On this day 15 years ago, the Dallas Mavericks defeated the Miami Heat 105-95 at the Kaseya Center, then-known as the American Airlines Arena, in Game 6 of the NBA Finals. It was and is the Mavs' first and only championship in franchise history.

Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki was named Finals MVP after averaging 26 points and 9.7 rebounds in the series. Prior to that, Nowitzki's run through the Western Conference playoffs - defeating the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers, and Oklahoma City Thunder - featured a slew of superstars and future Hall of Famers in their own right.

Most consider the title run to be among the best in NBA history.

So, on this anniversary of the title-winning game, who better to reminisce on the 2011 postseason than the man himself?

Two years ago, I was fortunate enough to spend a few minutes with Dirk over Zoom for a grad school project detailing his run into basketball immortality.

Now, I'm humbled to bring you what the Mavs icon had to say about a defining moment in Dallas' rich history of sports successes.

The following is Nowitzki's series-by-series recollection of the key moments, mindsets, and emotions from inside the greatest stretch of Mavericks basketball to date.

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The Mavs began their postseason run as No. 3 seed in the West with a 57-25 regular-season record. They'd face the No. 6-seed Portland Trail Blazers in Round 1.

"It was a tough start for me to the series," Nowitzki recalls. "Game 1, I remember I couldn't get anything going, and I think [Jason Kidd] had like six or seven 3s that game. The team really won us that game."

Dallas took the opener by eight points as Nowitzki still managed a team-high 28 points, but on 7 of 20 shooting. Kidd had 24 on 6-of-10 from 3-point range. The Mavs went up 2-0 with a 101-89 win at home two days later.

"We were thinking, 'Oh, this might be a good one,'" Dirk said after taking the series lead. "And then we lose both in Portland. The last one, Game 4, we were up like 20 or something going into the fourth ... pretty big, and they march us all the way down and win it."

Nowitzki then remembers an unfortunate narrative reemerging in the media. He dips his head as he remembers the 2006 NBA Finals loss his Mavericks suffered after leading the series 2-0, then the first-round exit a year later after he’d won the MVP award.

"All the doubters are coming out again," said Nowitzki during the Portland series. "You know, 'There are the Mavs again, same old, same old.'

“I remember coming home and, I usually don't have strong feelings or strong statements before big games, but I just had that feeling that Game 5 at home they weren't going to beat us.”

Nowitzki's 25 points and starting center Tyson Chandler's 20 rebounds sealed an 11-point win in Game 5. Dallas closed it out in Game 6 with a 103-96 win to move on.

You might've seen this image before. Hardly a single media member covering the West Semis picked the Mavericks to beat the two-time defending champion Lakers, who were led by Kobe Bryant.

"I knew coming in that we were obviously the underdogs," Nowitzki said. "Even in the Portland series ... you kinda see that stuff leading up to some series. Sometimes it's even motivating or inspiring for the team ... but that only lasts in the beginning. It's not going to carry over for seven games, but it adds a little chip to your shoulder, wanting to prove yourself."

The Mavs did just that. Dallas swept Los Angeles by winning a close contrst in Game 1, taking both in LA with a double-digit win in Game 2, going up 3-0 with a 98-92 victory, then making NBA history in Game 4 to finish it off in the minimum.

Nowitzki noted how the opener is a defining, yet underrated moment in the series as a whole. "The Corey Brewer game!" he laughed.

Head coach Rick Carlisle called the veteran slasher off the bench, who brought "an infectious energy" that sparked a late comeback against Bryant's 36 points.

"Kobe was hot ... I thought there was actually no shot we would win that game, but we somehow stuck around and stole it at the end."

Nowitzki put up 32 in the "wire-to-wire, blow-for-blow" Game 3 that put the Lakers in a terminal 3-0 deficit. What transpired next was the stuff of legend. "We had all the balls in our court, and just made our first couple shots [in Game 4] and then just got hot."

Dirk added: "I'll always remember ... 'The Mother's Day Massacre.' JET (Jason Terry) couldn't miss, I think Peja [Stojakovic] was five or six 3s ... we poured it on there, and they couldn't match up with our shooters ... we really took it to them there in Game 4."

The Mavs hit 20 of 32 3-point attempts to set a new NBA record for made triples in a playoff game. Terry led the way with 32 bench points on 9-for-10 from downtown. Stojakovic added 21 points on 6-for-6 shooting from 3.

"At this point, our confidence went higher from round to round," Nowitzki said about going into the Western Conference Finals. A start-up OKC squad featuring young guns Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden stood in Dallas' way of the franchise's second Finals berth.

Nowitzki powered the Mavs' win streak with arguably his best game of the postseason, a 48-point barrage in Game 1 against the 4-seeded Thunder. He called it one of the best games of his entire career as he shot 12-of-15 and 24-for-24 at the free-throw line.

"After that week off, I felt energetic; I wanted to get this series started," he said. "The team kept feeding me a couple times at the beginning, and I made my first couple face-ups ... and once you kinda play yourself into a zone, you never get tired. I was feeling great."

Nowitzki then noticed how the national conversation centered around the veteran-laden Mavs roster having an advantage in experience over the up-and-coming Thunder.

OKC bounced back for a win in Game 2, then Nowitzki remembers a spiriting pregame speech by assistant coach, Tim Grgurich. "He said we weren't ready to play in Game 2, we were a step slow. And in Game 3 we were fired up."

The Mavs retook the series lead 2-1, and regained home-court advantage after holding the Thunder to just 1-of-17 shooting from 3-point range. 

"I remember going into Game 4, it was the complete opposite again," Nowitzki said. "They had more disposition, they came at us, they were leading all game. We hung around a bit, but honestly we should've had no business stealing that one at the end."

Dallas managed a late rally and a 112-105 win in overtime. "That was the series right there, us stealing Game 4 on their home court." Dallas completed the gentleman's sweep, 100-96, at the American Airlines Center days later.

"I felt like the games were all competitive, all close. That was a fun series, and I think 4-1 sounds pretty dominant, but I think that was a super close series."

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The Mavs faced a rematch with the team that had won a championship at the AAC five years earlier, but this was a beast that was an A-list cast of characters as much as it was a basketball roster that the NBA had never quite seen before.

Superstar forward LeBron James joined forces with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh the summer prior. Once again, the Mavs were looked at as the underdogs.

"I just remember thinking, 'This is going to be super tough. They're great players, super athletic’ - which we weren't," Dirk said. "But it's kinda a now or never mentality. We never knew if we'd get back to that spot, we were all older. We lost in '06 after being up 2-0...

"So, it's kinda like, let's give it our best shot. Let's keep building on what we're doing in the first three rounds, let's play our best basketball and see what happens."

The Heat took Game 1 with ease, 92-84 in Miami. Game 2 began with much of the same, despite the "big hopes" Dallas entered with.

With just over seven minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Wade his a 3 in-front of the Mavs bench to put Miami up 15. Dallas then mounted one of the best comebacks in Finals history (which has been surpassed after the New York Knicks record-sized comeback win over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday in present day).

The Mavs' 22-5 run to end the game stunned the Heat and evened the 2011 Finals at one apiece. Nowitzki's game-winning left-handed layup (that battled a sprained finger) capped a 24-point, 11-rebound performance.

"That turnaround is obviously, to us, what won the series," Nowitzki said. "If we go down 2-0 to that team with their mentalities and stuff, I don't think there is a coming back from that. That was the change of the momentum that showed us that we can play with these guys.

"That was our, 'Hey, we arrived in the Finals' moment."

Dirk detailed how some pundits were more in favor of the Mavs winning it all because of the disapproval of James' decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers in free agency, creating a glaring example of what’s now known in mainstream as a “superteam”.

However, Nowitzki still thought of Miami as a "heavy favorite" from an outsider’s perspective.

The Heat won Game 3 in Dallas, 88-86, as Nowitzki's final shot went awry. As he replays the moment in his head, he can’t stop himself from leaning back in his office chair and arching his follow-through above his head. His smiles leaves him as he remembers this instance of his most iconic move falling short of execution.

"I had the shot at the end to tie, and I did the up-and-under lean, and I could tell it was a little long, so we lost that one at the buzzer, and it was a super tough loss for us," he said.

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"And then Game 4 was the famous game.”

“I woke up - I was like, 'This is the biggest game of my career. If we go down 3-1, it's over. I need to play well.' And I felt like crap ... I remember being so disappointed and frustrated, like, not right now.”

Nowitzki's heroics - a 22-point, 11-rebound double-double while withstanding a 101-degree fever - evened the series at two in an 86-83 win.

Dirk would later explain how James and Wade's pregame antics - where they mocked Nowitzki's cough to the camera as news spread of the sickness - had contributed to his motivation for the rest of the series. Just as we knew it had, back then and all these years later, no matter how humble Nowitzki was to admit it.

"I think as long as the series went on, we started to play better," Dirk said. "We learned where our shots were coming from, we understood how to attack them a little better, our pick-and-roll game finally got better. So, we started guarding them better. ... We found a way to be in the series and play well against them ... Every button the coaches pushed also worked there."

Nowitzki said the Mavs "found a way" to take Game 5 by nine and head back to South Beach.

"Going to Miami with a 3-2 lead, it was like you don't want to rely on Game 7," Nowitzki explained. "You want to bring everything you got for Game 6. We're gonna leave the house confident and throw everything at them. You don't want to relax."

Nowitzki held his index finger and thumb close together and said he was nearly too fired up with Dallas on the brink of a championship, and for him, "reaching my goal."

"I was forcing shots ... You know, in sports, you can't will something. You have to let the game come to you, and I felt I was too tense, and I could not get one to go."

Nowitzki shot just 1-for-12 in the first half, but Terry picked up the slack and contributed 19 points as the Mavs held a one-possession lead. "JET played unbelievable. He carried us there."

Dirk dragged his shoulders as he entered the locker room, but remembers being met with a yell of encouragement by “The Custodian,” reserve center Brian Cardinal.

"I just see Brian Cardinal like 'YES!' He was the guy - had great energy about him. I look at him like, 'What do you want?' He goes, 'What do you mean? We're winning, you're terrible, you got all your misses out of the way. We're gonna win this!'”

"He kinda made me smile a little bit," Nowitzki said. "I think that helped me relax coming into the second half, I played a little better and made some shots. Then, we were able to pull through."

From there, fans remember Nowitzki getting overcome with emotions as the Mavs completed the 105-95 final and won the series 4-2. Dirk crawled over the scorer's table to seek privacy as the buzzer sounded. The alarm of his lifelong achievement had finally rang, and it began to set in almost immediately.

"And sure enough, it was over. I remember the feeling of pride, of satisfaction that you work for for this long happen for us, and for me. It was an incredible feeling, got a little emotional, laid down in the locker room by myself for a couple minutes.

"That moment was a feeling of gratitude - how many people helped make this journey possible. And just pride, that you're the best team in the NBA that year. It felt fantastic."

Nowitzki had captured the elusive title that would later be emblazoned into NBA lore with just as lasting an impression 15 years later as it was when it happened.

"It meant the world ... to deliver that was just the best."

"It means a ton," Nowitzki said about the conversations around this championship's legacy.

"I obviously see it now and again on social media platforms, some guys always say, 'That 2011 run the Mavs had was one of the best ever.' That was an incredible run.

"I guess while you're in it, you kinda just plug on and focus from game to game. But looking back, that was a great run we had - with a team that was full of older guys that had done individual things but had never won it all. It kinda came together with one goal in mind.

Nowitzki added: "It was a historic run ... and of course, it means a lot if I read that that run was one of the best ever. I'm not quite sure. Obviously, there have been some amazing runs over the history of our league and our sport, but it's always fun reading that, that our championship meant a lot."

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