If Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd wants to make a desperate effort to rile up his opposition as both teams head to Dallas for Game 3 with his team down 2-0 in the NBA Finals, he might want to call Jrue Holiday the Celtics’ best player.
Holiday was everywhere Sunday night in the Celtics’ 105-98 win over the Mavericks. The Celtics will travel to Dallas with a 2-0 lead over the Mavericks; after winning Game 1 on Thursday, Kidd called Jaylen Brown, not three-time first-team All-NBA forward Jayson Tatum, the Celtics’ top player.
Holiday called himself a “utility guy” after Sunday’s win.
“I don’t think I’m shredding the defense,” Holiday said with humility after his performance. “I think it’s moreso JT and JB. Especially tonight, JT was getting to the paint and being double-teamed and making the right plays out of it. Just finding me either being the dunker or being in the corner. He has that vision as a play-maker. I would give that to them. …
“I do whatever. I’m here to win. They brought me here to win, and doing my best to do that,” Holiday said. At the end of the day, this is their team. I know it’s probably just as much my team as theirs, but the pressure that they have on themselves to execute and to be great is a little bit different than my pressure. … How they always handle themselves has always been so honorable. It’s slightly different. They’re superstars, and I’m here to support them.”
The Celtics didn’t take the bait from Kidd and played complementary basketball on Sunday night. Holiday led the team with 26 points and 11 rebounds while shooting 11-of-14 and adding three assists and a steal. He was 2-of-4 from three and hit 2-of-2 free throws as he did most of his damage from the paint in the dunker spot. He has yet to turn the ball over in the finals.
“It’s connected, and that’s what people don’t realize. Every guy on our team can’t be at their best if this guy doesn’t do that. So, Jayson’s facilitating, Jaylen’s decision-making, that leads to Jrue’s playmaking in the way that they’re defending us,” head coach Joe Mazzulla said after the win. “We have to make multiple plays, we have to have multiple drives. I think Jrue did a great job, guys did a great job finding them. He did a great job attacking closeouts and then either kicking it back out for a second drive or getting an open shot. What he can do defensively, it all goes back to everybody on the team works to impact a game differently every single night.”
Holiday and fellow guard Derrick White effectively put the game away late in the fourth quarter on back-to-back threes. White jumped an errant pass from Mavericks star Luka Doncic for a steal before center Al Horford assisted on a 26-foot make by Holiday. On the Celtics’ next possession, Holiday hauled in an offensive rebound after a missed dunk from Tatum and assisted White on his own 26-footer.
Tatum and Brown combined for just 39 points, but Tatum, who scored 18 on 6-of-22 shooting, facilitated the offense with 12 assists. Brown scored 17 points with seven assists and four rebounds.
White also shined with 18 points, three steals, two blocks, five rebounds and two assists.
Holiday, the only player on the Celtics’ roster with an NBA Championship, which he won in 2021 with the Bucks, came over from Milwaukee in a trade last offseason for Robert Williams III, Malcolm Brogdon and two future first-round picks. In April, Holiday, 33, signed a four-year, $135 million contract extension with the Celtics with $100 million guaranteed.
“That experience, that championship DNA that you hear about all the time, you don’t really know what it takes until you do what it takes,” White said Sunday night. “Just the moment he came to our team in training camp he had that presence about him. He just knows how to win.”
Holiday averaged 12.5 points, 5.4 rebounds and 4.8 assists in 69 games this season while shooting 48.0% from the field and 42.9% from three. The 6-foot-4 guard picked up NBA All-Defensive Second Team honors for his performance.
