Looking back, the most common reason most of us could give for voting Dirk Nowitzki as the probable MVP was that he had been the best player on the best team in the league. That's the premise that gets him the trophy next week, just as it does the brunt of blame for the biggest playoff choke in the NBA's history.

Whatever hits Nowitzki takes for the Dallas Mavericks' disgraceful defeat to the Golden State Warriors, it's warranted. From his body language to his defeatist proclamations between games to, most of all, his disappearing act throughout the series, Dirk was a downright disaster.

In every way, the Warriors posterized Nowitzki. They left him the lasting image of loserdom frozen in millions of minds.

There had been a perfect storm to undo this Mavericks season, beginning with the ex-Dallas coach Don Nelson understanding Dirk's vulnerabilities, to the mission of Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson, to Avery Johnson's mistake of coasting and resting starters through the final weeks of

DALLAS – There was silence for a moment on the cell call Wednesday, and Jeff Bower, perfect gentleman of a general manager for the New Orleans Hornets, pushed past the polite praise for his old point guard, past the nostalgia of the Orlando series five years ago, and stopped short of rewinding into the wreckage.

All that acrimony, all the anger, all that inspired the Hornets to dump Baron Davis to the Golden State Warriors for spare parts Speedy Claxton and Dale Davis told Bower that it was best to leave unspoken his memories of those turbulent times.

"That's the best thing for him, and the best thing for us," Bower said. "We've all moved on from his time with us."

Bower stole Chris Paul in the 2005 draft, and they never had to look back on Davis. Always, the next big thing has come along in basketball, pushing Davis deeper and deeper into the shadows, and only now he has pushed himself back into the brightest lights of these NBA playoffs. His will, his nerve and his undiminished

DALLAS – They were walking past the windows of the Old No. 7 Club in the corridor between the home and away locker rooms, the three stragglers shuffling past the postgame bar and grill of Dallas Mavericks fans. Long past midnight now, these people started standing and screaming through the glass, barking at Baron Davis and Don Nelson, clutching his Bud Light, and finally the most hated Warrior in the house, Stephen Jackson.

Davis and Nellie smiled and nodded on the way out of Game 5 on Tuesday night, but Jackson is Jackson and this wild series has brought out the best and worst of him. He wore his Yankees cap sideways along with his diamond studded crucifix, and finally he reached into his pocket, pulled out his money clip and waved a big, fat wad of the Golden State Warriors house money at those cursing him.

They were playing with it all the way into the final, fatal minutes when, within a whisper of one of the greatest upsets in NBA history, the Warriors unraveled in a 118-112 loss

HOUSTON – Shoes off, stocking feet on his desk, Jeff Van Gundy had marched out of his news conference and into the silence of his Toyota Center office. Above his desk, there's the framed story of his late college mentor, Bud Presley, a small-school legend in the Bay Area and the toughest coach Van Gundy ever met. There was plenty of the coach's words in his old player's voice late Monday when Van Gundy was railing against that most ruthless playoff adversary: human nature.

"I would say that anybody who would think that we have two games to win one has no idea," Van Gundy said. "[Tracy] McGrady could go out at any time. Yao [Ming] could have one of those lethargic games."

Tracy McGrady had played the part of a superstar with 26 points and 16 assists, and his undrafted, undersized power forward, Chuck Hayes, took a charge on Derek Fisher in the final seconds of the Houston Rockets' telltale 96-92 Game 5 victory over the Utah Jazz. The Rockets inched closer to Houston history, on the cusp

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Privately, this is what advance scouts who have watched Sam Mitchell for three seasons were curious to see. They saw him with Bryan Colangelo's resurrected roster, and a depleted Atlantic Division, and thought it would be most intriguing to see what happened with the Toronto Raptors coach in the playoffs, when he had to make adjustments and counters under the scrutiny of a seven-game series.

As postseason failures go, Mitchell's has been spectacular so far. What had been merely a troubling Eastern Conference series turned traumatic on Sunday night, a 102-81 Game 5 loss to the New Jersey Nets that was a 30-point game until Jason Kidd and Vince Carter left the Meadowlands court for good. The Nets have taken away everything – Chris Bosh in the post, T.J. Ford on the drive and, maybe most of all, the will of the Atlantic champions.

They go back to Toronto for Game 5 on Tuesday with so much riding for this franchise, a season that was such a renaissance for the

CHICAGO – After the Miami Heat had marched into the losing locker room, a silent, sobering march through the corridors of the United Center, Pat Riley would be waiting with that familiar, fabled declaration that originated in the glory days of the Showtime Lakers. The emperor of Miami had little left to lean on but that old, worn playoff premise that a series doesn't start until the home team loses.

Riles was reaching. These Heat haven't looked like champions since that parade down Biscayne Boulevard in late June. Now, they're trying to reclaim something that sure looks like it's going, going, gone. As much as they're trying to tell everyone that they can beat these Chicago Bulls down two games to nothing, it sure sounds like they're mostly trying to sell themselves.

"We've been here before, know what I'm saying?" Alonzo Mourning insisted later Tuesday night after a humiliating 107-89 Game 2 loss to the Bulls. "We've been here before, and I've got the utmost confidence in this team to

DEERFIELD, Ill. – After practice Monday, England's Luol Deng and the Swiss rookie living across the street now, Thabo Sefolosha, were playing the game that the neighbors of these Chicago Bulls sometimes catch them in suburbia: kicking a ball and pretending they're European soccer stars.

This is the reason that Sefolosha wears the tattoo on his left shoulder that says, "The game chose me," a truth born out of his Switzerland roots where basketball stars are as scarce as war heroes. The man next door gave him a basketball at 11 years old, and with those long arms and that agility, he couldn't resist the lure of the sport.

"I figured," Sefolosha said Monday, "it was the better bet."

Eventually, he turned into the kind of selfless, sure European player who makes life harder for young American prospects. Out of Europe's non-traditional basketball outposts, he is part of a growing generation of Euros who shunned soccer for basketball. Switzerland didn't have a basketball star before him, but

Watch: Bulls-Heat highlights

CHICAGO – The Miami Heat kept coming for these Chicago Bulls, for a title that the champs were desperately trying to hold onto, and perhaps the time had passed for Luol Deng to be that deferring, developing star. The big noise tumbled down into the United Center in Game 1, and before everyone's eyes, Deng had demonstrated the disposition to dominate.

Something's clicked, someone's blossomed, and there were Deng's 33 points rising over everyone in the Bulls' 96-91 victory over the Heat on Saturday. He had a terrific season for Chicago, a breakthrough to be sure, but no one could be completely convinced of his climb closer to greatness until he had made his move in these playoffs.

This season, it won't be enough to just challenge Miami in the opening round. It won't be enough to hang with Shaquille O'Neal and Dwyane Wade in these Eastern Conference playoffs. They're still going to get bigger and better performances out of Shaq and Wade, but Deng is the reason