NBA Finals Game 2 updates (2024)

BOSTON — As nobody has come up with a Top 100 Greatest Timeouts in Sports History, would it be OK if we submitted Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, Game 1, 2024 NBA Finals, for consideration?

You be the judge. For while the Celtics’ 107-89 victory over the Dallas Mavericks Thursday night at TD Garden doesn’t hint at much in the way of drama and late-night intrigue, Boston was leading by just 8 points with 4:27 remaining in the third quarter. Which is when Mazzulla called for the timeout. For context, it should be noted that Boston led by as many as 29 points in the first half, what with the fully armed and operational battle station known as Kristaps Porziņģis coming off the bench and scoring 11 points in the first quarter alone.

Imagine: Up by 29, and then up by 8.

But then came a 14-0 Celtics run that effectively ended the Mavericks’ hopes for a never-to-be-forgotten NBA Finals victory. For those looking for even more context, let’s not forget that one of the biggest criticisms leveled at Mazzulla last year, when Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens plucked him from a pack of obscure lieutenants and handed him the coaching keys, was the how and the why of Mazzulla’s timeouts. He was criticized for calling them too soon, too late, too often, and, to be honest, it was one of the reasons Mazzulla’s critics wanted him one and done.

So, yes, if the guy calls a timeout after a 29-point lead has been frittered away to an 8-point lead, and if the result of that is an exciting 14-0 run, that’s big news. Especially if the 14-0 run is stitched together by one of those beloved-by-coaches Total Team Efforts, this one including a dunk by Porziņģis and 3-pointers by Al Horford, Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Add three free throws by Brown, and, presto, you’ve got your 14-0 run and a timeout screaming for a documentary, even if the coach who called it didn’t do much screaming at all.

What did Mazzulla say?

“I don’t know,” Porziņģis said, “but Joe always gives us the right message. He can be emotionless if that’s what we need. He can come in completely even keel and give us the right message and what to focus on. And then he’ll give us some motivation if that’s what we need, some energy. I think he was just even keel and giving us some answers to what we needed to do out there. And that was it. We trust him with his leadership.”

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BOSTON — New Englanders booed Kyrie Irving on Thursday night. They jeered when he missed shots. They told him, in unison, he is a verb worse than “stinks.”

Irving’s reply, following his first NBA Finals game against his former team, at TD Garden, the building he called home for two injury-plagued, tumultuous seasons?

“I thought it was going to be a little louder in here.”

Safe bet Celtics fans meet Irving’s expectations in Game 2 on Sunday.

Irving struggled in the Mavericks’ 107-89 loss to Boston, scoring just 12 points on 6-of-19 shooting with two assists. His participation in this particular finals is a major sidebar, given not only his rocky tenure in Boston, his abrupt departure as a free agent after he had pledged to stay with the Celtics and the acrimony that followed him when he went to Brooklyn.

A harsh reaction from Boston’s typically rough (on opponents) crowd was expected and delivered, though it was easier to heckle Irving with the Mavericks trailing by double digits for most of the game.

Irving said he is “expecting the same things going into Game 2 — crowd trying to get me out of my element, my teammates out of my element.

“But again, the energy has to be focused towards the game,” Irving said. “I felt like I had a lot of great looks. They hit (the) back rim or were just a little left or right. Just got to stay confident and stay poised throughout this, man. This is the best time of the year to be playing. There’s only two teams left. Let’s put it in perspective.

“The environment is going to be what it is but my focus is on our game plan and making sure my guys feel confident and I feel confident and continue to shoot great shots,” Irving continued.

Spread: Celtics -6.5

Moneyline: Celtics -275, Mavericks +220

Total: 214.5

Series odds: Celtics -450, Mavericks +340

All odds via BetMGM.

BOSTON — With 8 minutes left on the pregame clock Thursday night, the TD Garden Jumbotron flashed a live video of Kristaps Porziņģis heading down a back hallway toward the court.

Porziņģis’ teammates were already on the floor, warming up for Game 1 of the NBA Finals. In all likelihood, Porziņģis had stayed back in the locker room area to undergo some last-minute treatment on the injured left calf that sidelined him for longer than five weeks. If he had instead been looking to maximize the drama surrounding his return to the Boston lineup, he could not have timed his walk through the Celtics tunnel any better.

The camera focused on Porziņģis as he shook the hand of a staff member in the hallway and proceeded to walk past the Celtics bench for his first appearance since April 29. Seeing the 7-foot-2 center on the screen, the crowd, already eager for Boston to open the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks, ramped up the noise by several decibel levels. As impressive as the Celtics were earlier in the playoffs, the piece to complete them was ambling his way toward the parquet floor.

“It is a relief to have him back,” Jayson Tatum said, “because we know we’re a much better team when he’s back.”

How would Porziņģis look physically? In a series against his former team, would he be prepared for every challenge of his first career appearance beyond the first round of the playoffs? For Jaylen Brown, any remaining questions dissolved during the first half of Boston’s 107-89 Game 1 win. Porziņģis, who finished with 20 points on 8-of-13 shooting over 21 minutes, wasn’t just healthy enough to play. Parachuting into the finals after a 38-day layoff, he was ready to unlock pure basketball gold.

“He was just making play after play,” Brown said. “And it was just like, all right, he’s back. There was no question about it then.”

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From the 6:29 mark of the second quarter until 4:58 remained in the fourth quarter (which was when Dallas took out its starters), the Mavericks were only outscored by three points.

It takes clever math manipulation like that to take anything positive from Dallas’ decisive 107-89 Game 1 defeat. The Boston Celtics clearly had far superior ideas and players — and then better execution atop that — in the first game played of the 2024 NBA Finals.

That's the main takeaway, of course. There's no sugarcoating what happened.

But if there’s any reason that 6:29-minute mark might matter, it's when Dallas substituted Maxi Kleber in at center. It was the team's choice to embrace pragmatism and excise any cute lineup decisions. It was when the team went to strategies that were built around the Celtics' strengths, not those that got Dallas here. Just to name an obvious one: it was about then that Dallas began switching virtually every screen at any cost.

These are the adjustments that the Mavericks will be studying between Games 1 and 2, and this is the stat that will likely give them optimism that they can figure out what's needed in this series that they didn't offer in Game 1.

Because Dallas has experience with this — it went down 0-1 in both the first and second rounds of this very postseason run — it's likely we'll see a much more competitive Dallas in Game 2. Whether that's enough to change the direction of this series, though, is harder to answer.

BOSTON — Dallas Mavericks star Luka Dončić is “questionable” to play Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday against the Boston Celtics because of a chest bruise, the team announced.

Dončić, who scored 30 points with 10 rebounds in Dallas’ 107-89 loss in Game 1, was downgraded from “probable” when the Mavs added a thoracic contusion, or chest wall bruise, to his list of injuries. He had previously been dealing with a right knee sprain and left ankle soreness.

He was seen grabbing at his torso during practice Saturday.

Dončić is the only player on either team appearing on the injury report. Game 2 is at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday at TD Garden.

Boston's sheer statistical dominance in Game 1 was impressive:

• Luka Dončić had one assist in this game – that’s it. The last time he had just one assist in a game (in which he didn’t get hurt) was May 7, 2021, in a blowout win over Cleveland. He played 23 minutes in that appearance.
• The Celtics had nine blocks. Dallas had nine assists as a team. The last time a Celtics opponent had single-digit dimes? Back in February 2010! When did that last happen in Boston, you ask? November 1995!
• Boston had seven different players make at least two 3-pointers. That set a single-game NBA Finals record.
• Dallas was outscored by 27 points from 3. That’s the second-largest such differential in a finals game in the last five years.
• The Mavericks had a 3-point rate (percentage of total field goals from deep) of 32.1 percent. It was their lowest single-game figure of the season (previously 32.6).

Facing a healthy contender for the first time this postseason, the Celtics built a massive lead against the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the finals. But Luka Dončić and the Mavs were picking it apart over the third quarter.

The Celtics’ 29-point lead was down to just eight points when Dončić buried a 3-pointer and Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla called timeout with 4 minutes, 27 seconds remaining in the third quarter. This was a moment when the Celtics of old could have tensed up and let the lead slip. Jayson Tatum said he felt excited nervousness before the game, like a kid on the first day of school.

Then just as the nerves could be setting in, Jaylen Brown stepped up and helped the Celtics claim Game 1 over the Mavericks 107-89. He has demonstrated throughout the season that he can drive the team’s confidence in difficult moments. Not much on the court seems to faze him these days, which has helped him become the team’s vocal leader when things start to go awry.

When the players returned to the bench, Brown turned to his teammates and said something nobody had mentioned about the Celtics: They are the experienced team and they know how to take control.

“We just said, just breathe. The game is starting now. Just breathe,” Brown said. “This is a moment where our experience shines through. Just breathe, just keep playing basketball.”

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BOSTON — For most of the NBA’s regular season, there was little doubt as to who was the best, deepest team. The same could be said for much of Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Jaylen Brown led the Boston Celtics with 22 points, Kristaps Porziņģis made his triumphant return from a calf injury with 20 points and the league’s No. 1 overall seed easily dispatched the Dallas Mavericks 107-89 on Thursday night.

“He’s been a big, big reason why we’ve been the best team in basketball,” Brown said of Porziņģis, one of two huge additions the Celtics made in the offseason after losing in Game 7 of the 2023 Eastern Conference finals.

The Celtics, seeking a league-record 18th championship, have won eight consecutive playoff games, dating to Game 3 of their second-round series against the Cavaliers.

Boston, which won 64 regular-season games, seven more than the next closest team and 14 better than the Mavericks, led Dallas by as many as 29 points in the first half and closed the third quarter on a 14-2 run to remove most doubt as to the outcome of Game 1.

“I liked the way we handled their run,” said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, whose timeout with 4 minutes, 27 seconds left in the third quarter helped stop the Mavs from building momentum. “(Runs) are gonna happen, you’re not gonna stop that. You just have to have the poise and toughness to work through it.”

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Any doubts about the Boston Celtics’ dominance — and the health of one Kristaps Porziņģis — were quickly quashed on Thursday night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Buoyed perhaps by the thrill of making his finals debut against a team that “essentially gave up on him,” Porziņģis hit Game 1 with a ferocity many were hesitant to expect after he missed 10 games of this postseason.

After receiving a 107-89 drubbing from a full-strength Celtics squad, the Mavericks are looking up a steep hill to respond in this series. But therein lies the potential plot twist — the Mavericks have been here before. They went down in Game 1 against the LA Clippers 109-97 and in Game 1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder 117-95. They came back to win both Game 2s and both series 4-2.

Here's what to know:

How to watch

Time: 8 p.m. ET

Channel: ABC

Pregame reading

• Mavericks coach Jason Kidd calls Jaylen Brown, not Jayson Tatum, the Celtics’ ‘best player’
• If Mavericks’ stars can’t beat Celtics 1-on-1, this series is over
• How Luka Dončić, Kyrie Irving became ‘connected for the rest of their lives’

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