Capstone to a Career for Dallas’s Nowitzki

With 29 seconds left in the N.B.A. season, Dirk Nowitzki drove past LeBron James for a layup that brought a blissful Dallas bench to its feet. For Nowitzki, the face of the Mavericks franchise, Game 6 of the N.B.A. finals followed the same arc as his career.

His play in the first three quarters Sunday night invited criticism. But in the final 12 minutes, he offered proof positive that it is not how you start that matters but how you finish. Nowitzki scored 10 of his 21 points in the final 12 minutes to lead the Mavericks to a title-clinching 105-95 victory against the Heat.

Nowitzki made five of his last eight shots after missing 15 of his first 19. He had been the piñata that everybody took a swipe at after the Mavericks fell to the Heat in six games in the 2006 finals. Five years later, he accepted the finals most valuable player trophy from the Hall of Famer Bill Russell, the individual prize confirming what his coach, Rick Carlisle, had been telling people all along.

“Dirk Nowitzki is one of the very greatest players in the history of this game,” Carlisle said in an on-court television interview. “He had a tough shooting night in the first half. In the second half he stepped up.”

Led by Nowitzki, the Mavericks have won at least 50 games each of the past 11 years. He was named the league’s most valuable player in 2007 and has averaged over 20 points in the postseason. But until Sunday, he was widely characterized as a player incapable of delivering the ultimate prize.

Before Game 6, in a nod to his tainted reputation, Nowitzki said: “I got hammered the last 13 years, basically. So hopefully this year I can make the hammering go away for one year.”