SAN ANTONIO – The gym was locked, per Avery Johnson’s orders. Problem was Dirk Nowitzki needed to shoot.
Dirk was in a pickle.
The Mavericks had lost a 3-1 series lead in the 2006 Western Conference semifinals against their bitter rivals from San Antonio. After the Spurs won Game 6 in Dallas to tie it 3-3, two off days were next before the series would be decided in San Antonio.
The Mavs coach back then wanted his team to get their minds off basketball, thereby making the American Airlines Center practice court off-limits for the first day off. Dirk didn’t need to get his mind off basketball. He needed to get shots up.
He always did.
So, he called up then-Mavs assistant Joe Prunty, unsure of what to do. Prunty, currently with Phoenix, had to talk Dirk off the ledge. Nowitzki didn’t want to defy his coach. Prunty, on a cell phone in his yard, told Dirk to find another gym and get to work with Holger Geschwindner.
“Do what you have to do,” Prunty remembered telling Dirk. “I don’t want to know anything about it.”
Two nights later, Nowitzki authored the signature playoff moment of his career to that point in a series that he still considers one of his best. He willed his way to 37 points and 15 rebounds, as the Mavericks beat the Big Brother and defending champion Spurs 119-111 in overtime. Dirk’s 3-point play at the end of the regulation – fouled by Manu Ginobili on a hard drive to the rim – sent the game to OT.
That sequence remains a touchpoint for Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.
“That was a great moment for him,” Popovich deadpanned Wednesday night. “I think he got touched with a feather and they called the damn thing. And he knows it, too. A feather. Lord.”
Popovich, of course, is one of the many NBA lifers who truly admires and was touched by all Dirk brought to the game of basketball. Nowitzki closed out 21 years of brilliance in a 105-94 loss Tuesday night in the Spurs’ barn, mixed emotions following him off the court.
“I’m kind of glad it’s come to an end,” said Dirk, who heard “M-V-P” chants throughout the night in a gym that for so many years was a personal house of horrors. “But it’s bittersweet, of course. They always say an athlete dies twice.”
This athletic passing led to a eulogy few, if any, can equal. “You have to remind himself he’s not dead,” Mark Cuban said. “He’s just moving into a different role.” The sendoff around the league culminated in a two-night celebration across the Lone Star State. Dirk made sure to soak it all in. He was drenched.
“My dream was always to end on the playoff stage, but the last two nights were as amazing as it gets for myself,” he said. “I’ll never forget these moments. I’ll always cherish it.”
That Dirk had anything left in the tank against the Spurs after Tuesday’s emotionally draining and physically exhausting 30 points on 31 shots is a minor miracle. Nowitzki, on sore ankle and everything else, rallied his 40-year-old bones for his lone double-double of the season with 20 points and 10 rebounds in his final NBA outing.
Nowitzki’s last shot ever was true, an 18-footer from the top of the key with 46.8 seconds remaining. The building erupted as time was called. Dirk, arms raised, acknowledging the love in the air, floated off the court to an ovation that will echo forever.
“20 and 10 is obviously sweet,” he said. “I wanted to get it.”
Carlisle admitted being spent after Tuesday night’s ceremony, but it was one of those “good exhaustions.” It also helped that he was having a couple of beers with Larry Bird in his office.
Considering all he went through and everything that was done behind the scenes, Carlisle can’t help but think of Nowitzki’s final season as anything but a success.
“There is a feeling that you have that you’ve spent as much energy as you can spend to reach a goal,” Carlisle said.
The Spurs handled the evening with class. After the PA announcer raced through the first four Mavericks starters, the lights were partially dimmed for an extended Nowitzki video tribute featuring many of the battles with the Spurs. Dirk, surprised that many of the clips showed him beating up on the Spurs, teared up again, as he did at times in Tuesday’s last home game.
The constant stream of cheers during the pregame tribute went up several notches when Dirk was shown winning the franchise’s lone title. To hear Spurs fans roar for a Dallas championship had to be a first. (There were plenty of MFFLs in the building, including about 300 Mavericks employees bused down by the team.)
Several highlights featured Dirk and Tim Duncan together – two players who revolutionized the power forward position. While Duncan did the majority of his damage inside, Dirk took 7-footers to a place on the court previously off limits. Dirk is why the term “stretch-4” exists.
“He made everybody change and the league had to respond, because guarding him was different than guarding anybody else of that size,” said Pop, who shared words and a long hug with Dirk before tip and after the final horn.
In many ways, Dirk’s NBA journey began in San Antonio, not too far from the AT&T Center in a high school gym. He scored 33 points in that infamous 1998 Nike Hoop Summit game, giving the basketball world a glimpse of what was to come.
“He along with that skill redefined the game 20 years ago, and it set the game in a direction and in a trajectory now to where it’s the most entertaining it’s ever been,” Carlisle said. “It’s the highest scoring it’s ever been, there’s the most space out there that we’ve ever seen. He was one of the real pioneers that led to this moment.”
Now he’s in the pantheon of all-timers.
“When Kobe came in, they said he’s the next Michael,” Pop said. “There’s no next Michael, there’s no next Kobe, there’s no next Dirk. They are who they are. They’re unique. They need to be celebrated for what they were and how they played.”
Dirk will always belong to Dallas, an icon in blue, fading away on one leg. But the skipper of the Silver & Black could have done a thing or two with No. 41.
“I realize you can’t coach everybody,” Pop said, “but if you were able to, he’d be one of the guys I would pick.”
The time has come to flip the page. The future in Dallas belongs to Luka and KP. “This is the beginning of a new era, a new phase of the Dallas Mavericks,” Carlisle said. But for one last night, the past is the franchise’s present.
“It’s really appropriate that our last images of Dirk playing in an NBA game are him putting up games like tonight – 20 and 10 – and last night with 30,” Carlisle said. “It’ll never be the same after this.”
Dirk’s basketball life has ended. RIP.
“Relieved that it’s over,” he said. “I can rest now and enjoy some wine.”
