BOSTON — Eighteen years after a Mavericks’ postseason disappointment caused him to fall in love with basketball, Payton Pritchard will try to help deal Dallas fans a fresh helping of late spring heartbreak.
Pritchard and the Celtics will face the Mavericks in the NBA Finals that begin Thursday at TD Garden.
Pritchard was just 8-years-old, an impressionable time for a young sports fan, in 2006. Growing up on the West Coast, he didn’t even have to stay up late to watch the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals. It wasn’t the Mavericks’ misery that sparked Pritchard’s lifelong love. Dallas just happened to be the opponent. It was the Heat — and more specifically Dwyane Wade —that caught Pritchard’s eye.
He watched the Mavericks take a 2-0 series lead in Dallas. But when the series shifted to South Florida, Wade became a legend as the Heat took over.
“The reason I fell in love with basketball in the first place is I watched Dwyane Wade win his first NBA Finals versus the Mavericks,” Pritchard said.
The Celtics guard isn’t oversimplifying it by calling it Wade’s first win. He came into the series as Shaquille O’Neal’s No. 2 and came out of it a bona fide superstar.
Wade had 42 points in Game 3 and stole Dirk Nowitzki’s pass in the final moments to seal Miami’s 98-96 win.
The future Hall of Famer had 36 more points in Game 4 as the Heat won in a blowout to tie the series.
Wade had 43 points in Game 5 including two free throws with 1.9 seconds left in overtime to give Miami a 101-100 win. He set a Finals record with 21 made free throws in the game.
He had 36 more in Game 6 to clinch the Heat’s first title and earn him the Finals MVP.
“I was really young at the time,” Pritchard said. “I can vividly remember watching them come back and how incredible he was that series.”