunk. I was on the flight home. The police escort was great and then the door had not shut and the champagne corks were already popping on the plane.

STEVE CHAVERA, Mavericks web producer: I missed the bus. I blame (play-by-play Mark) Followill. He gave me the wrong bus time. I wasn’t the only one. I’m not going to throw him under the bus, though. None of us had slept that night. I went back to the hotel, took a swim, went to my room, got dressed and when I got down, they were gone.

EDDIE SEFKO: Everybody was in different stages of drunk, hungover, recovering, and drunk again.

RICK CARLISLE: It’s an unforgettable experience

DIRK NOWITZKI: That was just an awesome night. You just have that feeling that you’re on top of the world. You’re with your teammates. You just won it all, something you’d worked towards for so long. I just remember it being such a fun night, Cuban getting the bottle that was this big. It was an incredible night.