After beating the Dallas Mavericks, 105-98, on Sunday, the Boston Celtics are two wins away from the 18th championship in franchise history.
And they’re cruising toward that accomplishment in spite of their best player, Jayson Tatum, shooting just 31.6 percent from the field in the series.
The Celtics’ depth and versatility largely overwhelmed the Mavericks in the two games in Boston. And though a change of scenery may alter the feel of the Finals, it won’t change the rosters involved.
The series isn’t over, but it sure seems to be headed in one direction. And as we anticipate the move to Dallas, it’s time to take stock of what we’ve seen so far with the classic “winners and losers” exercise.
Most years, there are reasonable arguments to be made for the championship winning team’s best player to be considered the best player in the world. Or, at the very least, a top 3-5 player.
Just think about the last several Finals MVP winners: Nikola Jokić, Stephen Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant.
If the Celtics pull this off, there really isn’t a “best in the world” candidate to add to that list. Tatum is great. He’s a top 5-10 player, but in a vacuum, he’s not a better individual player than Jokić, Luka Dončić, Giannis or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
But that’s not a knock on Tatum or Boston. On the contrary, this playoff run should be a celebration of team basketball, well-built rosters and continuity.
Despite years of outside forces (mostly media) clamoring for a Tatum-Jaylen Brown breakup, the Celtics kept them together. They built around them with selfless, versatile role players (or, more accurately, fringe stars).
The pieces of this puzzle fit brilliantly. Everyone in the eight-man rotation can shoot. Most of them can create. All of them (with the exception of Payton Pritchard) can defend more than one position. Everyone plays a pretty selfless brand of basketball, too. They have to.
According to various catch-all metrics from around the internet, Boston had five of the top 70 and nine of the top 125 players in the league this season. With some personalities, that might lead to jealousy. Players like Jrue Holiday and Derrick White could probably be doing more elsewhere.
But everyone falling into line is part of why the Celtics were so dominant throughout the regular season. And it’s why they’re up 2-0, in spite of Tatum having two horrible shooting nights.
Outside of the shooting, Tatum has actually been quite good in this series. In fact, he should still be in the mix for Finals MVP. He leads the Celtics in both rebounds (10.0) and assists (8.5) per game this series. And Holiday is his only teammate with a higher raw plus-minus.
Kyrie Irving, on the other hand, is shooting poorly and not really supplementing the game in other positive ways.
Through two games, he’s averaging 14.0 points on 18.5 shots. He’s handed out a total of eight assists and grabbed five rebounds. He’s being targeted as a defender. And the number of bigger, stronger defenders Boston can send his way is clearly bothering him.
For Dallas to have a chance in this series, Irving has to be great. Not good, but great. And if he continues to play like this, the Mavericks don’t have a chance.
Much was made of the absences of several Celtics opponents through the first three rounds of the playoffs.
Jimmy Butler, Terry Rozier, Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Tyrese Haliburton all missed games against Boston. The path to the Finals opened up in a way we’ve never really seen before.
But the Celtics were also missing Kristaps Porziņģis, arguably the team’s second best player, for most of that run, thanks to a calf injury. His absence wasn’t given the credit it deserved. And Boston going 9-1 without him was more impressive than the reaction to that run suggested.
In his two games back in action, Porziņģis has quickly reminded everyone just how important he is. He supercharged Game 1 with his shotmaking and rim protection off the bench. His impact in Game 2 wasn’t quite as dramatic, but he was still a team-high plus-12 in just 23 minutes.
The way Porziņģis expands the floor on offense and shrinks it on defense is unique, even in today’s unicorn-filled game. And if his minutes restriction loosens up over the course of this series, Dallas is going to have a mighty tough time winning four of the next five games.
Individually, Luka Dončić has been great. Tabbing him as one of this series “losers” is kind of silly. He’s playing hurt and averaging 31.0 points, 10.5 rebounds and 6.0 assists.
But he is down 2-0 in his first Finals, and it feels like the roster around him is woefully outmatched against the Celtics. It’s another LeBron James parallel (go look back on his first Finals). And years from now, it might just be a sentence or two in discussions about Luka’s multiple titles. But right now, it can’t feel good.
And while it’s easy to lay much of the blame for this early hole on a supporting cast that was remade mid-season and doesn’t have anything resembling a star after Luka and Kyrie, Dončić deserves some criticism, too.
He’s been loose with the ball. He has as many turnovers as assists. And he’s been caught flat-footed on plenty of defensive possessions.
Even considering the lofty averages above, he’s been better in other playoff games. And he’s going to have to better from here on out for Dallas to get back into this.
As noted earlier, the beauty of this Boston team is that it plays as a team.
Through two games, there are reasonable Finals MVP arguments for three (maybe even four) Celtics.
We already mentioned Tatum’s wide-ranging contributions. Jaylen Brown leads in scoring and has been an absolute terror on defense. His rim protection, in particular, has been impressive for a wing. Porziņģis’ explosive contributions off the bench—he’s averaging 16.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.5 blocks in just 21.9 minutes—have him in the mix, too.
But the current leader in the clubhouse might be Holiday. Less than a year ago, despite helping them win a title in 2021, he was cast aside by the Milwaukee Bucks. Now, he’s averaging 19.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.0 threes and 1.0 steals, while shooting 44.4 percent from deep in the Finals.
He’s making huge contributions to the struggles of Kyrie. He’s making life far more difficult on Luka. His steady contributions on both ends have led to him being a team-high plus-26 in the series.
Tatum and Brown have been almost perpetually on the edge of adding another banner to the rafters in Boston, and Holiday may be about to finally push them over.