Four score and roughly 14 hours ago, these Boston Celtics brought forth onto the Dallas Mavericks a crushing defeat, conceived in awesomeness and dedicated to the proposition that Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are the nucleus that will bring the Celtics to the promised land.
After winning 64 games in the regular season, the Celtics knew that they needed a clean 80 wins to reach their goal of NBA immortality. And after two months and two basically insignificant potholes, they are at 79.
This feels like an event worthy of some sort of historical speech, so I kicked things off with a lightly doctored version of the Gettysburg Address to mark this moment. Those of you who remember 11th grade US History will know the Abraham Lincoln wasn’t giving a celebratory speech back in 1863, but it wasn’t exactly sad either.
It was reflective, incisive, but more than anything understanding of the gravity of what was happening and what had happened so far. It was a statement that this nation—should they manage to reconcile their destructive difference—would not fail, but continue to exist forever. I’m not saying the Celtics being up 3-0 in the Finals is on the level of historical importance as the American Civil War… but like, maybe.
The Celtics sure haven’t wasted anyone’s time getting within one win of the championship, so I won’t waste anyone’s either. Because these Celtics—of the Jays, by the Brad, for the fans—shall not perish from the earth.
1. Fate is overrated (feat. Jaylen Brown)
Every time the Celtics go up by 20 or more in the fourth quarter, the other team is going to bring it back to single digits. They just are. Fate wills it so.
It’s like an evil demon-parasite-illness attached to the Celtics’ right arm, like the one that Prince Ash*taka was burdened by at the beginning of Princess Mononoke. It flairs up and spreads to his shoulder, and so he goes and consults the village elders to find out what to do.
Like the Celtics’ proclivity for lead blowing, the old village chief says that the ailment is not of this world, and will kill him eventually. Fate has put a curse on him and decided that this illness will be the end of him, one day flaring up and consuming him one and all.
But the chief doesn’t stop there. She says that he can journey to the west, and seek out the Deer God to heal him, all the while dropping one of the hottest bars in the history of cinema:
“You cannot change your fate, but you may rise to meet it”
The Celtics have journeyed to the west…ern conference and finally risen to meet the one weakness that every fan knew was most likely to kill this team. They stared the festering nightmare of blowing a 21 point lead directly in the face and said, with enough moxie to start a fringe religious movement: not today.
Specifically, Jaylen Brown did that, playing by far the best half of his career and hitting the biggest shot of it with one fleeting minute to go.
In a vacuum, one might say “cool, Jaylen Brown—who makes 300 million dollars—hit a mid-range jumper. Big deal.” But as I said earlier, the basket store was literally out of baskets. The Celtics couldn’t purchase a bucket with the entire GDP of Lithuania, let alone by taking normal shots.
The Mavericks dialed up their defensive intensity to 11, and then dialed it up some more, blowing past 12 and landing on like a 14 and a half. They were kicking and screaming, fighting like their lives depended on it. The Celtics, on the other hand, couldn’t believe the Mavericks hadn’t just given up, and looked legitimately afraid of the team they had just awoken.
With this shot, Brown hit his second “we probably just lose if you miss this” shot of the postseason, though it wasn’t quite as individually important as his Game 1 triple against the Indiana Pacers, since the Celtics were still technically winning last night. But this is the Finals, so it’s ultimately way cooler and I will accept no other arguments.
Fate was coming for Boston. It had bared its teeth with Porzingis’ injury and was ready to bite their head off down the stretch. But Brown said no, perhaps thinking of Lincoln saying that these Celtics, under Joe, shall have a new birth of freedom as NBA Champions. And Brown was going to make that happen come hélà or high water.
2. Begging for salvation
“Hold on! Just f---ing hold on once please, please!”
At 4:55 AM, I sent that text to a group chat of my friends, all devoted Celtics fans. It was my last idea, my last coherent thought as the sun started rising on southwest Germany with the Celtics up four with a chance to take a 3-0 lead in the NBA Finals.
Throughout a game, I make lots of deals with myself. I try to keep calm, tell myself that there’s still plenty of time left and that the Celtics have been getting good shots. I say things like “we gotta get going here,” “big stop here,” or simply decide “call a timeout Joe, yep.” For 90-ish percent of the game, I feel like I am in relative control of what’s going on.
But last night—or this morning for me—I just ran out of ideas. I had no more control, no more moves, no more deals to make or ways out. Luka Doncic had fouled out, but the Celtics couldn’t buy a basket nor even pre-order one. They were just completely out of baskets at the basket store.
So I resorted to profanity in the face of a harrowing moment, taking the chains off my feelings and begged that the Celtics just hang on, one time for the rest of our lives. Hold on, just hold on, pretty please.
Obviously it isn’t just one time, and they have to win again in order to take home the trophy. But in the Finals, there’s no time to think about such things like “the future” or “the next game,” which is exactly what got them in the 4th Quarter mess in the first place. Up 21 points and 2-0 in the series, the Celtics pictured themselves hoisting the Larry O’Brien and got misty eyed.
But the Mavericks pictured that too, and got desperate. Not like this, not after everything we’ve worked for, thought all the Mavericks in unison. And they almost took it from the jaws of defeat.
And then, finally, I pictured it, and was left with no other option but to beg. I wouldn’t say it was a prayer, since I was asking Tatum or Brown or maybe even Derrick White to save me rather than some higher power. But it was answered, and they held on.
3. Sam Hauser: defensive Jedi
I guess we’re going for the world record of most pop-culture references in a single edition of 10 Takeaways, because it’s Star Wars time and Sam Hauser is using the force.
I don’t understand why—well, I mean, I do, but like come on—opposing players see Hauser subbed into the game and say to themselves “okay everyone clear out, it’s go time” and try to take him off the dribble like they’re 2009 Kobe Bryant being guarded by 2018-2024 Trae Young. Hauser a really stout defender, and this isn’t the only time a Mavericks role player wasted a possession trying to take him one on one.
Hauser has Jedi Mind Tricked the entire NBA into thinking he’s a bad defender, and then just destroys dudes who think they can exploit that. It’s honestly beautiful to watch, and eternally hilarious every time it goes horribly for the P.J. Washington and Josh Green’s of the world. He’s like a pool hustler wearing a cashmere sweater and glasses that everyone thinks they can beat. But then they just get run off the table.
He’s a legitimate 6’6”, with long arms and good foot speed. He’s stopped Doncic more than a few times this series, and I’m really not sure what Washington is trying to pull here with his post spin bag. Maybe one day everyone will figure out that if you’re trying to get specific switches against the Celtics, Hauser isn’t the one to hunt. But I guess that day wasn’t yesterday.
4. Luka Doncic tried to quit
I think Doncic tried to foul out of the game while his team was losing big.
This is a pretty inflammatory take and one of two back-to-back Doncic takeaways, but I want everyone to consult the video evidence before judging if I’m actually wrong. First, look at the back-to-back fifth and sixth fouls, which I don’t think Doncic did intentionally.
Doncic’s fifth foul:
Doncic’s sixth foul:
Both these fouls are insanely careless, especially since Doncic has to know he had four fouls at this point. His team is only down by three and has all the momentum, yet for some reason he carelessly throws his body around and forces the officials to make a tough call. For someone who was yelling at the refs the entire night, he’s expecting a lot of goodwill, but I don’t think those were intentional.
But look at his fourth foul that came several minutes earlier.
Doncic’s fourth foul:
For the life of me, I don’t know what’s going on here. Perhaps he was frustrated or simply tired and needed a rest, but you mean to tell me that Luka Doncic—the NBA’s #1 practitioner of never-ever thinking he committed a foul and literally-always thinking he was fouled—raised his hand to let the officials know that yes, he committed a foul?
And he did so while already having three fouls? And he did so guarding Payton Pritchard—whose only points came on a half court heave—with his season essentially on the line? That’s fishy.
This is conspiracy theorist Oliver, but both in real time and after the fact, I can think of no other explanation than either Doncic not knowing how many fouls he had or simply trying to foul out of the game. Conspiracy theories are by definition a bit wack, and this probably wouldn’t hold up in a court of law. But given what you know about Doncic and the video of the fourth foul, do you actually think he wanted to keep playing?
5. Is Luka Doncic just James Harden?
No.
“What? Then why did you title the Takeaway tha—”
But he has a lot of the same problems that James Harden has.
“Well that’s just a disingenuous titl—”
Does everyone remember prime Harden on the Houston Rockets? He was a completely absurd basketball player, both able to score whenever he wanted to and was on a team that didn’t want to do anything other than that. It was glorious at its best and utterly self-destructive at its worst, as if Harden got turnover-happy or couldn’t assert himself offensively, his team had real problems.
Doncic is similar. He always gets his points, but it’s always a question of how easily he can get them. Such a high usage rate is bound to wear him down, but that’s not his most problematic similarity to Harden.
Doncic does not care about defense. He is a bystander, spending half of each possession reading the referee the riot act about how he was fouled and the other half getting blown by and going for recovery steals like he’s on a high school team. He falls asleep on backdoor cuts constantly and, as he gets more and more exhausted throughout the game, goes from a middling defender to a downright liability.
Doncic does not care about rebounding, either. He stares at each shot careen off the rim like he has floor seats to the game before begrudgingly getting back. Every single possession that he’s out there is a 5 on 4 rebounding advantage for the Celtics, and in big spots it really shows. It’s not like he doesn’t have the build for it either, he’s a built like a truck and stands a legit 6’7”.
The Mavericks have had a real chance to win each of the first three games, but their consistent downfall has been pathetic perimeter defense in big spots. And a lot of that—perhaps most of it—has to do with Doncic not caring.
Not only are the Celtics able to hunt him, his teammates can see him giving up on plays before they’re over, and are bound to get a little fed up. Perhaps the Celtics are so good that no team can handle their energy and burst down the stretch, but I have a feeling he can do better than that.
6. Poetry Interlude: the Celtics haven’t won yet
For no other reason than… why not, I’ve decided to use Takeaway 5 as a public service announcement/poetry interlude like we did last time. I wrote a haiku last time, so here’s a limerick to express that the Celtics haven’t won yet and need to stay focused:
The Celtics have one more to go
The series may ebb and may flow
They cannot get lazy
Or I will go crazy
Go out there and win like a pro
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
7. Jayson Tatum’s return to the box score
I mean, it’s not like Tatum had zero point in the previous two games, but we’re glad to have him back in the 27-34 point range when you open up the box score.
The NBA is all about generating points from different sources. If the entire roster can knock down threes in rhythm, there’s your point generator. If one guy is going crazy, that’s where your points are coming from. Maybe the whistle is tight, and the free throw line is where it’s at.
The Celtics have tons of different point generators, but Tatum is generally their most consistent. That’s why some were alarmed with his lack of scoring in the first two games. Of course winning is more important, but consistently winning requires reliable point generation, and so worrying that Tatum was unable to hold up his end was a valid concern.
And the first half showed why. Tatum scored 20 points by the break, with Brown—odds on favorite for Finals MVP after his second half—struggling with only 6. The Mavericks came out scorching hot, and had Tatum not generating some points for Boston, it could have gotten ugly.
He has converted this pretty play in the 4th Quarter with the game about to be on the line:
This is a classic “where is the hoop” move from Tatum, realizing that no matter how many dudes are down there with him, he is probably bigger, stronger, and more agile, so he just needs to find the hoop and explode. He realizes Derek Lively is out of position and takes immediate advantage. There is no delay, no careful execution, just gotta-have-it conviction in a big spot. There’s our guy.
8. What even is a Maverick?
Who woke up one morning and said, “I think we should name our team the Dallas Mavericks”? I understand it’s vaguely horse themed, and maybe has something to do with cowboys, given the whole Dallas area thing and their apparent obsession with silly hats. I bet Google knows the answer.
(Googles “what is a Maverick”)
Apparently it’s any cow that doesn’t have a brand? Well that doesn’t make any sense. Their logo is clearly a horse, so perhaps there’s a better explanation.
(Googles “why are the Dallas Mavericks called the Mavericks”)
Oh I see, it’s a callback to a 1957 western TV Show called “Maverick” that was chosen by a naming contest based on 4,600 individual postcards, and the actor that played Maverick was part of the ownership group. Got it, got it.
So you’re telling me that because a group of people the size of Newton North high school sent in some post cards in 1980, the Dallas Mavericks have a name that nobody really understands? I get if the team was founded in the 19th Century like the L.A. Dodgers (named for people who run through the street dodging trollies), but this is the eighties. Call them the Stallions or something cooler.
9. Stats that will make you happy
As a celebration for going up 3-0, here’s a collection of statistics about the Celtics’ 2024 playoff run that are 100 percent guaranteed to make you happy.
First off, no team has ever swept both the Conference Finals and the NBA Finals, so the Celtics have a chance to add a feather to their cap of postseason dominance if they can finish it off Friday. In that same vein, the Celtics are 15-2 in the playoffs, losing a pair of Game 2s to the Miami Heat and Cleveland Cavaliers but literally nothing else. Don’t worry, I’m writing this all with crossed fingers.
Second up, the Celtics have the fourth-best playoff scoring differential in NBA history, behind the 1972 Milwaukee Bucks, 2017 Golden State Warriors, and 1996 Chicago Bulls. In case you weren’t sure, yes: that’s just a list of three of the greatest single-season teams ever (thanks to Sean Grande for maintaining that stat, he always has the best stuff). Meanwhile, the Celtics have won 10 consecutive playoff games, their last loss coming over a month ago. They are also undefeated on the road.
Finally, this team absolutely rules and has the chance to go down as one of the most dominant teams in NBA history. And that’s the only stat I really care about.
10. Endgame
And… we did it. With that Marvel Cinematic Universe reference, that’s the world record for most pop-culture references in an edition of 10 Takeaways. Everyone pat yourselves on the back.
The Celtics are in literally as dominant a position as they possibly could be in, with no team ever coming back from this deficit in a playoff series. But closing out a team is never straight forward, because the only thing more dangerous than a team backed into a corner is one that’s already dead.
The Mavericks aren’t just going to play Game 4 with desperation, they’re going to play it with reckless abandon of a team that endured 48 hours of obituaries like the one I just wrote. They are officially playing with house money, and if they can get a single game, the entire unaffiliated NBA world will be rooting for them to bring it all the way back and execute the second-greatest comeback in sports history (Red Sox-Yankees 2004 will not be topped).
The Celtics get into trouble when they wait around and expect a team to voluntarily give up, something I flipped out about in a column after they lost Game 2 to Cleveland over a month ago. They can get entitled and whiney, which isn’t going to cut it if you want to win the NBA Finals and finish the final chapter of your story.
But it’s in their hands. The Mavericks don’t control the series, and the Celtics better not come out and play like they’ve already won. If they need a ghostwriter to help them write the final chapter, I’m always available, but it’s up to them to tell the actual story. Only they know how it ends.
11. (Bonus) Xavier Tillman time
Okay, so I was putting together this article in the little editor software we use here at CelticsBlog and was struck with the unmistakable horror that I had forgotten to include Xavier Tillman in the 10 Takeaways. But he was majestic, sublime, and whatever other vaguely British-sounding adjectives you want to use for a stretch in the third quarter that propelled the Celtics’ lead, so here are his two best plays, enshrined forever as the official “Xavier Tillman Time”:
