If you couldn't handle the Heat, Mavs were a great alternative

Television ratings for Sunday night's deciding NBA Finals Game 6 were through the roof, as they say in show biz.

Why? Because we love villains. Not actual villains who do bad things, but those who play the part. The Joker from “Batman.” Lord Voldemort from “Harry Potter.” Anyone in a reality TV show.

Almost everyone wants to believe they're good and supports goodness. Almost everyone always wants good to triumph over evil. But you need a perceived evil to put that to the test. Silly as it is, the Miami Heat were deemed to be the dark side.

Fine. It's just basketball. No harm, no foul. But something much better developed during the Finals. We saw a team, the Dallas Mavericks, come to represent what we think is supposed to be sports at their best.

The Mavericks showed that, in a true team sport, chemistry and execution matter more than star power. (As long as you're showing up for a gunfight with more than just a peashooter, of course) It's a hokey, old-fashioned notion. But this year, it held up as true as a Dirk Nowitzki free throw.

Nowitzki was 45-of-46 from the line in the Finals. Yes, free throw-shooting still matters, too.

So much has been made about the Heat and how disliked they became across the nation because LeBron James took it upon himself last summer to form a super team. I never quite got the hate because:

a) Who wouldn't want to be able to control their own employment situations, where and with whom you work?

b) If you had a chance not only to leave Cleveland for Miami, but to significantly increase your chances of reaching your career goals, you go. At the speed of sound.

c) I'm not from Cleveland.

But when it came to playing the game on the biggest of stages, the Mavericks had things the Heat seemed to lack. Cohesion. Enthusiasm about facing up to the biggest moments of the games. Maturity. And yes, likability.

I ask myself a lot of things I can never seem to answer. Like why I'm invited to so few social events. And why I keep losing pocket combs.

However, I've stopped wondering why I still watch sporting events on television at home when there is a book to be written. Or at least a book to be read. Or at least a bookshelf to be dusted.

I do it because I'm still fascinated by seeing athletes and teams react to the stress and pressure of the biggest moments. When they handle it brilliantly, like the Mavericks did, it's uplifting.

Which is probably weird. I have no personal connection to that team, or that city. But the Finals, to me, were like watching a really good concert or good theater. To see a group of people come together on stage and make a whole greater than the sum of its parts never gets old.

The Heat will almost surely have their year, or years. They'll figure it out, and James can rightfully start to call himself “King James.” Which he reportedly already does.

But for a night and a season, a team of players who embraced their roles and clearly took their cues from their coach played a beautiful brand of ball and got rewarded for it.

Because we like jeering villains, that wasn't Storyline No. 1. But it should have been.