Dallas Packs Up Bad Memories of This Trip

The Mavericks see a chamber of horrors.

After a week of clubbing in South Beach, bonding in an undisclosed location in Fort Lauderdale and taking nightly pratfalls while losing all three games here, the Mavericks flew back to Texas, assured that if they go out, at least it will be in front of the home folks.

It was a week the Mavericks will never forget, no matter how hard they try.

In Game 3, about to take a 3-0 lead, they blew a 13-point lead in the last 6 minutes 34 seconds.

In Game 4, they were routed, Jerry Stackhouse committed the hard foul for which he would be suspended and Coach Avery Johnson moved his team out of its Miami hotel.

In Sunday night's Game 5, they finally focused their defense on Dwyane Wade, who scored 43 points anyway, tying the game with a five-foot runner with :02 left in regulation, then drawing a foul with :01.9 left in overtime and making the two free throws that brought the Heat from behind again and gave them a 101-100 victory.

And, for the maraschino cherry atop the sundae of their misery, the Mavericks' Josh Howard mistakenly called their last timeout before Wade made his second free throw, costing them a chance to inbound the ball at half court.

Instead, they had to go the length of the court and got only a desperate half-court heave by Devin Harris, which bounced off the top of the backboard, leaving Miami with a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals.

"One of our players was saying, 'Timeout?' " said Johnson, fuming quietly as he had been all weekend. "I said, 'Yeah, after the second one.' "

Crew chief Joe Crawford told a pool reporter that Howard went to referee Joe DeRosa and twice asked for the timeout. "Forced to call it," said Crawford, "simple as that."

The Mavericks spent their first five days in the downtown Four Seasons, close to Coconut Grove and South Beach. However, after blowing Game 3 and getting mopped up in Game 4, Johnson packed them up Friday morning and moved north to Fort Lauderdale, decrying their "vacation mentality."

The collective-bargaining agreement calls for players to get single rooms, but the Mavericks were nevertheless obliged to bunk in with each other. This was presented as a bonding experience, although they may just not have been able to find a hotel with enough rooms for everyone on short notice.