THE FUN OF sports is that a matchup like these NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks can feel both inevitable and surprising.
We came within one series of getting this Finals two years ago. A Boston return was long assumed, even after it melted under a maelstrom of Miami Heat 3s in last season's Eastern Conference finals. But flash back to the spring of 2021, and everything seemed so precarious for a franchise that envisioned a near-decade run of contention around Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
Those 2020-21 Celtics finished .500 and whimpered out of the first round, overwhelmed by the East's new superteam -- the Brooklyn Nets of James Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. Many within the Celtics still whisper about that series -- the sense of helplessness, the fear the East had passed them by.
The roster around Brown and Tatum was a mess. Kemba Walker's body betrayed him. Young players were not ready. Free agent signings and trades busted. Illnesses and injuries, including Brown's season-ending wrist injury, did the rest.
In a two-year whir, Boston reconstructed everything around its two stars -- swapping Walker for Al Horford, then striking deals for Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis. The Celtics rectified mistakes and were aggressive trading assets for talent.
The Mavs went through an even more accelerated remake after their 2022 Western Conference finals run. The only holdovers are Doncic, Maxi Kleber, Josh Green and Dwight Powell. The Mavs assumed more future risk than Boston in undoing past errors -- including the seismic blunder of letting Jalen Brunson escape -- but no one is much worried about that now after watching the Mavs confound three of the West's top-four seeds.
Zoom further out and you gain even more appreciation for all the variables that could have torpedoed this matchup -- of how that history underlines the massive stakes now.
Boston had so many chances to speed up the Tatum/Brown era by trading one of them -- or the picks it ended up using to select both -- for restless superstars: Paul George, Jimmy Butler, Durant, Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis.
The Celtics used their final Nets pick to acquire Kyrie Irving in 2017, pairing him with Gordon Hayward as splashy offseason acquisitions. Internally, Boston envisioned Irving as the lure to convince Davis to push his way to Boston -- a trade that almost surely would have cost the Celtics either Tatum or Brown.
That plan teetered five minutes into Hayward's Celtics debut, when he shattered his leg. It was a basketball tragedy; Hayward was never the same. It is also a massive sliding doors moment. If Hayward stays healthy, do Brown and Tatum develop as fast? Does Irving grow unhappy leading the young Celtics? If not, does Boston actually have a chance at Davis?
Irving bolted, leaving Boston shell-shocked. Other chances to go all-in for a superstar emerged, including for Durant. Boston never struck a deal. Over and over, it ended up wagering on continuity -- on Tatum and Brown staying together and opening a long-term championship window. The Celtics have done that. Eventually, you have to leap through the window or some outside force will slam it shut.
The Mavs wandered in purgatory between their glorious 2011 title and their franchise-changing draft-day swap for Doncic in 2018. Their last pre-Doncic roster was old and incoherent -- the motley you get when you punt the draft and whiff on superstar free agents. Doncic was salvation.
As Boston recalibrated in the wake of Irving's departure, Dallas did the same with the Doncic-Porzingis fit -- ultimately trading Porzingis for Spencer Dinwiddie and Davis Bertans. A year later, it included Dinwiddie in what turned out to be a heist of Irving from Brooklyn.
Irving and Porzingis now face their former teams -- with much of the nitty-gritty strategy orbiting Porzingis and the big men on both ends.
THERE IS NO stopping a force as adaptable as Doncic. Boston could start Brown on Doncic, with Holiday on Irving; those have been head coach Joe Mazzulla's preferred matchups in recent games. Brown and Holiday are elite defenders. They can switch the Doncic-Irving two-man game -- a must against Dallas.
The real thing to watch is who Porzingis guards. His positional matchup is Daniel Gafford, and then Dereck Lively II, but Porzingis will likely be elsewhere -- on P.J. Washington Jr. or Derrick Jones Jr., with Tatum guarding Gafford.
Boston knows Doncic wants to attack Porzingis and Horford; they are the least capable among Boston's top six of defending Doncic on switches. This is the weak point in Boston's otherwise airtight defense: It cannot realistically switch everything against Doncic and Irving.
When Dallas does force a switch, Boston will sometimes play Doncic and Irving one-on-one despite the dangers: Beat us with (hopefully) jumpers. On other possessions, it will send traps -- despite what it exposes elsewhere:
Juggling the matchups this way makes it so that if Doncic hunts Boston's centers, he has to do so using Washington and Jones as screeners -- instead of Dallas' lob-catching center duo. With wings on those guys, the Celtics can switch the Doncic-Lively and Doncic-Gafford pick-and-rolls.
That's only a half answer, at best. Doncic and Irving can target Boston's centers regardless of where they are. Some of this series will come down to Jones and Washington making plays out of those situations -- Jones cutting to the rim, Washington attacking closeouts and hitting the pick-and-pop 3s Boston's preferred dropback defense concedes:
Defending the Mavs' centers with wings could also open up offensive rebounding chances for Lively and Gafford.
The idea is to complicate Doncic's path to lobs and clutter the Mavs' spacing. When Gafford and Lively aren't screening for Doncic, they're hanging near the basket. If Dallas' screeners on these plays -- Jones, Washington, Green -- roll to the rim, they're rolling right into the Mavs' centers and their defenders.
With Lively and his defender on the baseline, the Celtics can effectively defend the Doncic pick-and-roll 3-on-3 instead of 2-on-2:
Note Holiday stunting off Jones on the left wing. To the degree they can, the Celtics will try to help most off Dallas' shakiest shooters. That's easier said than done against two master manipulators.
Boston won't always be able to arrange its preferred matchups. The Mavs' centers will often guard Porzingis on defense, meaning Porzingis might be stuck defending them after Dallas stops. On those trips, the Mavs can go into their bread-and-butter pick-and-rolls against more standard defenses.
But the Celtics will work to get the matchups they want. Here is something like a best-case scenario -- even though Washington makes a contested 3:
Porzingis hangs back. Brown fights through Washington's pick. Doncic prods, but there's nothing; Tatum is on Lively, clogging the paint. Boston switches everything from there. The Mavs do not have time to attack Porzingis again.
This is the only way of containing a player like Doncic: Have five very good defenders with size and hit him with enough schemes to at least make him think. On good possessions, you'll crowd his pet spaces without leaving the wrong shooters open. The hope is chipping away at the Mavs' expected efficiency bit by bit as the possession unfolds -- a dozen small battles to inch up your odds of winning the 24-second battle. Then you have to do it again 90 or 100 more times.
There is a mental fatigue facing a singular, relentless on-ball fulcrum like Doncic. Win one possession, and you know he's coming again -- prodding soft spots, creating contact, forcing you to maintain peak alertness every second.
That possession illustrates the importance of Porzingis. He drops back against Doncic. That is Boston's default scheme. It allows help defenders to stay attached to 3-point shooters, and Boston always wants to win the math battle.
Only three teams allowed fewer corner 3s than Boston. Dallas led the league in corner 3s. They will meet somewhere in the middle, but where exactly is one of many small things that will flip this series.
Boston is happy to blanket shooters and let ball handlers try and beat them on tough midrange shots. Doncic is not most ball handlers. He will beat you that way. In a short series, he might have to do it only once or twice -- with the Mavs finding other ways to win the remaining games. It's a race to four, not a computer simulation.
Doncic is a floater god. He is the very best at slowing down against dropback defenses, feeling the defender behind him skid off-balance, and then reclining into clean jumpers. He knows the threat of those shots can bait defenses into one fatal half rotation toward him. He has every pass out of thick traffic. He is probably the world's best lob passer. He sees every angle -- every impossible sidearm slingshot to the corners. In the muck of the paint, he turns possessions that look like low-percentage propositions into 2s and 3s. He will make some shots you want him to take, and get some of what you want to take away -- even when you think you've taken it away.
Those lobs and floaters look different against Porzingis. The windows are tighter, angles trickier. The Celtics' playoff opponents have hit 71% at the rim -- a mammoth number that has a lot to do with Porzingis's calf injury. They need that number to come down.
The Celtics will have to come out of that dropback scheme at times against Doncic and Irving. When and how they do it are two of the juiciest subplots. Do they spring the blitzes early, from a position of strength and when Doncic may not expect it? Or do they wait until Doncic has hurt them -- when he might anticipate a change?
It's rote to suggest teams blitz Doncic and force everyone else to beat them. Every Dallas opponent has to mix that tactic in. But if Doncic knows it's coming, he will tear it apart. You're not going to blitz over and over and nudge Dallas into contested 3s from Jones, Green and Jaden Hardy. Doncic will snatch the good stuff: dunks and 3s for better shooters.
The effectiveness of blitzing also depends on the four players around Doncic: Are you blitzing from Lively or Gafford? Lively is a deft playmaker in space, Gafford less so. Does Dallas have more shooting on the floor?
The Mavs also like to set picks for Doncic and Irving near half court, negating blitzes and dropback schemes.
Both Mavs stars will hunt Payton Pritchard and Sam Hauser. Doncic can search out White and bully him -- or run the two-man game with Irving when White is on him.
Maxi Kleber looms as a wild card. Sliding Kleber to center puts five shooters on the floor. Kleber can pop for 3s. If Boston switches everything, using Kleber at center clears the lane for Doncic and Irving to isolate. The Mavs may prefer 48 minutes of Gafford and Lively, but Kleber at center is an ace in the hole.
Dallas has become a much faster team with Irving. Boston was the league's stingiest transition defense. That is one benefit of shooting so many 3s; most of its defenders are in prime position to retreat. Two or three breakdowns against Dallas could swing a game.
This should be a low turnover series; Boston and Dallas ranked first and fourth, respectively, in turnover rate on offense, and neither forces many on defense. Any unexpected change in that equation could tilt one game -- which could tilt the championship.
PORZINGIS IS A huge variable on the other side of the ball too. This may be the defining test of Boston's offense with Mazzulla as coach and Tatum as the centerpiece.
Boston has been at its best when it has a small opposing guard to run everything at: Tyler Herro, Darius Garland, Tyrese Haliburton. It gives the Celtics an easy entry point to every possession. Whoever that guy is guarding either screens for one of Boston's stars -- on or off the ball -- or takes a screen from one of them. Switch, and Tatum or Brown goes to work against a mismatch. Double, and you set off Boston's passing and cutting, which usually cascades into open 3s.
The Mavs don't really offer that kind of player. Irving comes closest, but he guards way above his 6-foot-2 height. He will likely spend a lot of time guarding White, always in the middle of Boston's best two-man actions. The Mavs might be content switching Irving onto Tatum and Brown -- and switching lots of other Boston pairings -- and hoping the Celtics bog down into fading isolation 2s.
In all three prior rounds, the Mavs focused on choking off the paint. They have not faced opponents with anywhere near the shooting of the fully optimized Celtics. Assuming Porzingis' return shifts Luke Kornet to the fringes, there will be no paint-bound center -- no Ivica Zubac or Rudy Gobert -- in Boston's rotation. The Mavs will have to stick closer to Horford and Porzingis than they did against Chet Holmgren. They have to adapt.
But Boston has to be better and more focused than ever before to pry open those 3s. Tatum and Brown can gain traction on Irving if they are determined and physical. Boston can confuse switches with side-to-side actions and specific counters -- slipped screens, decoy actions, rapid-fire pindown screens.
The Celtics will also poke at Doncic. He will likely guard Holiday a lot. Expect more Tatum-Holiday and Brown-Holiday two-man games, with Holiday slipping into space and making plays if the Mavs trap:
Dallas can switch instead. Doncic has the size to jostle with Tatum and Brown on switches. He does not have the speed. Tatum and Brown (and White) can blast by Doncic if they go early, right on the catch. Holding the ball -- surveying, dancing -- allows Doncic to brace himself while the help defense slots into place behind him. Go right away and Boston's ball handlers can get to the rim -- or generate kickout 3s. If Tatum or Brown gives the ball up against Doncic, their teammates can pitch it right back -- giving Boston's stars a second chance to attack Doncic before the defense can set itself.
The Mavs will sometimes unleash traps when Doncic is stuck on Tatum or Brown -- wagering they can chase the ball until the shot clock dwindles. It's a dangerous game:
Porzingis loosens Boston's spacing around all of this. He's a different shooter than Horford, with a higher, quicker release. He spots up further behind the arc.
With Porzingis, the more traditional pick-and-pop gains new power as an easy fallback for Tatum, Brown and White. Have your bigs hang back to corral Tatum, and Porzingis launches 3s. Send a third defender flying at Porzingis, and you unlock Boston's passing game.
The secret sauce of Boston's dominance with Porzingis really comes down to this: It can move its centers around on defense, but you can't. Your bigs have to chase Porzingis (and Horford). Where else can you put them against Boston's starters? White is not an option. Do you want to copy the Warriors and dare Brown to jack 3s? That didn't work. Holiday is the only semi-plausible option. A few teams have tried hiding centers on him in short stretches; it has failed.
The other alternative is switching. Lively is a good switch defender. He'll probably switch more in this series. Gafford is a little out of his depth guarding wings in open space. Downsizing with Kleber at center could be a useful changeup here too. He is ultra-switchable; the Mavs have dabbled with Kleber as Tatum's primary defender.
But those switches leave smaller players on Porzingis and Horford. Porzingis has destroyed those matchups this season, pivoting and burrowing until he is one extended arm from the basket. Again: diligence. If Porzingis settles for 15-foot jumpers over guards, he might have a game or two when those shots go cold.
At full strength, the Celtics can now play Horford and Porzingis together again -- effectively extending the minutes of their "starting six" in case their other bench players prove unreliable. Boston walloped opponents by 13 points per 100 possessions with its best double big combination on the floor.
The Mavs can win this. They have the best player, and if Irving sizzles, they could have the best two. In that scenario, they're champs. With Porzingis out or limited, I'd pick the Mavs.
But assuming Porzingis can give this a real go, Boston should have barely enough answers at both ends. It knows what it is up against -- that it will have to summon a new energy and focus, and reach a higher level than was required in the East. Everything for so many years has been leading to this moment -- this chance.
Boston in six.