Maybe, the Dallas Mavericks will bounce back Monday night at home. Dirk Nowitzki and company could very well still win this first round series.

And you know what? So what. It doesn't matter anymore.

The legacy of the Mavericks under owner Mark Cuban has been sealed. Unless Dallas wins the championship this season (which is like expecting Robert Pattinson to take home an Oscar for Water for Elephants), Cuban's franchise will forever be known as the biggest chokers in NBA history.

It's a big title and the Mavericks have done huge horrific things to earn it.

Blowing that 18-point fourth quarter lead against the Portland Trailblazers is just the latest. Only the Dallas of Dirk and Cuban could turn what should have been a cakewalk of a first round series into a death march. This is worse than that first round bow out to Don Nelson and the Golden State Warriors. For at least, those Warriors presented the Mavericks with a host of matchup problems.

That's not the case this time. Dallas is clearly better than this Portland team, clearly capable of easily brushing off Nate McMillian's flawed collection of players. Instead, it's a 2-2 series.

Choke's on Cuban. Again.

Cuban's a great owner, the rare sports owner who doesn't just say he puts winning above everything. Chicago Cubs fans should still being ruing the day he didn't get that franchise. But it's time to wonder if his over-the-top desperate need to win drops too much pressure on the coddled multi-millionaires in his employ.

It's not right to put this on Nowitzki, a borderline great player who has never been given a true second superstar to work with. Especially not when Cuban has insisted on making himself the face of the franchise. Dallas' owner is the team's pulse — Cuban demands as much. Should it really be any surprise then that the Mavericks are so up-and-down, so prone to devastating drops in emotions?

Have you ever watched Cuban on the sidelines? He's a wild man — and in the tightest moments, his players tend to lose their own equilibrium.

Nowitzki and the Mavericks should already have one championship — but they choked that away to the Miami Heat, Dwyane Wade and the refs who love him — despite being up 2-0 in 2006. Dallas is threatening to match that feat against a lesser team and a lesser star (Brandon Roy) who's been even more lessened by bum knees.

Maybe, it won't happen. But who cares? If the Mavericks scrape out of a series they should have won easily, they'll still have no chance of giving the LA Lakers a legitimate fight in the second round. They'll still have done nothing.

Except cement their legacy as the ultimate chokers with a no-way, fourth-quarter seize up.