Dallas doesn't have anything to lose in the NBA Finals

The Dallas Mavericks are not ''Overachievers.''

But at the very least, this is a team that got where it wanted to go faster than it expected.

For all the talk from Avery Johnson about championships and going for the ring now, not after a three-year plan is executed, the Mavericks still are a surprise entrant in the NBA Finals. As Johnson himself said last week, if you had Dallas and Miami picked to make it here, you probably made a lot of money.

Del Harris said that the Mavericks entered this season with their realistic goals being to win 52 games and make it past the first round of the playoffs. After winning 58 games last season, they lost Michael Finley and Shawn Bradley. They had replaced them with Doug Christie (later Adrian Griffin) and DeSagana Diop.

Those guys just didn't seem to be the answer to winning more than 58 games, Harris said. Publicly, the goal was higher, of course. Avery Johnson wanted his team to aim for the championship every day from the opening of training camp.

''Realistically, we knew how very difficult it would be,'' Harris said. ''But if we didn't keep it as a goal on a weekly basis, if not daily basis, then we would never get there. We couldn't have as a goal what we thought we'd actually be this year. But by having that goal, even if we fell short this year, it would get us closer to it next year.''

''Now that we're here, we're not sure we'll ever get back again,'' Harris said. ''So we want to make the most of it. We've seen these windows close, for whatever reason. We got to 'peat' before we can repeat.''

The Dallas Mavericks surprised themselves when they made THIS far in the conclusion of the 2005-2006 NBA Season. The Mavericks will face the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals and coming to this series, the Mavericks would have to be the more dangerous team because after all, they are the team without nothing to lose and everything to gain.

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