REMEMBER Rocky IV? That episode of Rocky that had Rocky Balboa almost retiring after he clubbed nemesis Clubber Lang in Rocky III and put him out of business?

But then he didn’t retire. Because up came another challenge, perhaps his biggest challenge in the ring, figuratively and literally. His name was Ivan Drago—a six-foot-four, 261-lb boxer from the Soviet Union—with cruel Slavic features, a cold stare, a rock-hard body that seemed to be sculpted out of granite, and no heart. No apparent heart.

Physically he appeared to have no equal. Training-wise, he was honed out of the unforgiving, cold, methodical fashion and high-precision training machines favored by the then USSR. Like The Terminator, he seemed focused only on destruction. Singlemindedly, robot-like, he underwent all the rigors of preparation so he could be ready for one thing and one thing only—the kill. In the world boxing arena of that make-believe movie, he had no peer.

But Rocky Balboa agrees to fight Drago in the Soviet Union on Christmas Day to avenge the death of his friend Apollo Creed by Ivan Drago’s hands—away from home, against a hostile crowd. And to cut the long story short, Rocky—the older, relatively more home spun fighter—won the bloody fight, got poetic justice and showed the world that all the intimidation of a younger, superior body and the steely edge of superior scientific training are no match for a big heart and purity of intention.

I thought of that Rocky IV movie a lot as I was counting mornings only according to Games One, Two, Three, Four, Five and Six of the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals.  In my mind, Ivan Drago was LeBron James and the Heat who had the superior personnel and the awesome armed forces. The Mavs—older, assembled together like a ragtag militia and relying only on the leadership and spiritual strength of one, golden hero—were Rocky Balboa.

Being so, this year’s NBA Finals fascinated me as much as it had fascinated millions of basketball fans all over the world. It had all the elements of a Lord of the Rings movie. (In fact, a Photoshopped Facebook post right after Game Six that showed Dirk Nowitski as Aragorn and a bawling LeBron James as Golum was entitled “The Loss of the Ring.” But we’re getting ahead of the story.)

The plot was all about Talent vs. Teamwork. Awesomeness vs. Greatness. Would it really work? Would the basketball gods accept the new doctrine that when two of the most awesome NBA players around formed a deadly triumvirate with yet another hotshot, the game can now pivot around a trio instead of a dozen team players?

George Patton, that World War II general who commanded the Allied troops against Germany, said this about outstanding players and brilliant officers on the eve of D-Day: “The army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of c***. The bilious b******* who wrote that stuff about individuality for the Saturday Evening Post don’t know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating.”

Pardon Patton. But that in a nutshell is the germ of this NBA Finals. Or of the basketball sport, unless it is proven wrong in the future. Basketball is a team game. The best team—not the best player or players—almost always wins. The championship is not about glitz and bravado. It’s about character and willpower.

That’s what Dirk Nowitski and his brave band of brothers showed us all throughout this series. Coming from behind 15 points in Game Two, with a damaged tendon on his right forefinger, Nowitzki led his troops, Patton-like, in a fourth-quarter comeback that has been the hallmark of the Dallas Mavericks this season.

He battled through a 101-degree temperature in Game Four to once again beat the Heat by inspiring his comrades to make sorties of their own and carry the load of the mission alongside him. Again Captain Dirk and his blue chip coach Rick Carlisle—showed you don’t need three sensational top cats on your team; you need just one.

So the operative word is one. One goal, one mind, one heart. Not as individuals. But as a team. The Dallas Mavericks showed the Miami Heat that as a team they were tougher, smarter and had more poise, especially down in the fourth quarter. They were unfazed, un-intimidated. And in the end, the all-sparks, all-glitz Heat blinked first. King James was not able to lead his subjects as he was expected to, and as a result some quarters now call him Le Baby James.

The Mavericks’ winning the NBA Finals serves as an inspiration and a source of comfort for those who believe in rules, ethics, the value of hard work, patience and persistence. We all know you can’t make a beautiful rose in just one day. It takes time to perfect the hue, the petals, the sweet scent, even the thorns—before the rose blooms in its perfect glory. (Maybe Derrick Rose would agree.)

So God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world. That’s the general sentiment of those who rooted for the Mavs in the NBA Finals, which includes me. Poetic justice? A return to sense and sensibility? True basketball values? Yes, all that. And also schadenfreude.

“Dallas just healed my heart,” Cleveland Cavalier Mo Williams tweeted the day the Mavs showed that the Heat was all hot air.

“NBA champions the Dallas Mavericks are preparing a big parade in Dallas today...but not as big as the one they have in Cleveland,” Jay Leno quipped on his The Tonight Show yesterday.

Well, Miami will be back. And yes, they’ll get not one, not two, not three you know whats when they return. But first their Big Three have to learn their lesson and come out better persons, if not better athletes, from this experience. It starts with humility, it grows on sharing. The rest follows.