June 9, 2011. American Airlines Center, Dallas. Game 5 of the NBA Finals, series tied 2-2, and Jason Terry — the man who’d inked a Larry O’Brien Trophy on his right biceps before the season even started — rose up and drilled a three-pointer right in LeBron James’s face.
Final score: Mavericks 112, Heat 103. Dallas took a 3-2 lead and never looked back, closing the series out in Game 6 for the first championship in franchise history.
Now, I’ve spent my life around Texas football fields, not hardwood, but a dagger’s a dagger regardless of the sport. You know it when you see it — the moment the air leaves the other sideline. Terry’s shot was that moment. The ball was still in the air and you could feel South Florida sagging.
The box score tells the rest of the story, and the film doesn’t lie. LeBron James finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, and 10 assists — a triple-double that looks handsome on paper until you notice he went 0-for-4 from beyond the arc and posted a minus-11 in 45 minutes. In a game his team lost by nine. Dwyane Wade carried 23 points and Chris Bosh added 19, but the Heat’s fourth-quarter offense stalled out like a truck in a July ditch, same as it had all series long.
Terry scored 21 in Game 5 and was the engine of the Mavericks’ bench all Finals. The man they called JET had guaranteed a championship before the year began — literally had the trophy tattooed on his arm — and then went out and backed it up against a Miami superteam that Vegas had installed as heavy favorites. LeBron, Wade, and Bosh in their first year together, expected to waltz to a ring. Instead they ran into a 32-year-old sixth man who played like he had nothing to lose because he’d already told the world he’d win.
Dirk Nowitzki earned Finals MVP, and deservedly so — the German carried the scoring load and delivered in the clutch repeatedly, including his iconic Game 4 performance while running a 102-degree fever. But Terry was the Robin who refused to stay in the shadows. He averaged over 18 points across the series and hit big shot after big shot, none bigger than the one over LeBron in Game 5.
The clip making the rounds again — and old highlights always make the rounds this time of year — captures the play in isolation. Terry, isolated against James, the defense a step slow on the close-out. Hand down, man down. That’s the oldest coaching adage there is: if you don’t get a hand up on the shooter, you’re giving him the green light. LeBron’s close-out was a beat late, Terry’s release was pure, and the Mavericks’ bench erupted.
Miami entered that Finals with home-court advantage and a 2-1 series lead. They lost the next three games by a combined 34 points. The 2011 Finals has since been called one of the greatest in NBA history — an aging, underdog Mavericks squad toppling a superteam at the height of its powers. Dirk got the trophy and the MVP. Terry got to look at the tattoo on his arm and know he’d called his shot.
The film doesn’t lie.
Watch: https://streamable.com/vw69ik
Sources:
- Wikipedia — 2011 NBA Finals
- Basketball-Reference — Game 5 Box Score (June 9, 2011)
- Streamable — Jason Terry dagger clip