2024 NBA Finals: Mavs miss their last best shot in Game 3, putting them in worst possible spot

DALLAS — When you think about it, the task facing the Mavericks isn’t that hard. I mean, when even a 20-year-old knows exactly what they have to do, how tough can it be?

“We just got to make history,” Dallas center Dereck Lively II said.

See? Simple.

Of course, knowing what you need to do and actually doing it are two drastically different things. For proof of this, please refer to Games 1 through 3 of the 2024 NBA Finals.

“Unfortunately, we could just not get over the hump tonight,” Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said after a 106-99 loss to the Boston Celtics in Wednesday’s Game 3 that puts Dallas in the most unenviable position a team can face at this stage of the campaign: an 0-3 deficit in a best-of-seven series.

One hundred and fifty-six teams have been where the Mavs now sit. None of them has climbed all the way out of the hole.

“It’s not over till it’s over,” said Mavericks MVP finalist Luka Dončić, who scored 27 points with six rebounds and six assists, but who watched crunch time from the bench after fouling out with 4:12 to go in the fourth quarter. “We just got to believe. Like I always say, it’s first to four.”

Before you can get to four, though, you’ve got to get to one. And that step’s proven pretty tricky for Dallas.

Kidd’s Mavericks know what they need to do against the Celtics. Prevent them from hunting their most vulnerable defenders to repeatedly collapse Dallas’ perimeter coverage. Keep them from engaging their drive-and-kick game, getting downhill and launching a high volume of open 3-pointers. Fight like hell not to allow them to suffocate the Mavs’ offense by switching ball screens and dragging Dallas into a morass of grinding isolation attacks. Stop them from making timely plays in the clutch.

Through three games, though, they’ve done almost none of the above. It’s the how that continues to elude the Mavs — and that ensures these Finals keep getting played on the Celtics’ terms, in the Celtics’ style … and, ultimately, in the Celtics’ favor.

Kyrie Irving had his best game of the Finals. But it wasn’t enough. (Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

“You got to…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-06-13 14:05:18

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