The Mavericks upset three formidable Western Conference opponents to reach the NBA Finals. They boast one of the best players in basketball. Many prominent pundits picked them to win it all.
Why, then, are they now down 2-0 to the Boston Celtics? Simple, according to forward P.J. Washington.
“They’re just better,” Washington said after Sunday’s 105-98 Celtics win at TD Garden. “At the end of the day, they are better than all the teams we’ve played. It’s the Finals, and we’ve just got to be better.”
What makes the Celtics — who have won nine straight and are 14-2 in these playoffs — so much better?
“Everything,” Washington lamented. “Their record says that they have been the best team all year. They have two superstars, they have a lot of great role players and they play team ball. So we’ve just got to be better.”
The Celtics caught flak for the path they took to the Finals — three series against middling Eastern Conference foes that all were missing their best player for multiple games — but they’ve proven their championship bona fides against the talented Mavs.
Dallas superstar Luka Doncic leads all Finals participants in scoring through two games, but the next five players on that list are Celtics. Jaylen Brown, Jrue Holiday, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White and Kristaps Porzingis all have scored between 32 and 43 points in this series, trailing only Doncic’s 62.
Holiday — a perennial All-Defense selection known mostly for his skills on that end of the floor — powered the Celtics’ offense in Game 2 with 26 points on 10-of-12 shooting. The two superstars Washington mentioned, Tatum and Brown, mostly made their mark as facilitators, dishing out nearly as many assists (19) as Dallas’ entire team (21). White scored eight of his 18 points in the fourth quarter, and he made two of the game’s most important defensive plays with a late steal and a chase-down block in the final minute.
Doncic finished with a 32-point triple-double for Dallas, but he turned the ball over eight times and missed half of his eight free throws. His supporting cast has been sorely lacking in this series. The non-Luka Mavs went a combined 2-for-17 from 3-point range on Sunday.
Only five teams have won the NBA Finals after losing the first two games. The Celtics will look to push Dallas to the brink Wednesday night in Game 3.
