By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
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MIAMI -- Five games into these coin-flip NBA Finals, there's been no shortage of unforeseen developments. Everyone surely has their own list.

Me, too. (Since you know I can't resist lists.)

Here's one man's top five Finals surprises heading into Sunday night's Game 6:

LeBron and D-Wade have so little respect for the star on the other side

Hopefully you never bought into the quaint notion going into these Finals that this wasn't really a rematch because each team only had two holdovers from their 2006 encounter. Let's clarify something, America: This was always a rematch, no matter how much the rosters have turned over, since it reunited two stars from the respective franchises who've had an icy relationship ever since the Miami comeback/Dallas collapse in '06.

Or have you already forgotten the All-Star Game in 2007 when Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki were the only two starters on the floor in Las Vegas who didn't even bump fists?

But I was actually gullible enough to believe, as well as I remember D-Wade versus Dirk at full chill, that the way Nowitzki has played this postseason would quash some of the Heat hubris we've seen since July, when they staged their infamous laser-light show to celebrate the signings of LeBron James and Chris Bosh as a championship unto itself.

I was foolish enough to think, after a season of ill-conceived statements blowing up in their faces, that Wade and James wouldn't invite more of America's bile by doing something like mocking Nowitzki's recent sinus infection with news cameras rolling with every word and step after they finished up their shootaround. In a series where Nowitzki has been the clear-cut best player, no less.

Wrong and wrong.

You can bet that Wade and James will try to spin this as an episode of misunderstood humor -- another example of how they get no leeway from a voracious and biased national media monster that the Miami Herald's Dan LeBatard brilliantly dubbed a seasonlong All You Can Heat frenzy -- but they'll deserve every ounce of the flak they get this time. They crossed a line with disrespect so flip and blatant.

Especially Wade.

His own rep for inflating/creating drama is such that folks all over American Airlines Center on Thursday night, in the stands and on press row, were questioning how badly that left hip was hurting in Game 5 ... even when Wade actually left the court twice for treatment. It makes no sense that Wade would fake an injury that cost him a huge chunk of game time ... but it makes far, far less for a peer of Wade's stature, as opposed to outside observers, to look straight into the lens and accuse Nowitzki of staging the wheezing misery that was broadcast worldwide in Game 4.

Given the chance to respond Friday night after the Mavericks landed in Miami, Nowitzki declined comment when reached by ESPN.com.

The safest prediction you can make in this impossibly hard-to-call series is that Dirk and D-Wade and LeBron are about to be besieged with questions on the subject at Saturday's media availabilities, now that the tension that has always lingered beneath the surface with these teams has been fully (and foolishly) rekindled for everyone to see.

Dirk 26, LeBron 0

It's true even if you're in the minority, like me, who thinks LeBron isn't getting enough slack for what the minutes he's logging and ground he's covering defensively are doing to his gas tank.

It's still stunning, making all those allowances, to see the disparity between Nowitzki's end-game production and what James isn't doing in the final five minutes of games.

Stunning.

In what NBA statisticians recognize as "clutch time," which equates to the final five minutes of regulation or overtime with the score within five points either way, Nowitzki has 26 points on 8-for-13 shooting from the field and 9-for-9 accuracy at the line.

LeBron? After leading the league in this category through the first three rounds of the playoffs and finally chipping away at the skepticism about his ability to close, James has zero points on 0-for-7 shooting and is still waiting for his first "clutch time" trip to the line. Udonis Haslem (17) has scored more fourth-quarter points in the Finals than James (11), with Nowitzki out of sight at 52 and counting.

I repeat: I'm inclined to cut him more slack than most for the load he's carrying minutes-wise (LeBron again played the entire second half in Game 5) and the way Dallas' peerless ball movement has James moving East-to-West as the Mavs hoped. That's until it hits you, again, that Nowitzki doesn't have a Wade or Bosh to share the burden with at closing time.

There isn't a superstar in the league who carries a larger load offensively than Dirk, who's second-best teammate is, well, after 110 games this season counting exhibitions & we're still not sure. As ESPN's own Jeff Van Gundy said to my man Howard Beck of the New York Times of the way Nowitzki is outnumbered: "How many times has the star power been stacked so much in one team's stable?"

So there's no way the gap should be this wide, even accounting for the growing universal appreciation of Dirk's clutchness.

Fatigue works to only a degree as a James alibi. Since Game 1, when the smoothness of his 3-point stroke had me salivating, LeBron is 3-for-18 on 3s and looking shakier with every jumper. His confidence to launch or drive has clearly been sapped, with only two games, at most, left on the schedule to find it.

Miami hasn't been toeing the line this time

Jittery Mavs fans who still have nightmares about the 97 trips to the line that Dwyane Wade made in the '06 Finals were undoubtedly fearing another free-throw parade five years later. Especially since this incarnation of the Heat, at least in theory, has two rim-attacking stars now.

Yet it's actually Dallas and Dirk, five games in, that hold the aggression and free-throw edges. Which obviously makes it far, far easier for Mavs owner Mark Cuban to maintain his vow of media silence that began in earnest during Dallas' second-round sweep of the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Mavs, in these Finals, have shot 137 free throws entering Game 6 to Miami's 115. Nowitzki has shot a series-high 44 -- draining 43 -- compared to Wade's 42 attempts.

In 2006, Wade shot 46 free throws alone in the final two games of that series, but he's generally finishing plays in this reunion with the Mavs -- and shooting a heady 58 percent from the floor -- more than he's looking for bailouts. And when Game 5 was starting to have an '06 feel, with Wade racking up six quick free-throw attempts in the opening quarter, everything changed after Wade's collision with Brian Cardinal. The resulting left hip contusion required two trips to the locker room for treatment and seemed to rob Wade of his usual slashing prowess.

Eventually, though, as with most of the series storylines, we end up focused on LeBron and what's not happening for him. Through five games, James has earned a whopping 16 trips to the line, which computes to a measly 3.2 per game. He shot 8.8 free throws per game in the Eastern Conference finals against Chicago, but that James was turning corners with conviction and trying to get to the bucket. By mixing up its pick-and-roll blitzing and sagging zones, Dallas has discouraged James from driving in spite of all his between-games promises to attack.

Costly stuff in a series where the Mavs' margin of victory in their three wins in 4.7 points. The Heat have held a lead inside six minutes in all three of those losses, but Dallas has outscored Miami by a tidy 65-41 in the final five minutes of fourth quarters.

The success of the Dallas D

The culture-changing impact and defensive improvement triggered by Tyson Chandler's arrival in Dallas has been well-chronicled. But the Mavs' resistance has gone to another level, intensity-wise, in this series, which might be the biggest reason besides Nowitzki's brilliance that Dallas has a 3-2 lead.

You've heard Nowitzki, even in victory, describe the Heat's collective length, footspeed and athleticism as the most troublesome he's ever coped with in the playoffs when it comes to double teams and fast closeouts on open shooters. But Dirk and Co. have risen to that challenge by countering Miami's D with some pretty stout stuff of their own.

The Mavs rely on a man-to-man scheme, orchestrated by lead assistant coach Dwane Casey, that requires quick and precise help to counter their age and corresponding lack of quickness. Yet it's a man-to-man scheme that allows for easy switching to a zone, resulting in a back-and-forth that helps keep the Heat guessing.

Other key factors include Nowitzki's improvement as a team defender and signal-caller responsible for calling out what play the opposition is running, along with the scrappiness supplied by charge-takers like DeShawn Stevenson and Brian Cardinal.

But Chandler's presence and passion are the keys, as well as his crucial ability to avoid foul trouble for much of the series to lessen the impact of Brendan Haywood's hip injury.

Strong individual work from Shawn Marion and Jason Kidd completes the puzzle. As they did in the Western Conference finals, taking turns on Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, Marion and Kidd do their own switching back and forth on Wade and James, constantly changing the looks they're getting from a team that has changed its identity.

The knock on the Mavericks of old, for much of Nowitzki's career, centered around their inability to get stops when they needed them. In these Finals, when Miami has put the clamps on the league's No. 1-ranked team in offensive efficiency this postseason, Dallas was still able to dig out wins in Game 2 and Game 4 when the ball wasn't going down like it did in Game 5.

Frequent references to the "Basketball Gods"

I realize that this is more of an interview-podium surprise that might have escaped even the most hard-core Finals consumers. But I've found it interesting, after Game 4 and Game 5, to hear both Wade and Mavs coach Rick Carlisle make a "basketball gods" reference, proving that it's not just us media types who spout this stuff.

This was Wade after a crucial free throw in the final minute of Game 4 bounced in and out: "The basketball gods just had other plans."

This was Carlisle after the Mavs had about four high-arching prayers from behind the 3-point line -- from a variety of shooters including Jason Terry, J.J. Barea and Nowitzki -- answered in Game 5: "Look, we threw in some difficult shots. But when you play as hard as we've been playing, the basketball gods tend to be kinder to you."

Confession time: I'm struggling these days to give any credence to the notion of hoops-focused higher powers when the prospect of a lockout in two weeks looms over one of the best Finals that I've ever attended and threatens to shut down the league when it's in its healthiest state since Michael Jordan retired.

Yet I suppose we can all be thankful, as a measure of consolation, that we're getting a really good show in the dreaded event this is the last NBA basketball we're going to see for a while.

Dimes past: May 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | June 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10