For most of this season, Dallas Mavericks Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving never seemed to have the talent to make a breakthrough in the competitive Western Conference, but that all changed at the trade deadline on Feb. 8. Dallas, then in eighth place in the Western Conference, gambled on their future with two bold trades that saved their season.
The Mavericks will be appearing in the NBA Finals for the first time since Dirk Nowitzki led them to a championship in 2011. Similar to their 2011 series against LeBron James and the Miami Heat, the Mavericks will again be underdogs against a more talented team. Boston CelticsJust like in 2011, the Mavs still have a chance to win the championship.
Dallas acquired P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford separately at the trade deadline in exchange for a future first-round draft pick. Suddenly, the Mavs have the defensive anchor they need to complement the exciting playmaking of Doncic and Irving. Few experts expect the Mavs to win this series, but there are paths they could take. Here are three reasons why the Mavs will beat Boston and make it to the 2024 NBA Finals.
1. Luka Doncic can play like the best player in the world.
The Celtics were clearly the best team in the NBA all season with a league-high 64 wins and a +11.7 net rating, and while Boston boasts the best five-man lineup in the NBA, the Mavericks clearly have the best individual players in this series.
It was only a matter of time before Doncic made it to the NBA Finals. As a teenager in Europe, he led his team to a EuroLeague championship, was named league and playoff MVP and led Slovenia to an unexpected gold medal at EuroBasket in 2017. Three teams didn’t draft Doncic in the 2018 NBA Draft, so the Mavs traded up to acquire him. He was one of the best players in the league from his rookie season onwards. Now 25 years old, he has firmly established himself as the best player in the world, a title previously held by Nikola Jokic.
Doncic hasn’t played at his top level for much of this playoffs, and while he’s been limited to some degree by a knee sprain, he’s still averaging 28.8 points, 9.6 rebounds and 8.8 assists in 17 games so far as Dallas makes it to the Finals. Even with one healthy leg, Doncic has produced some impressive moments in this playoff season.
The surest way for the Mavs to win is for Doncic to be by far the best player on the court. But that won’t be easy with another First Team All-NBA player in Jayson Tatum. Still, when Tatum is at his best, he’s right on the brink of being in the top five in the league, but Luka can play like the best player in the world. Boston has a lot of great defenders who can attack Doncic, but he has the skills to outplay them all.
2. The Mavs are taller and more athletic than Boston has seen in the playoffs.
The Celtics had a very easy road to the NBA Finals, with arguably their biggest rival, the Bucks, sidelined due to an injury to Giannis Antetokounmpo and a season-ending injury to Joel Embiid. 76ersand half KnicksBoston’s roster was riddled with injuries by the end of the playoffs — even Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton missed half of the conference finals — so Boston’s path to the playoffs doesn’t take away from what they’ve accomplished this season, but Dallas will certainly be Boston’s toughest test yet.
The Celtics have yet to encounter a team with Dallas’ length and athleticism in these playoffs. The Mavs built a lineup full of elite runners and jumpers with long arms who could thwart Boston at the rim and block 3-pointers with hard closeouts, all around their two offensive superstars.
Washington is 6’7″, 230 pounds with a wingspan approaching 7’4″ and will likely be used against Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum for much of the series. Derrick Jones Jr. may be the best run-and-jump player in the league. He’s a pogostick defender who provides secondary rim protection and finishes off with a strong 3-point shot. Then there’s the center duo of Derek Lively II and Daniel Gafford. Rookie Lively is 7’1″ tall with a massive wingspan and is Dallas’ third-best player in this series. Gafford is also a resilient shot blocker who will ensure strong rim protection for 48 minutes. Don’t be surprised to see Maxi Kleber in action in this series as well.
Every Dallas player knows their role: Luka and Kyrie are the scoring and playmaking guys on offense, while the others are the defensemen, the lob catchers, the run the floor. The Celtics won’t be able to overpower most of Dallas’ defenders, so their job on offense will be tougher than it has been in the playoffs so far.
3. The Celtics sometimes beat themselves.
The Celtics are an objectively great team — there’s a statistical argument to be made that if they win, they’ll be one of the best teams in league history — so why does their greatness sometimes feel so unconvincing?
Boston has a tendency to stall out offensively, especially late in games when the score is close. Boston’s drive-and-kick attack ranks first in the NBA in field goal percentage from 3-pointers. The Celtics always want to win the math battle, and that’s admirable, but sometimes it feels like they just have to put their head down and go for the basket.
During the regular season, Boston was 26th in the league in ring frequency, according to Cleaning the Glass. Their 29.1 percent ring frequency dipped slightly in the playoffs. They only ranked 25th in free throw percentage.
We know the Celtics want half of their shots to be 3-pointers, which is a great strategy in a long regular season, but in a short series, a couple of poor shooting nights could mean the difference between winning and losing.
On paper, the Celtics should win this series, but it’s hard to ignore Dallas for a few reasons. They have the best player in the series, they’ve already pulled off two major upsets in these playoffs, and they have a secondary star in Kyrie Irving who can make some of the hardest shots imaginable. Dallas would need to play a near perfect series to pull this off, but it’s possible.
My guess is Boston will win this series in 6 games. My gut feeling is the Mavs will win it in 7. Either way, Dallas has the pieces in place to actually get this done.
