You know you’ve made it as a basketball fan when you’ve won your favorite team a game. A Dwight Howard heckler slash Dallas Mavericks fan just delivered the W for his hometown team Wednesday night when the Mavericks pulled off the come-from-behind win over the Rockets, 123-120.

With 2:54 left in the game and the Rockets holding a five-point lead, 116-111 Howard was seen lightly throwing the ball to a fan in the baseline after the Rockets’ big man was fouled underneath.

Apparently, the fans’ heckling got into the mental midget Howard’s head:

To be fair with D12, it was a weak-ass throw with no intention to hurt and he really was just tossing the ball to the fan. The league office and referees saw otherwise however as the NBA fined him $25,000 for it and the game official called a technical foul on Dwight after that incident.

But it was a costly T.

Dallas' star forward Dirk Nowitzki hit the ensuing technical free throw—part of a 12-4 blitz by Mavericks to end the game. Thanks (partly) to that fan, Dallas eked out the three-point victory to complete the comeback win.

The Rockets led 101-to-87 entering the final canto.

With the loss, Houston wasted what was Howard’s best offensive game with the Rockets. He finished with 33 points on 12-of-18 field goal shooting and only missed four shots from the line (9/13 FT) plus 11 rebounds.

The victory was a special one for the Mavericks and the fan as the franchise was one of the suitors of D12’s services when he was a free agent during the offseason. Dwight’s decision was to go to the other Texas team much to the disappointment of the Mavs camp and supporters including team owner Mark Cuban.

It was the other offseason acquisitions that came up big for Dallas for the evening. Shooting guard Monta Ellis top-scored with 37 points and also had 8 assists and center Samuel Dalembert had a respectable performance with 6 points, 10 rebounds and 4 blocked shots.

For this particular night, the Dallas fans are glad that Howard was playing in the other team.

And for Dwight, there’s a lesson to be learned here: no point in getting pissed off by fans’ antics—they have to do what they have to do; heckle you to death and try to distract you from what you are doing.

Unfortunately for Houston, being mentally tough is not of Howard’s greatest strengths.