The Dallas Mavericks advanced to the Western Conference finals in stunning fashion on Sunday evening, as they went on the road in Game 7 and embarrassed the No. 1 seed Phoenix Suns, 123-90, in a contest that was not as close as even that lopsided scoreline suggests.
Despite the outcome being clear for the entire second half, the Mavericks’ celebrations did not start right away. In fact, there was a bit of a fracas after the final buzzer, and Boban Marjanovic had to be held back by his teammates.
With less than five seconds to play, Marjanovic took a pass going across halfcourt and was set to dribble out the clock when Aaron Holiday sneaked in, stole the ball and went the other way to drain a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer. The TV broadcast had already cut to the Mavericks bench, so it didn’t even catch the moment, but Marjanovic was steamed.
As Holiday was speaking to Davis Bertans and Spencer Dinwiddie — his former teammates with the Washington Wizards — Marjanovic came charging in. A number of Mavericks players and coaches pulled Marjanovic away, and Jae Crowder even arrived to talk the big man down.
While Marjanovic didn’t need to try and start a fight over the incident, you can understand why he was annoyed. That’s just an unnecessary move by Holiday after the game had already been decided.
Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed in the end and Marjanovic and the Mavericks were able to move on and celebrate the team’s first conference finals appearance since 2011.