2011, the Mavericks crashed the Lebron James party, beating the Heat in six games on their home court for their first championship in franchise history. After Mark Cuban decided to break up the Championship team, the Heat came back to The Finals to win over the OKC Thunder.

As the “Heatles” try to make good on Lebron’s, “not one, not two, not three…” speech, they draw the 8th seed Milwaukee Bucks. Why is this series important to Mavs fans? A Miami sweep, could mean movement of some valuable free agents to Dallas for next season.

The Bucks made the trade this season to add another shooting guard in J.J. Redick from the Orlando Magic, adding another scorer to join a potent backcourt with Brandon Jennings and Monta Ellis. All three guards will be free agents this summer. Do you see where I’m going now?

Milwaukee will not keep all three guards for next season. Part of the reason they brought Redick in was to give the front office more options. Jennings is due $4.3 million next year and Ellis will run $11 million for another year.

The Bucks have big aspirations, but they are still a small market team. Due to years of lottery picks, they have some young players like John Henson, Larry Sanders,  and Mbah a Moute they want to build around. They are younger and play inside, which means they can add perimeter shooting at a much lesser cost.

Both Jennings an Ellis have been on the Dallas radar all season. No pressure to make a trade during the season for either one when everyone knows that the two can’t coexist on the same team. There is only one basketball to shoot.

Well, at least they still have the banner hanging up in the AAC, right?

The shorthanded Dallas Mavericks were no match for the Miami Heat, falling 100-95 Thursday night in Dallas. In a game where they fell way behind early and fought back to within 3 during the second quarter only to fall behind my as much as 36 points later, the absence of key members of the team could hardly be blamed for the way the rest of the roster performed.

While the Mavericks committed only 9 turnovers to the Heat’s 18, cutting their average during a recent three-game losing streak by over half, they were nevertheless outshot and outrebounded so badly that the turnovers didn’t matter. Missing Derek Fisher, Elton Brand and Brandan Wright as well as Dirk Nowitzki, the rest of the team simply didn’t perform up to their own standards and the Heat cruised to an easy victory.

It has been often said this season that as O. J. Mayo goes, so go the Mavericks and this game was no exception as Mayo had arguably his worst game as a Maverick, shooting 3-14 for 8 points. Jae Crowder scored 15 off the bench to lead the Mavs but did so on 5-13 shooting. Rookie Bernard James, playing extra minutes due to injuries, was the only highlight for the Mavericks, putting up 12 points and grabbing 9 rebounds plus 3 blocked shots.

The Mavericks shot only 38.5% from the field and 13.6% from downtown and lost the battle of the boards 47-36.  The Mavs not only failed to stop the “Big 3″ but the Heat shot over 53% so the game was pretty much an epic #FAIL on both ends of the floor.

LeBron James continued his streak of 20-point games with 24 points plus 9 rebounds and 5 assists. Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh had 19 and 17 points, respectively.

In depth analysis – if there is anything more to be said < sigh > – coming up on The Smoking Cuban.