If the Celtics are going to win, even when shooting 25.6 percent on three-pointers, we can probably get ready for Jaylen Brown to win Finals MVP this coming Friday after Game 4, or Monday after Game 5 back in Boston.
The Mavericks responded to their blowout loss in Game 1 with a clear sense of urgency in the opening minutes of Game 2. Luka Doncic was playing off-ball to offset his chest contusion injury and was putting up buckets out of actions we rarely see for him. Doncic was working for those shots with blood and sweat, not at all like he was marauding around the court the way he did in Game 5 at Minnesota.
Boston opened the game tighter than they did in Game 1 with Kristaps Porzingis not able to supercharge them off the bench again. The Celtics really started the game late in the first quarter when Brown didn’t let Kyrie Irving past him on multiple attempts in isolation from the left wing. Jayson Tatum had a similar defensive play on Irving late in the game, staying in front and knocking the ball away for a turnover.
Brown has played with tremendous force throughout the first two games of the series, from that defensive play against Irving to him crossing up Doncic a little earlier for a dunk in transition to his tagteam block of PJ Washington with Derrick White to stop the Mavericks’ comeback pursuit. Brown has provided exactly what the Celtics need from him.
Really, they all have, particularly on defense as they continue to shut down Doncic’s lobs to the rim and his passing lanes to the corner. Boston is choreographing their defense to take away more options from Doncic than he is accustomed to. Doncic can usually be both overpowering and meticulous when he drives the lane, but that area of the floor has largely been walled off.
The Celtics are forcing the Mavericks to work excessively hard on both ends. On offense, the Mavericks need to cycle through multiple actions and randomly make challenge shots out of structure to score. On defense, the Mavericks are contending with the reality that the Celtics are operating with a preposterous amount of additional space by comparison.
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The dominant conversation entering the Finals was the Best Team vs. Best Player debate. Both categories usually have predictive value, but they also more often than not come from the same team, so there was a natural interest from the fact they clearly did not for this series. This was the most intriguing framing device in setting the stakes, particularly with Boston’s extended championship window without a championship.
For a team like the Celtics, they have answered the Best Team question even if debating who the “Best Player” on this type of team is a futile exercise. Jason Kidd directly contrived to make it a plot point upon the Celtics, but they were shrewd enough to snuff it out.
The Celtics are well on their way to a more specific kind of championship than we’re accustomed to. Boston has cultivated a 2004 Pistons balance and defense with Golden State Death Lineup scoring and spacing albeit without a single, let alone a pair of regular season MVPs.
The Celtics would have been a title favorite this season even if they would have run it back and wrote off 2023 as an extraordinarily weird playoffs, but turning Marcus Smart, Robert Williams and Malcolm Brogdon into Jrue Holiday and Porzingis did turn them into a regular season machine that is also fulfilling a ceiling for June their previous construction didn't possess.
Tatum is grappling with his struggles scoring by impacting these wins with his rebounding, passing and defense. On the surface, he has been unreliable and pressing with his shot. Tatum can play far better than he has, but his station in the NBA is well-established and unlikely to change in the near future regardless of what happens in this series.
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After two games of this series, few aspects feel unresolved. The Mavericks don’t have a new matchup or strategy to tilt things back in their favor far enough to win four out of five games.
Doncic can return to Dallas rueful on their wasted opportunities to win Game 2, especially since this was an opportunity to win the math equation, but it doesn’t change the fundamentals of the matchup and how so many of them favor the Celtics.
