Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan Formed One Of NBA’s Most Underrated Rivalries

Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan created one of the NBA’s biggest rivalries during the past 16 seasons, but it never gained the recognition it deserved.

Dirk Nowitzki and Tim Duncan. The average follower of the NBA has heard of these players and has seen them play before. They’re household names.

These two legends played in the league together from 1998 to 2016 with many head-to-head battles, prime-time playoff matchups and middle-of-the-season faceoffs.

But what we didn’t know is that a game between the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs on April 13 would end up being the last time the two players met.

After the season was over and the major moves had been made in free agency, Duncan announced his retirement from basketball, leaving a 19-year career behind him that will one day land him a spot in the Hall of Fame.

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His retirement left Nowitzki in the league by himself as the only superstar left from the 2000s that had played with one team over the course of a career. Nowitzki had nothing but praise for the five-time champion as he stated that Duncan “was always about winning.”

After speaking to the media in Dallas and to several other outlets, he took to Twitter to call Duncan the “greatest power forward ever.”

Nowitzki and Duncan have gone down as two of the most humble, team-first athletes to ever play in the NBA.

Maybe that’s why their rivalry wasn’t recognized nearly as much as the Kobe Bryant/LeBron James rivalry or the LeBron/Paul Pierce rivalry, but any Mavs or Spurs fan would tell you that the years of watching Dirk and Duncan lead teams against each other truly created a hostile environment, whether it was between their teammates on the court or between fans in the stands.

The two players hit their prime years during the same time. They were competing for championships at the same time. They were playing in All-Star games at the same time. For that reason, they created some of the the greatest moments of the past two decades.

The regular season was, for the most part, dominated by Duncan. Even though both him and Nowitzki rested a lot in the dying stages of their careers, Duncan still led his team to victory over the Mavs many times.

According to SportsDay, he averaged 19.9 points and 11.3 rebounds against the Mavs in regular season play. As a result he ended his career with a 42-22 record against them.

It didn’t matter if it was 2004 and Duncan was dropping 20 points, 13 rebounds and five blocks or if it was 2014 and he was nailing the Mavs with 20 points and 15 rebounds late in the season, he seemed to elevate his play against Nowitzki’s team.

In fact, he lost just two regular season games against them in the final five years of his career. While Nowitzki had his fair share of success taming his team’s biggest rival, Duncan’s Spurs seemed to be a thorn in the Mavs’ side at the worst times.

He led his team to streaks of dominance against the Mavs, whether the games were blowouts or evenly matched outings.

However, the playoffs were a different story. They were filled with big moments and tight contests that truly defined the rivalry.

Flashback to 2003 in their second playoff series. Duncan’s Spurs got the best of Nowitzki’s Mavs after the Big German suffered from a knee injury in Game 3 that would end his season, but who can forget what happened in Game 1?

It was an all-out battle with Nowitzki going for 38 points, 15 rebounds and two assists while Duncan went for 40 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists as his team would fall in the series opener.

Then in 2006, the teams met after a three-year wait–one that would produce arguably the most memorable series of the entire rivalry.

Serving as the two best teams in the West, the Mavs and Spurs squared off in a seven-game thriller. After the Mavs took an early 3-1 lead, the Spurs would storm back to even the series and force a critical Game 7 in San Antonio.

The defining moment of the series came late in that game as the Mavs had blown a huge lead. After going down by three late, Nowitzki drove to the rim and watched the ball spin on top of the rim for a few seconds before falling in.

With just 21.6 seconds left, Nowitzki–who had been fouled by Manu Ginobili on the drive–tied the game at the line and sent it to overtime where the Mavs would take control and close out the second round with a win.

Throughout the seven-game stretch, both Duncan (32.3 points, 11.7 rebounds) and Nowitzki (27.1 points, 13.3 rebounds) averaged double-doubles with each player recording at least 20 points and eight rebounds in each contest.

The two players would go on to face each other in another seven-game series in 2014, but that series in 2006 truly served as the epitome of Dirk vs. Duncan. A long series with two all-time greats in their prime resulted in legendary outcomes for each game.

While that one series was the obvious standout in a rivalry for the ages, it was one of the only times Nowitzki came out on top. He would lead the Mavs to a 4-3 win that year and a 4-1 win in 2009 and but fell to Duncan’s Spurs in 2001, 2003, 2010 and 2014.

As a result, Duncan went 20-16 against the Mavs in the playoffs and 18-15 in games where Nowitzki played.

Their first playoff series came in 2001 while their last came in 2014. Thirteen years between postseason matches gave Dirk and Duncan the opportunity to battle during the entirety of their careers.

It’s definitely important to consider the stats and the wins and losses when considering a rivalry, but there was something deeper about Nowitzki vs. Duncan.

It was the fact that both of these players were competing at such a high level against each other for their entire careers. Whether it was the early stages, the middle of their prime years or the later stages of careers, they poured so much heart into each contest.

It also makes a difference when considering the fact that these were the two greatest power forwards to ever play the game and two of the greatest players ever period.

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Two selfless superstars not making headlines in the media by taking shots at one another. Two superstars that played the game the right way–by letting their play do the talking and their game determine who had bragging rights for the time being.

It was the two best big men of the 2000’s leading their respective teams against each other–teams that were locks to win 50-plus games each season and teams that were locks for the playoffs each season.

The magnitude of two names this big facing each other so many times over a course of NBA history can only be countered by the likes of Magic Johnson/Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain/Bill Russell or Michael Jordan/Isiah Thomas.

There’s just not many other rivalries that even come close to comparing what happened between the Mavs and the Spurs during the 2000s and 2010s.

While Nowitzki will likely remain in the league until after the 2017-18 season, it will be odd watching Mavs/Spurs games and seeing him face up against Pau Gasol or David Lee instead of The Big Fundamental.

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We won’t realize the true impact both of these players had during their rivalry days until both are retired and out of the league, but there is one thing we do know. These two legends–though they had different styles of play–were core components of one of the great eras in NBA basketball.

For that, we can truly recognize their rivalry as one of the greatest the league has ever seen.