NBA Finals: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

He said, he said.

That's what the end of Game 5 came down to Sunday night for the Mavs.

Josh Howard and Avery Johnson said that Howard did not call the final timeout after the first of Dwyane Wade's two free throws with 1.9 seconds left in overtime. They said Howard was merely asking his coach whether they should call the timeout after the second free throw.

The officials said that Howard asked for the timeout twice, and they had to give it to him.

Dallas can complain about the disparity in free throws and fouls during the game, but even after the deluge of Miami strikes from the line, Dallas was still very much in the game with 1.9 seconds left.

If the timeout had not been taken, granted, then Dallas would have gotten the ball at half-court and had 1.9 seconds to try and make something happen. Only being down by one point, there were a ton of possibilities, especially with Dirk Nowitzki on your team.

That scenario didn't get a chance to play out because the officials decided that Josh Howard in fact did call Dallas' final timeout in between Wade's free throws.

It's kind of sad, in a way.

Not for Miami, for sure. They will take this win no matter how it came. Walking off the court and heading back to Dallas up 3-2 in the series is all they cared about.

It's kind of sad for the fans. Countless times in the fourth quarter and in overtime Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki put on a show. They met and exceeded expectations. They made shots that seemed impossible. They led their teams with a will to win.

Before Nowitzki fouled Wade in the lane with 1.9 seconds left, he had put the Mavericks up 100-99 with an unbelievable shot from the corner. Of course, Wade countered by driving around three Mavs on his way to the lane and the free throw line, where he would tie the game, and put the Heat up 101-100 with his 20th and 21st makes from the free throw stripe.

What was supposed to happen next was going to be squarely on Nowitzki's shoulders.

What was supposed to happen next was going to raise the level of intensity and gamesmanship in the series between its two biggest stars.

With 1.9 seconds left, Dirk Nowitzki was going to get a chance to send Dallas home with a 3-2 series lead, or at the very least, a quality shot at getting there.

No one wanted to see this game end with a half-court bomb that had no chance of getting in the basket. It was an anticlimactic ending to a game that deserved so much more. This was supposed to be one of the games that becomes an instant classic, the kind of game that years from now fans would talk about as the game that Wade and Nowitzki went toe-to-toe down to the final seconds.

It wasn't supposed to be the game that came down to a mistake like Josh Howard made, or, conversely, a game that came down to a questionable call by the officials in the waning seconds of an overtime game in the NBA Finals.

Dirk was supposed to get his shot.

Instead, Dwyane Wade and the Heat escaped with a victory and now head to Dallas needing only one more win to clinch the first championship in the history of the organization.

Instead, Dirk and the Mavs head back to Dallas needing to win back-to-back games to capture the Larry O'Brien trophy, still wondering what might have been had they gotten a chance to inbound from half-court with 1.9 seconds left.

It's the little things like this that make the difference in series, but at the same time, this little mistake cost everyone a chance to see if Dirk could match Dwyane just one more time.