Boston, MA – Just like last Friday night, tonight (Monday June 17th) could be the last game of the NBA Season.
The Dallas Mavericks have their backs up against the wall and they will need to replicate their performance in game 4 if they want this series to continue and head back to Dallas.
It won’t be though. Game 4 was on their home floor and they were comfortable with the crowd behind them. Tonight is a completely different animal. They’re in Boston with their first chance at winning a championship on their home floor since their 2008 championship win against the Lakers. Coincidentally, 16 years ago today, the Celtics won that title.
This could be kismet.
The Celtics will need to come into this game with a lot of energy and feed off of the crowd though. It needs to be a complete 180 from how they started game 4. They need to hit first and not give the Mavs any hope.
That’s exactly what they did. Celtics really fed off of the crowd to get themselves going early on. It was contagious. Although they didn’t have the best field goal percentage to start, they were getting great looks with their player movement but just couldn’t get them to fall. The process was good and it felt like they would start to fall at any moment. And that they did.
Once the Celtics really locked in on the defensive end, the shots started to fall and the crowd was loving it.
The Mavs on the other hand couldn’t really get anything to fall. They got decent looks but the Celtics weren’t switching as much or as easily as games 3 and 4 and it was a little bit of a struggle for the Mavs to generate really good looks. Also, they let the Celtics get very comfortable and get whatever they wanted offensively. That led to the Celtics jumping out to a double digit lead early on.
At times though, the Mavs looked like they were settled in during the second quarter but the Celtics never let up in the first half and took a 21 point lead into the locker room led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown while the Mavs two stars, Kyrie and Luka struggled. Those two were a combined 6-18 for 14 of the Mavs 46 first half points. The others did their job and showed up for the Mavs. If they were going to make any kind of comeback, they needed their stars though.
It didn’t happen.
The Mavs defense was better in the third quarter holding the Celtics to 19 points on 7-24 (29.2%) from the field and 2-10 (20%) from three. It didn’t really matter though because the Mavs just couldn’t take advantage of their good defense in the frame. Shooting 8-21 (38.1%) from the floor and only our scoring the Celtics by two in the quarter, the Mavs didn’t gain any ground and their hopes of extending this series was starting to fade away.
There wasn’t much they could do in the fourth with the lead too big and the Celtics being able to taste the championship. Boston just had to remain solid and they would win their 18th championship in franchise history. And that’s exactly what they did. Coasted on their way to a 106-88 victory to win the 2023-24 NBA Championship.
It was truly a remarkable run and they were easily the best team in the league. Jaylen Brown picks up the Finals MVP and said he would be sharing it with teammate Jayson Tatum.
That’ll do it for the 2023-24 NBA season!
