The Boston Celtics can only ever be themselves: the best team in the NBA, but waylaid by maddening flaws. Producers of the most efficient offense in NBA history, but capable of confounding stagnation. A true team, replete with both stars and depth, but without the top-end MVP candidate who typically leads a championship squad.
Every bit of Boston’s complicated profile emerged in Dallas on Wednesday night, as the visiting Celtics held off the Mavericks 106-99 to take a 3-0 lead in the Finals. In quintessential Celtics fashion, Game 3 featured stretches of dominance next to stretches of torpor, and a near-collapse in the fourth quarter after Boston had taken a 21-point lead. Boston even benefitted from the absence of an opposing star player, as it has throughout its postseason romp , when Luka Doncic fouled out in crunch time.
But the most obvious way that Game 3 fit Boston’s season-long pattern came on the final scoreboard: The Celtics won, to push their overall record this season to a ridiculous 79-20 and bring them to the brink of a championship. Let us count the ways that Game 3 encapsulated the 2023-24 Celtics experience, starting with their apparent ability to toggle between all the way on and all the way off with little rhyme or reason. Boston started slow on Wednesday—unsurprisingly, perhaps, given the Mavericks’ desperation in front of their home crowd.
For all intents and purposes, Dallas needed to win Game 3 to keep the Finals alive; famously, no NBA team has.