(Daniel Eade is a freelance journalist and basketball contributor to BPL.)  

The chants of M-V-P will belong to Dirk Nowitzki, and rightly so, after the seven-footer stamped his authority on the 2011 NBA Finals with a career-defining series. Nowitzki was judged the Finals MVP with a resume of 24.3ppg and 9.7rpg as the Dallas Mavericks battled their way through the Miami Heat and into NBA immortality with a 105-95 triumph in Game Six and a 4-2 series victory.

While Nowitzki showcased his offensive repertoire throughout the series, highlighted by his epic performance down the stretch in Game Two when the Mavericks erased a 15-point fourth quarter deficit to grab their first win of the series, it was DeShawn Stevenson who puffed out his chest and stood up to the bully on the playground and showed his team that they need not be afraid of their more-fancied opposition.

The long feud between Stevenson and the Miami Heat's LeBron James goes back to a time that seems so long ago, when Stevenson was with the Washington Wizards and James was with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Stevenson, at the time, called James "overrated", a comment that seemed as crazy as calling Elvis Presley 'unsuccessful', until James' disappearing act through the 2011 finals series got the fire burning again.

Stevenson got the basketball world talking earlier in the final series when first he described James and Dwyane Wade as "great, great, actors", hinting that he believed they were extremely capable of selling calls to the officials, and after Game Four he claimed that James had "checked out" and that James had "deferred" to Wade during the crucial fourth period.

It was these confident and assured utterances from Stevenson, that he could openly speak about James without fear of retribution, that did so much to improve the mindset of the Mavericks. It showed them they didn't need to be afraid of arguably the greatest player in the NBA today.

"We got guys out there that don't care about them as players and are not afraid of them," said Stevenson post-game in an interview with CBS Sports, "Myself, Trix (Shawn Marion) and J-Kidd (Jason Kidd), when you've got guys like that, that go out there and don't care, anything's possible. We did it as a team."

On the court, Stevenson's productiveness was on the defensive end where he, along with Marion and Kidd, contained James and Wade for the majority of the series, and even when Wade got going offensively he was a one-man show without a supporting cast to deliver down the stretch when the games were on the line.

But it was also on the offensive end for Stevenson where he continued to bury daggers into the heart of the Heat defence with 13 three-pointers, the most of any Dallas player, and kept the floor spaced when the Mavericks were in possession which allowed Nowitzki to work his magic and JJ Barea to make a killing off driving through the lane.

Refusing to be a bystander to any Heat celebration, it was Stevenson who started the mini-skirmish in the second quarter of Game Six when he pushed Heat power forward Udonis Haslem. At the time the Mavericks had just squandered a 12-point lead and trailed 42-40 on the back of 14 straight points to the Heat.

The altercation led to technical fouls on Stevenson, Haslem and Heat big man Joel Anthony, but turned the scene into the Mavericks favour with Nowitzki awarded a free throw. Nowitzki made the shot that ended the Heat's run and, by the time the long intermission arrived, the Mavericks had the lead back.

As with the majority of Stevenson's acts during the finals, they could not be measured or marked down on the scorers' table.

But they inevitably worked to the benefit of his team and the proof came when the Mavericks lifted the Larry O'Brien Trophy up in the air for the world to see.

With the 2011 NBA championship heading to Dallas, Stevenson took another shot at James when he arrived back in Texas wearing a T-shirt that had on the back, "Hey LeBron! How's my Dirk Taste?"

Stevenson had not just the last laugh, but a championship ring.