2024 NBA Finals preview: Can the Celtics slow down Luka Doncic?

The NBA Finals have finally arrived! And while most of us assumed all season that the Boston Celtics would be here, I’m not sure anyone — other than Mark Cuban — thought they’d be facing off against the Dallas Mavericks. And yet this matchup just feels right, doesn’t it? Or at least interesting. In part, I think, because of the diverging paths these two teams took to arrive at this point.

For the Celtics, who’ve reached the conference finals in six of the past eight seasons and are making their second trip to the finals in three years, a win here would solidify their place in history. Riding the back of a loaded and balanced starting five, they won 64 regular season games and finished No. 1 in offense and No. 2 in defense. They outscored opponents by 11.7 points per 100 possessions, the fifth-best scoring margin of all time. Perhaps even more impressive: The difference between the Celtics’ point differential and that of the No. 2 ranked Denver Nuggets was nearly equal to the difference between the Nuggets and the No. 20 ranked Chicago Bulls. Read that stat again and let it wash over you.

The Celtics have continued that dominance in the playoffs. Sure, they’ve caught some breaks. Jimmy Butler, Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen and Tyrese Haliburton each missed parts of their teams’ respective showdowns with Boston. But all that was out of the Celtics’ control. The Celtics controlled what they could and barely broke a sweat while rolling through the eastern conference. Not only did they go 12-2, but they also outscored their opponents by 10.9 points per 100 possessions, by far the best mark of the postseason.

The Mavericks’ path has been bumpier. Remember, this is a team that, despite trading for Kyrie Irving in the middle of last season, won just 38 games and missed the playoffs. And they were off to a shaky start this season, too. On Feb. 4, they were 26-23. 

Then, before the trade deadline, they acquired P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford. They eventually inserted the two of them, plus forward Derrick Jones Jr., into the starting lineup alongside Irving and Luka Doncic and everything changed. The Mavericks went 16-2 in games where that group started. That lineup outscored opponents by 15.5 points per 100 possessions and, most notably, held them to just 99.7. Suddenly, the Mavericks had surrounded their two electric scorers with a dominant defense. And unlike the Celtics, who were able to coast into the finals, the Mavericks had to knock off three of the West’s top four seeds.

All of which sets up what should be a historic NBA finals, one with a chance to be legacy-defining. Either we’ll see the Celtics finally reach the top of the mountain they’ve been scaling for the past seven years and be remembered for putting together one of the best seasons in NBA history, or we’ll witness the crowning of Luka Doncic. With that in mind, here are the three questions that will define this matchup.

Can the Celtics’ dominant defense contain Luka?

This is basically the basketball version of the unstoppable-force-meets-an-immovable-object paradox. 

There’s no defense for Doncic. His combination of size and craft and vision and smarts and, of course, skills makes him unstoppable. He bullies smaller defenders and roasts slower ones. No one is better at catching a defense leaning the wrong way or leveraging a double team into an easy basket for a teammate. That could be a perfectly-placed lob to Derek Lively. It could be a swing pass to Irving. It could be a laser to the corner for Washington or Jones Jr.

There’s a reason the Mavs lead the playoffs in corner 3s launched per game. There’s a reason the Mavs have pummeled opponents on the offensive glass. Guarding Doncic means tilting every defender his way, with all ten eyes fixed on him — which leaves the rest of the floor vulnerable. 

Doncic is coming off a series in which he averaged 32.4 points and 8.2 assists per game while drilling 43.4 percent of his triples — and that was against the regular season’s top-ranked defense. More than the numbers, though, was the way he toyed with that Wolves squad.

Yet the Celtics’ defense isn’t like other defenses. It might not have been better than Minnesota’s during the regular season, but it’s certainly more equipped to handle Doncic. In Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, the Celtics have two big wings with All-Defense caliber skills. Jrue Holiday is just 6-foot-4, but he’s a bull…

 … and someone regularly cited by his peers as the best perimeter defender in the league. And while Derrick White might be a bit sleight to bang with Doncic, if a player who was named All-Defensive Second Team is your fourth option, well, you’re in a good spot. The presence of four lockdown perimeter defenders leads to less scrambling. As a result, the Celtics are constructed to limit many of the looks on which the Mavericks have thrived. No team in the playoffs has been better at limiting corner 3s. No team has allowed fewer second-chance points. No team has a better opponent free-throw rate. 

 All that defensive depth also means the Celtics can concentrate on Doncic while also slotting an elite defender onto Irving. 

How will the Celtics guard Doncic? We know they won’t throw just one look at him. Head coach Joe Mazzulla is too smart for that, and Doncic is too good. Boston will rotate between switches and hedges and blitzes and double-teams.

“As you sort of think about the Luka coverage, it could change game-to-game, it could change within a game,” ESPN analyst JJ Redick said on a recent conference call with reporters. Doncic will also do everything he can to find the matchup that he wants. And he’ll often succeed. The question is whether the Celtics can make his life just difficult enough. 

Is Kristaps Porzingis ready to go?

Porzingis has been sidelined since the end of the first round with a calf strain. He’s expected to suit up for Game 1, but he’ll have gone six weeks without playing and his answer on Tuesday when asked by a reporter if he’s running pain free wasn’t exactly assuring. 

This is a big deal for Boston, for many reasons. Let’s start on the defensive end. Porzingis was one of the league’s top rim protectors this season; opponents finished just 52 percent of their shots at the hoop when Porzingis was the closest defender, a top-five mark. Putting that sort of shot-blocking force behind White, Holiday, Tatum and Brown feels like a cheat chode.

Porzingis’ presence also adds some interesting cat-and-mouse dynamics to this matchup. Slotting Porzingis onto one of the Mavericks’ centers, be it Gafford or Lively, could lead to trouble. Doncic will no doubt attack Porzingis in the pick-and-roll, pulling him away from the rim. Don’t be surprised, then, if we see Porzingis guarding Jones Jr. and camping out in the paint on the weakside. This would take away those lobs that Doncic loves lofting to his rolling center.  

It should be noted that Jones. Jr. has been lights out from deep in the playoffs, burying 39.6 percent of his 3.1 attempts. But he’s also a career 31.6 percent 3-point shooter. That’s some math that Mazzulla is likely okay living with.  

Meanwhile, it’s the other end of the floor where, if healthy, Porzingis’ impact is felt most. His presence changes everything for the Celtics’ offense. It transforms it from a one-dimensional unit into one capable of crushing opponents in multiple ways.  

The Celtics want to take 3s. They want to take lots of 3s. Nearly half their shots (47.4 percent) have come from deep during this playoff run, a ridiculous mark. But when those 3s are the result of side-to-side movement and one-on-one play, as opposed to drive and kicks, they fall into trouble.  

Porzingis is the player who opens up that drive-and-kick game. His presence as a shooting big pulls the opposing center away from the hoop and creates all sorts of runways to the rim. It’s no coincidence that, with Porzingis on the floor, 36.4 percent of the Celtics’ shots during the regular season came at the hoop, an elite mark. With him sitting, that number plummeted to 31.7, according to Cleaning the Glass, a bottom-seven rate.

That Mavs have two of the best rim protectors in the league only makes Porzingis more important. Opponents have shot just 45.2 percent at the rim against Daniel Gafford in the playoffs, and just 49.3 percent against Lively. They’ve basically both become Dikembe Mutombo. Forcing them out away from the rim would undercut one of the Mavericks’ greatest strengths.

“If you look at the OKC series, I think that was probably Dallas’s toughest matchup throughout these playoffs,” Redick said, “and it was because Chet Holmgren and the spacing that Oklahoma City has.

But none of this will matter if Porzingis is hopping around the corner on one leg. If he’s not 100 percent, the Mavericks—and specifically Doncic and Irving—will make the Celtics pay. If he is good to go, the Mavs could be the ones scrambling.

Who wins clutch time?

On the one hand, there’s plenty of statistical data indicating that both these teams are great late in close games. During the regular season, the Celtics were fourth in net rating (plus-15.4) and winning percentage (21-12) in games within five points with less than five minutes remaining (“clutch” time). The Mavericks, meanwhile, ranked third in clutch net rating (plus-20.5) and second in clutch winning percentage (23-9). And Boston has decimated opponents in its four clutch games this postseason, outscoring opponents by 18 points in 19 minutes. 

And yet, if you’ve watched enough of these Celtics over the past half decade, you can likely visualize dozens of late-game possessions ending with Tatum, the Celtics’ best player, clanking a step-back jumper off the rim. 

Over the last three seasons, Tatum has an effective field goal percentage — which takes into account three-pointers — under 40 percent in clutch time (according to research conducted by Tom Haberstroh). He’s also struggled this postseason with his pull-up game—just 20-for-60 (33.3%) on pull-up 2-pointers—which doesn’t bode well for clutch situations.

The Celtics are constructed, in part, to overcome the late game struggles of a single player. Tatum is great, but he’s not Luka or LeBron or Steph. The Celtics’ strength is that they have multiple guys who can be relied on at the end of the games. And they’d have particular success putting the ball in White’s hands and letting him run a pick-and-roll with Tatum.

But sometimes, especially at this level, you need your stars to just make a play. The Celtics’ best player has often struggled in this department. The Mavericks, meanwhile, might have the league’s top clutch player in Doncic. Irving as a second option feels unfair.

If these games are close late in the fourth quarter, the pressure will be on the Celtics’ starting five to keep up with the Mavericks’ Hall of Fame backcourt. If they do, chances are they’ll soon be hanging banner No. 18. 

Yaron Weitzman is an NBA writer for FOX Sports and the author of Tanking to the Top: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports. Follow him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.

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