As Game 2 nears, we remember the magical comeback moment of Dirk Nowitzki and the 2011 Dallas Mavericks

Watching Game 2 of the 2011 NBA Finals was an exhilarating experience — yet it did not start that way. On the heels of an eight-point loss in Game 1, the Dallas Mavericks faced a daunting challenge. The shadowboxing celebration of LeBron James and Dwayne Wade followed an apparent dagger three-pointer right in front of the Mavericks bench. Jason Terry famously told Mavericks assistant coach Darrell Armstrong “D.A, nobody likes a showoff.”

Terry sparked the comeback and his teammates galvanized around his shot-making. The pressure the Mavericks applied on the defensive end fueled one key basket after another. I can still hear Mike Breen say it. “A 20-2 run, one of the most incredible comebacks in NBA Finals history.” Maybe the greatest. Certainly, it was for Maverick fans. The run was capped off by a take-the-lead three from number 41 off a pin-down double screen from Tyson Chandler, a defensive lapse from Terry to allow the Heat to tie it and then the defining moment of Dirk’s career. Oh, that lefty layup. If the statue was going to be anything other than his signature fadeaway, it would have been that moment.

I can still see the Wade three-ball to win it in the air and his look of surprise that a phantom foul call was not granted to save the Heat. Not unlike Gordon Hayward’s 60-foot shot that would have won the NCAA title for Butler just a few months earlier, Wade looked to upend the Dallas brilliance and break all our hearts again five years later. Instead, it clanked off the back rim and Dirk stood there, seemingly stunned that all he could do was just enough. What an out of body experience that must have been for the great German, as teammate after teammate lovingly tapped his chest and told him he just did that. Yes, sure, they did it as a team and Terry got the comeback rolling — but that was Dirk’s moment. It changed everything.

It changed the outcome of the game, the shape of the series, and most likely determined the winner. It was an outsized victory more valuable than most. Game 2 sent a message to the Heat that Dallas could compete and win on their home floor, that no lead was safe, and that the parade plans in Miami should be tabled (a lesson Dallas learned painfully five years earlier). Most significantly of all, it changed the perception of Nowitksi outside of Dallas — forever rewriting the narrative of the soft Euro that could never lead his team to the mountaintop. Instead, Dirk is squarely in the discussion for the top 20 greatest the NBA has ever seen. Fair or not, a championship is part of the equation in the minds of so many when discussing legends.

In the years that followed, as I would battle through tough days and or stretches of depression, I would relive the comeback on YouTube and my mood always brightened. It was and remains to this day the sports moment of my life. It was the good guys I rooted since the inaugural season triumphing over the smug and the self-proclaimed. Not one, not two, they said. One would have to wait one more year.

Over the last couple of years, a new friendship emerged in my life and our fandoms and personalities clash but that is just the noise. The signal is that we are both good dudes — or at least would like to think so. In my conversations with this lifelong Miami Heat fan, I have learned that while I was hooting and hollering in my one-bedroom apartment in a Dallas suburb after the 2011 Game 2 comeback, my new friend was a crying mess of a middle school-aged kid who had his heart ripped out and trampled on by the Mavericks in Game 2 and the rest of the series. One fandom’s epic comeback is another’s living nightmare collapse – as it takes two to tango.

As Game 2 of the Finals approaches thirteen years later, I am quietly hoping for some Maverick magic once again. A blowout win for Dallas would be welcome but my heart tells me that a late-game scenario will unfold before our eyes that we will never forget — no matter the result. Go Mavs!