Four Rounds: NBA Finals overreactions after Celtics dominate Mavericks in Game 1

1. The Mavericks need more than highlights from Kyrie Irving 

This was the most memorable shot from Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

It’s insane. Kyrie Irving races up the floor and pulls up from 13 feet with Al Horford and Derrick White in his space. Horford even hits the ball on the way up, but Irving still somehow gets this one to drop.

That was sick, but he ended up missing 13 of his 19 shots in the game. His Mavs lost by 18 points. Don’t let the highlight reel fool you, Irving was awful. 

Kyrie spent most of his 36 minutes trying to outscore the Celtics himself. Over and over, he hoisted ill-advised jumpers early in the clock, before his teammates had a chance to position themselves for a rebound.

Multiple possessions came and went without Luka Doncic touching the ball. Boston’s length bothered Irving on more than one occasion. The Mavericks’ offense is at its best when Kyrie is playing off Luka, punishing defenses that overhelp when Luka has the rock.

Kyrie might be the emotional leader of the team, but he’s not the on-court engine. If he wants to get even with his former team, he’ll need to use Luka to do it. 

The two Mavs stars combined for three assists the entire game. That’s exactly what the Celtics wanted, and they played into their hands.

In fact, the Celtics executed their entire blueprint to perfection. They turned Doncic and Irving into inefficient scorers, limiting their ability to get their teammates involved. 

The Mavericks feasted on corner 3s all season and in their series against the Thunder and Timberwolves. They went 1 for 3 on corner 3s in this game, with the only make coming from Josh Green in garbage time. That’s tied for the fewest corner 3-point attempts in a game for the Mavericks all season, per Second Spectrum tracking.

As a result, the Celtics (16 for 42 on 3s) outscored the Mavericks (7 for 27 on 3s) by 27 points from beyond the arc. That’s the math Joe Mazzulla is always talking about.

2. Jaylen Brown is now the Finals MVP favorite

With 22 points on 7-for-12 shooting, six rebounds, two assists, three steals and three blocks, Jaylen Brown was undoubtedly the most impactful player on the court Thursday night.

At times, Brown’s scoring was exactly what the Celtics needed — a break from the tic-tac-toe of the five-out machine. This was a physically imposing star imposing his physicality. 

Other times, he disrupted Luka with his full-court pressure and created swing plays out of nothing.

His backline defense erased some of the few easy looks the Mavericks could generate — crushing for an offense in need of respite.

After Game 1, Brown went from the third-best odds for Finals MVP to the second-best odds, overtaking Doncic but still behind Jayson Tatum, according to most sports books.

If the Celtics can bottle up the Mavs’ offense and get performances like this from Brown and Kristaps Porzingis, they don’t need Tatum to be great to win this series.

3. The Kristaps Porzingis trade will go down as one of the greatest ever

The Kyrie deal that Dallas swung last season has rightfully been called one of the greatest trades in NBA history. No matter what happens in this series, the Mavs are a Finals team and have opened up their championship window one year after missing the playoffs altogether. All it cost them was Dorian Finney-Smith, Spencer Dinwiddie, a 2029 first-round pick and two future second-round picks. That turned out to be a steal.

But what about the Porzingis trade?

The Celtics acquired Porzingis in a three-team deal that cost them Marcus Smart and the 35th pick in last year’s draft. 

In addition to Porzingis, who finished Game 1 of the Finals with 20 points and three blocks in 20 minutes, the Celtics also received a pair of first-round picks. They used those picks later in a deal to land Jrue Holiday from the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Celtics turned Smart — their “heart and soul” — into Porzingis and a big part of the package that landed Holiday. That will go down as one of the greatest deals of all time.

Both teams got somewhat lucky in these deals. The Irving situation in Brooklyn was one of one and the Wizards didn’t know what they had in Porzingis. But both organizations took what was considered a big risk at the time and the payouts have been as spectacular as they could have hoped for.

4. Sam Hauser is the Luka stopper

As the Celtics were pulling away in the first quarter, the Mavericks got a window to get back into the game. Boston was up 21-15 with 5:24 left in the opening frame when Sam Hauser checked in for Jrue Holiday.

Among the talking points going into the series was whether guys like Hauser and Payton Pritchard could hold up against Doncic and Irving hunting them in switches. We were about to find out.

A couple of possessions after the substitution, Doncic called Hauser into a switch and got him isolated on the perimeter. This is what happened:

Hauser moves his feet well, defends with his chest and pokes the ball away from Doncic. Maybe he got lucky. Nope. Less than a minute later, he faced Doncic in the same spot. Luka didn’t dare dance with the ball for too long and stepped back into a 3-pointer and missed. 

Obviously, Hauser isn’t a “Luka stopper” — but he doesn’t have to be. These were awesome defensive efforts by someone the Celtics know Doncic is going to target. There’s a big difference between being a solid defender and a liability. As long as Hauser isn’t the latter, the Celtics are in a good spot.

Being solid in one-on-one defense means the Celtics don’t have to double Doncic and open up things for his teammates. According to Second Spectrum tracking, the Celtics blitzed Doncic on only two pick-and-rolls in Game 1. When they did do it, it made sense.

Here’s one of those instances. It comes after a Porzingis miss. The Mavericks pushed it up the floor before Boston could match up. That left Pritchard on Dereck Lively II, who came up to set a screen for Doncic. Rather than give the switch and let Luka bully Pritchard in the paint, Derrick White stuck with Doncic and Pritchard jumped out for the trap. It seemed to catch Luka by surprise and he turned the ball over.

Doncic finished with 30 points on 12 for 26 shooting, one assist and four turnovers. He’s one of the league’s best problem solvers. He’ll see missed opportunities when he watches the film from this game and corrects them in Game 2. He can play better, and so can the Mavericks.