It's not just that this was the first No. 8 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in a seven-game series in NBA history, it's how fully this series captured the public's imagination.
That season, the Dallas Mavericks were an absolute machine. They won a league-best 67 games, and could have become only the second team to reach 70 had they not rested their starters and slacked, going just 6-4 in their last 10 regular-season games.
So here you had this ridiculously good Dallas team, a true Goliath of a roster, chock-full of top-drawer NBA talent like 2007 MVP and future Hall of Famer Dirk Nowitzki; Hall-credentialed Jason Terry; Josh Howard,who at the time most thought would be a future Hall of Famer; Jerry Stackhouse, who just a few seasons earlier had scored more points than anyone in the league; and Devin Harris, who looked like one of the league's future superstars at the point.
Further, the Mavs were fresh off a loss in the NBA Finals the previous season. The NBA world all but conceded that 2007 was their year, their turn.
By contrast, the Warriors were Davids in so many ways. They had won a remarkable 25 fewer games that season; they needed until the final day of the regular season to clinch a playoff berth; they were from Oakland, San Francisco's red-headed stepsister; and only the most ardent NBA fans could name anyone on their team besides Baron Davis, as Stephen Jackson and Al Harrington had been acquired midseason.
Their slingshots were the maize-colored Warriors t-shirts bearing the phrase "We Believe." Yellow is the color of caution, so the shirts seemed more the hesitant hopefulness of a fringe franchise than a portent of things to come.
And yet as the series dawned, the Warriors gave reason for their fans to believe: Harrington and Jackson, helped Davis to a split in Dallas before returning home to a zealously supportive home crowd.
Oracle Arena's roof was rattling as the Warriors faithful cheered their hometown heroes on. In response, the team starting hitting from downtown at an astonishing rate, stunning and overwhelming the less-prolific Mavericks.
The story lines were plentiful. You had reformation in Jackson, who rehabilitated his fan-brawling, gun-toting image with terrific play. In the final game, for example, Jackson hit seven straight three-pointers en route to scoring 33 points.
You had heart in Davis, who tweaked his hamstring in the first quarter of the final contest but stayed in and scored 20 points while hauling down 10 boards.
And you had vindication in Warriors coach Don Nelson, who, playing the role of master, beat student Avery Johnson while exacting a measure of revenge against former boss Mark Cuban.
Given its reliance on steroids, history now looks on the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run battle with scorn. But at the time, the duel brought a ton of fans, including myself, back to baseball.
This series had a similar effect in the post-Jordan era, bringing new fans to the NBA, and making disenchanted former fans into…well, believers.
