Remember the Heat's Accomplishment

DALLAS Going on 1 a.m., Pat Riley and Shaquille O'Neal beamed for the cameras in a back room at American Airlines Center -- their legacies as golden they once were. A few feet away, Dwyane Wade, the game's elite shooting guard at just 24 years of age, smiled and spoke in a whisper.

The Miami Heat was not as talented, deep, youthful or skillful as the Dallas Mavericks, but their players had poise, heart and accountability -- all the qualities Mark Cuban's martyred organization need to one day get over the hump.

On the night the NBA Finals ended on the Western Conference champion's home court, all of Dallas was agog over the "mistreatment" of its pro basketball team. This team unfortunately sacrificed a championship for what it believed was a worthier cause: the Cuban Whistle Crisis.

Crying foul and conspiracy even in the final minutes, their fans booing and jeering the presentation of the Larry O'Brien Trophy by NBA Commissioner David Stern, Dallas went from nearly three games up to four losses and out. It's a crime that this franchise's loss of composure and victimhood the past eight days got in the way of the real plotlines in Miami's clinching Game 6 victory.

Like Riley getting the parade down Biscayne Boulevard he spoke of 11 years ago on a cruise ship called "The Imagination." He reenters the pantheon of Red Auerbach and Phil Jackson, becoming the fourth coach to win five titles.

"It was our time," he said.

Or O'Neal delivering the championship promise he made in July 2004, and deferring to Wade in the same way Kareem Abdul-Jabbar gracefully became a role player behind Magic Johnson late in his career.

"I owe this to D. Wade," Shaq said.

And Alonzo Mourning, dunking and blocking shots with malice at 36, becoming the first of the Georgetown big-man brethren to earn a championship ring. The proud man who came back from a kidney disorder to win a title got a doctor's note for the day so he could spray and sip champagne.

All of those tales were better than Mark Cuban's game of chicken with David Stern, a fine of $250,000 on Tuesday for his raffish behavior after Game 5. The owner's campaign to improve NBA officiating dates back more than five years. No owner has been more proactive in scrutinizing referees, making the league accountable for its on-court gaffes and awful decision-making.

But at what point does that mentality and inherent distrust in the process filter down to your coach, your players and your fans to the point where they find someone else to blame for their decline in the NBA Finals? At what point do you take away from what may be the greatest comeback in Finals history? At what point does your deep-seated belief in a personal vendetta of the NBA commissioner get in the way of the ultimate mission?

Avery Johnson comported himself poorly during the three losses in Miami, turning his news conferences into these sorry, blame-the-messenger mentality diatribes that just looked so, well, unAvery. The Mavericks coach bought into Cuban's thesis: Dallas Is the Little Team That Could, but Won't Because Stern Won't Let Them.