The five biggest keys to Celtics beating Mavs in NBA Finals

The five biggest keys to Celtics beating Mavs in NBA Finals originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

It all comes down to this.

The 2024 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks are set to begin Thursday night at TD Garden. Boston hopes to top off its historic 64-18 regular season with the 18th championship in franchise history — the most of any NBA team.

Accomplishing that feat against Dallas won’t be an easy task. Led by superstar Luka Doncic and ex-Celtic Kyrie Irving, the Mavs are by far the toughest team the C’s have faced in this postseason. There will be plenty of pressure on Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown to prove themselves as the better star duo in the series.

Of course, Boston will need more than just big games from the Jays to take home the NBA title. Here are the five biggest keys to the Celtics defeating the Mavericks and bringing Banner 18 to TD Garden.

Road success

The Celtics are a perfect 6-0 on the road in this postseason after posting a 27-14 record away from TD Garden during the regular season. Their road success sets them up well against the Mavs, who haven’t benefitted from homecourt at all during the 2023-24 campaign. Dallas went 25-16 both at home and on the road during the regular season and is a less-than-stellar 5-3 at American Airlines Center in these playoffs.

Continuing to take care of business on the road will be crucial for the C’s, whose two playoff losses have come at the Garden.

Dominance from deep

The Celtics will lean heavily on their 3-point shooting prowess to outscore arguably the best offensive duo in the league in Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. When the 3s aren’t falling, it could get ugly.

As we saw in Boston’s Game 2 loss to Cleveland, the missed 3s also hurt on the defensive end. The Celtics’ transition defense was non-existent against Donovan Mitchell, so you can imagine how the game will play out if they have a similar effort against the Mavs’ superstar tandem.

This could be a quick series if the C’s are hot from 3. Boston has a 66-7 record this season, including the playoffs, when making the same number or more 3s than its opponents. It is 11-13 when…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/five-biggest-keys-celtics-beating-211241343.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2024-06-05 21:12:41

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