For one night, it all clicked for the Dallas Mavericks. The shots fell, the defence swarmed, the boards got cleaned and Luka Doncic was his magical self. For one night, the Dallas Mavericks looked like themselves.
Tonight the Mavericks can exhale. A sweep wouldn’t have done this team justice, and though the win is bittersweet, with Dallas still needing to defy the undefeated force of history to come back from down 3-0, it was a moment they could relish after finding a winning formula and learning what it takes to make things work on this stage. The Mavericks, and more importantly Doncic, figured something out, albeit perhaps a little too late.
Battlescars are important lessons. Ask Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown.
It was an impressive, relentless 122-84 victory in Game 4, the third-largest margin of victory in Finals history, as the Slovenian superstar led the way with a peerless 29-point, five-rebound, five-assist performance, re-writing the somewhat scuffed story of his first NBA Finals. Co-star Kyrie Irving followed it up with 21 of his own while dishing out six assists.
But it was defence and togetherness — two uncommon traits for the Mavericks so far in the Finals — that shone through on Friday night. They hounded the Celtics, keeping them to 35 points at the end of the first half, the fewest in any half under head coach Joe Mazzulla, and found a way to hold onto the lead for the first time this series.
Tatum channelled Kobe Bryant’s famous “Job not finished” quote after the Celtics’ Game 3 win. He was right. Now, Doncic and the Mavs have every right to channel the ’04 Red Sox’s infamous “Don’t let us win today.”
Here are some other takeaways from Friday’s sweep-preventing win for the Mavericks.
Luka listened, learned
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst went viral after Game 3 on Wednesday, delivering a spirited rant pointed at Doncic. The internet even gave the bit a “Meet the Grahams” treatment, turning the electric segment into a diss track with the brutal, nightmarish Kendrick Lamar beat to match.
“Over there is the Celtics tunnel. That’s where the winners are,” Windhorst said.
Not tonight.
Defence, attitude, fouling and bad body language were all in the crosshairs after Wednesday night’s brutal showing, but Doncic packed some Kevlar for Game 4.
Doncic will never be a plus defender, that’s been made abundantly clear, but on Friday he wasn’t a traffic cone and hunting him didn’t prove as automatic. As far as defence from him goes, the Mavericks will certainly take a performance like that, especially when he’s able to work as well as he did on the other end.
In the first quarter, he stayed in front of Tatum and Brown well when he got switched onto them and managed to pick Jrue Holiday’s pocket, causing the safe and dependable guard to turn it over for the first time in these Finals.
After fouling out for the first time in his playoff career in Game 3 in ways Karl-Anthony Towns could only dream about, Doncic kept it tidy with the officials on Friday, making sure not to draw the ire of the always short-fused Scott Foster.
It wasn’t Doncic’s best game of the Finals, and his efficiency certainly left something to be desired after going 12-for-26 from the field and 0-for-8 from long range, but it was his most balanced. A lesson learned for one of the league’s brightest stars.
Celtics’ shooting variance proves to be their undoing
Live by the three, die by the three.
Since the Stephen Curry revolution of 2015, teams have adopted that mentality to varying degrees of effectiveness. But no team has found the degree of success the Celtics have had this season.
Sure, they didn’t go 73-9 like the 2015-16 Warriors and they didn’t hit the most threes in a season like the 2022-23 Warriors, but their 1,351 threes are the second-most all-time and their 64-18 regular season record and now 15-3 playoff record are certainly nothing to scoff at.
Tonight wasn’t their night. They struggled to a brutal 29-for-80 (36 per cent) from the field and 14-for-41 (34 per cent) from long range. Those numbers aren’t nearly as bad as what the on-court product looked like, with much of their efficiency actually being cured by the bench unit in garbage time.
In reality, the game was over by half-time, and at that point, the Celtics had shot 11-for-37 from the field (30 per cent) and 5-for-19 from deep (26 per cent).
The Mavericks’ defence was stellar, bothering every shot possible with Josh Green particularly scrappy on that end. But sometimes the Celtics’ rhythm is just off.
Sam Hauser, their first guy off the bench, was the only player to hit more than two 3-pointers, going 4-for-6 from range. If Hauser is carrying the load, your team is likely getting housed. Tatum, meanwhile, scored a paltry 15 points on 4-for-10 from the field and 1-for-4 from deep and Brown followed it up with 10 points on 3-for-12 from the field and 1-for-5 from deep.
But it was bound to happen eventually. There would always be nights that the Celtics can’t find their form. It happened in Game 2 and they managed to pull out the win anyway. The Mavericks weren’t going to let them get away with that again.
Lively establishes himself as a core piece
Dereck Lively II has established himself as a key piece for Dallas moving forward and made that abundantly clear in Game 4, finishing with 11 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, including seven offensive rebounds. It was his fourth double-double of the playoffs and he matched a career-high in offensive boards.
His contributions on the glass helped the Mavericks to a 16-2 win in second-chance points, a brutal 60-26 win in points in the paint and a 54-40 win in bench points.
But that’s just a taste of who he’s been for the Mavericks this season. The 20-year-old has been as steady as they come, earning an All-Rookie First Team spot in the process. He led all rookies in field goal percentage (74.7) and was third in both rebounds (6.9) and blocks (1.4), behind only phenoms Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren.
On Friday though, he showed something completely different. Call it an anomaly, an aberration, a pig taking flight, whatever, but Lively II became Lively III, hitting his first-ever NBA 3-pointer after only attempting two deep shots in the regular season and none in the playoffs.
It takes a special something to take a 3-pointer there knowing that it’s not nearly part of your game. It takes a miracle to actually hit it. With it, he became the youngest player to hit a 3-pointer in the Finals.
But that’s what the Finals can bring out in some players. Skills that were never there suddenly appear, players previously unknown become household names, and youngsters are forced to grow up on the fly. Lively took that step on Friday.
Porzingis available, unused, and much needed
Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis taking the floor always felt like a stretch, especially after it was reported he was dealing with an ailment that if you read aloud three times summons the ghost of Greg Oden’s knee. He tore his medial retinaculum and dislocated his posterior tibialis tendon in his left leg, which typically takes multiple weeks to recover from.
However, Porzingis was made available ahead of Game 4 with head coach Joe Mazzulla saying that he would be used in “very specific situations.” Apparently being down 26 at half-time didn’t fall under that umbrella.
He would’ve been a welcome addition on Friday though, as the Mavericks carved up the Celtics’ interior defence possession after possession, lighting Boston up for 22 points in the paint in the first quarter and never looking back. Sixteen of Dallas’ first 19 points came in the paint, with the only one outside the area being that unlikely Lively 3-pointer.
The usually dependable Al Horford just couldn’t get it going, finishing with three points and three rebounds in 23 minutes as the Mavericks hunted him on defence early on. First off the bench at the five was Xavier Tillman who didn’t provide much of a difference either, finishing with three points and one board in seven minutes.
Porzingis’ ability to alter shots and allow the four other Celtics starters to roam and switch freely has been key for their stellar defence. Not to mention his floor-spacing ability and post-up game on the other end.
If he remains out for Game 5, the Celtics will be forced to make adjustments really for the first time this series and for the first time these playoffs. They got punched in the mouth on Friday, the same old won’t work anymore. Horford agrees.
