Tim MacMahon of ESPN Dallas reports:
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DeShawn Stevenson admitted that beating self-proclaimed king LeBron James made the Dallas Mavericks’ championship even sweeter.
“It makes me feel good, man, to beat him, to beat that Miami team,” Stevenson told ESPNDallas.com in an AmericanAirlines Arena hallway after the Mavs clinched the title with Sunday’s Game 6 win. “The way they act, the way they treated Dirk [Nowitzki], all the things that they said were very classless. To win on the court the way we did it, it was wonderful.”
The Mavericks thought James and Dwyane Wade disrespected Nowitzki, who was named Finals MVP, by mocking his cough in front of television cameras after the Game 5 shootaround. Nowitzki, who played Game 4 with a sinus infection that caused a nasty cough and a 101-degree fever, called the incident “a little childish, a little arrogant.”
Stevenson’s hostile history with James goes back much further than these Finals. Stevenson’s Washington Wizards were eliminated by James’ Cleveland Cavaliers three consecutive postseasons.
The last Wizards-Cavaliers series, in 2008, featured a feud between Stevenson and James that eventually involved a pair of high-profile rappers.
It started with Stevenson calling James “overrated.” LeBron answered that responding to Stevenson would be like rap icon Jay-Z getting into it with one-hit wonder Soulja Boy.
