NBA Finals now have Cough-Gate

Dwyane Wade and LeBron James mocking Dirk Nowitzki yesterday before Game 5.

Just hours before Game 1 of the World Series in 2000, played between the Mets and Yankees, I nervously asked my dad whether our Mets were going to win.

"If there's a God in heaven, the Mets will win," he told me.

Well, we all know that series didn't turn out so well for us Mets fans. In fact, I'm still convinced my Dad ticked off the wrong guy upstairs by saying that, but at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, I'm left feeling the same way about these NBA Finals between the Mavericks and Heat.

As if the series, which the Mavs lead 3-2, needed to amp up its Good Guys vs. Bad Guys dynamic any more, I have no choice but to take it to a whole level following the video that surfaced just this afternoon.

The footage shows LeBron James and Dwyane Wade mocking Dirk Nowitzki by playfully pretending to cough while covering their mouths as they walked out of AmericanAirlines Arena in Dallas following yesterday's shoot around before Game 5.

Clearly a dig at Nowitzki, who played through a sinus infection and 101-degree fever in Game 4, the video elevates LeBron and D-Wade to a new stratosphere of supervillains.

“Did y’all hear me cough?” Wade said on the video. “Do you think I’m sick?”

So I guess Dirk was faking his sickness or at least embellishing it, right? I don't think so. I guess LeBron and D-Wade missed Dirk's post-game press conference. Heck, I thought I was going to catch something from just watching him on TV.

In the span of about an hour, I've gone from passionately rooting for the Mavericks (not just for the Heat to lose), to obsessively NEEDING the Mavericks to win (and the Heat to lose).

Dirk Nowitzki clearly faking it here.

No, Dirk's 21-point performance in Game 4 wasn't Michael Jordan's "Sick Game," in which he scored 38 points while battling the flu, but Dirk showed a toughness in Game 4 that few thought he had prior to these Finals.

Above all else, the footage shows what the Heat, or at least James and Wade, are all about -- pomp and showmanship. They insist on being the center of attention, for better or for worse.

They see the cameras in front of them. They know Dirk and the Mavericks are going to see the footage, but they're just doing what they've always done since joining forces -- saying and doing stupid things.

Maybe they were trying to channel their inner Jason Terry, who popped off at the mouth following Game 3 but then backed it up in Games 4 and 5.

Either way, I think justice has been doled out, at least for now. Wade injured his hip in last night's game and James continues to flounder in his fourth-quarter neurosis.

What's that called again? That's right, karma.

Maybe next game Dirk should go out in the fourth quarter and chuck up brick after brick and then toss some mysterious powder on the court and magically disappear. That'd be a pretty creative way to mock LeBron, don't you think?

But that's not Dirk. He's not that guy. He's the guy that's one win away from winning the championship that has eluded him for 13 years and I'm sure that's all he cares about.

If the Mavericks can close out the series come Sunday, that should be plenty revenge for Dirk. Then again, who needs revenge when you have a championship ring?