Luka Doncic Is the Finals’ Best Player, but That’s Not Enough to Beat the Boston Celtics

Conventional wisdom says the best player usually wins a playoff series. But through two NBA Finals games, the Dallas Mavericks are learning the limits of that idea.

• By
  
  Zach Kram
  
• on June 9, 2024 11:42 pm

Midway through the second quarter of Game 2 of the 2024 NBA Finals, Luka Doncic isolated on the right baseline, backing down Jrue Holiday in pursuit of a clean look. Despite being announced as questionable earlier in the day due to a “thoracic contusion” suffered in Game 1, Doncic was on fire to start Sunday’s contest: He was sinking midrange jumpers, stepbacks, off-balance 3s.

In an attempt to cool off the scorching Dallas Mavericks star, Al Horford rotated over to trap Doncic—a look the Celtics had largely avoided in Game 1 as they focused on limiting Luka’s passes and held him to one measly assist. So Doncic took what the defense gave him: Once Horford committed, Luka whipped a wicked wraparound pass, which zipped from beyond the baseline, through the paint, and right into P.J. Washington’s shooting pocket on the opposite wing. Washington rose, fired the open 3 … and missed long.

If one play were ever emblematic of an entire playoff series, this early Game 2 miss would be it. Luka is the best player in the Finals, by a considerable margin; after leading with 30 points in Dallas’s Game 1 loss, he led again with 32 points in Game 2, as part of a robust triple-double. But the Boston Celtics have six of the next seven best players in this series, giving them the more cohesive, more balanced, more successful team. That group effort paced Boston to a 64-18 record in the regular season and a 12-2 romp through the Eastern Conference playoff bracket. And now, after a 105-98 win in Game 2, that group effort has the Celtics just two wins away from a title.

Through two games, the Celtics’ advantage in the Finals boils down to their supporting cast’s superiority over the Mavericks’. Boston’s best player (yes, he is, no matter what mind games Jason Kidd attempts) hasn’t scored with great efficiency thus far: Jayson Tatum scored 18 points on 22 shots in Game 2 after going for 16 points on 16 shots in Game 1. (He also dished 12 assists in Game 2 as part of a more solid all-around effort.)

But Tatum’s teammates can pick up his slack. In Game 1, Jaylen Brown (22 points) and Kristaps Porzingis (20) led the way, as two of six Celtics who scored double figures. In Game 2, Holiday earned 26 points on 11-for-14 shooting to lead the Celtics in points for the first time all postseason. Brown added 21 points, and Derrick White chipped in 18.

On the other end, conversely, the Mavericks don’t have enough players who can create and score against Boston’s stingy defense. Despite Luka’s individual brilliance, Dallas hasn’t yet reached 100 points in a Finals game. Sidekick Kyrie Irving’s struggles against Boston—and the Holiday-White tag team—continued in Game 2, as he scored 16 points on 18 shots for his second straight game with fewer points than attempts.

And with five above-average defenders on the floor at almost all times, the Celtics have little reason to fear that any other Maverick can beat them. They’re unconcerned about essentially every member of Dallas’s rotation other than Luka and Kyrie. All of Dallas’s forwards—Washington, Derrick Jones Jr., Maxi Kleber, Josh Green—are fair game to leave open, and they haven’t made the Celtics pay thus far. In Game 2, the non-Luka Mavericks (including the slumping Irving) shot just 2-for-17 from distance after a similarly dour 3-for-15 showing in Game 1.

A comparison of the two leading stars and their supporting casts illustrates just how wide the gulf is between these two rosters. Luka is producing with both volume and efficiency in the Finals, while Tatum—at least as a scorer—isn’t. But the Celtics’ other players are outscoring the Mavericks’ other players by 26.5 points per game, more than making up for the individual gap between Luka and Tatum.

Stars and Supporting Casts Through Two Finals Games

Even more worrisome for the Mavericks is that they’re now down 0-2 in this series despite an uncharacteristically poor shooting night from Boston in Game 2. The Celtics made just 10 of their 39 3-point attempts on Sunday, a 26 percent clip. That was their sixth-worst performance from distance all season, and they had a 1-4 record in those other games, including one of their only losses in the playoffs.

Yet the Mavericks still couldn’t generate enough points to match the Celtics on an off night. That’s a dangerous sign for the underdogs’ ability to climb back into this series.

There are some slight glimmers of hope for Dallas, however, as it returns home for Games 3 and 4. The role players might rediscover their shooting strokes in front of their partisan crowd. The team’s free throw shooting might improve. (In a game Boston won by seven points, Dallas missed eight free throws, while Boston missed only one.) Perhaps most of all, any new injury to Porzingis, who looked hobbled in the fourth quarter and didn’t play in crunch time, might swing this series, given how important Porzingis is to Boston’s offense, defense, and depth. (Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said Porzingis should be good to go in Game 3.)

But make no mistake: This has not been a particularly close Finals through two games, even if Dallas was within striking distance for much of the fourth quarter of Game 2. The only real difference between Sunday’s outcome and Game 1’s blowout was that Boston didn’t make its 3s, but the Mavericks couldn’t keep pace anyway.

The best player usually wins NBA playoff series, but this is still a team sport, and Boston has the superior team. In Game 2, Doncic recorded only the fifth 30-point triple-double in a loss in Finals history. The last two such games came from LeBron James against the Warriors, in 2015 and 2018, when he fell victim to the same dynamic. LeBron called upon all of his superhuman strengths to excel in those series but didn’t have the support system necessary to overcome Golden State’s all-around better roster. Luka is tasting the same bitter brew in 2024.