The Boston Celtics are two wins away from hoisting up their 18th championship banner inside TD Garden as they lead 2-0 in the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks. However, Celtics star Jaylen Brown believes the team should have short term memory and play as if the series is just starting.
Despite the 2-0 series lead, anything can happen as Boston now enters enemy territory in Dallas where the tides can flip with the opponent now on their home floor. Which is why Brown advocates for his team to “stay focused and harness the mind” as he said during his media availability Tuesday before Game 3 the next day according to ClutchPoints' Celtics beat reporter Daniel Donabedian.
“You almost gotta play like you’re down 0-2, and not up,” Brown said. “Just try to stay focused and harness the mind as much as you can.”
Brown tackles the Celtics' game plan against Dallas' top stars
Brown has had an impressive postseason so far where he was awarded the Eastern Conference Finals MVP where the Celtics swept the Indiana Pacers. Fast forward a bit to the current NBA Finals and he has been their leading scorer and showed a ton of flashes on the defensive end which he cited as a key in “trying to wear on” the Mavericks' dynamic duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
“That’s the key,” Brown said according to Jay Kind of The Athletic. “Just trying to wear on those guys, be as physical as we possibly can, full team effort. Just keep touching them. That’s it.”
Brown, Tatum speak on the Celtics' way to tackle the Mavericks defense
On the other side, the Celtics have found the strategy in attacking Dallas which has been leading to mostly success on the offensive side of the ball. This was stated by Boston's main star in Jayson Tatum who talked about Dallas “converging” on a player that is driving to the rim leading to a usually open teammate for the open shot.
“The way their defense is set up, ” Tatum said. “And how much they’re loading up and converging at the rim, it just puts us in positions to attack and find the easy kickout reads and just to keep the ball popping … so we can get good-to-great shots on each and every possession.”
Even though the Celtics beat the Mavericks in Game 2, it should have arguably been by way more as the home team missed a ton of open shots from three-point range. In the game's entirety, Boston made 10 of their 39 attempts which is just more than 25 percent and while they missed a lot, Brown does not regret the ones taken.
“I thought we had a bunch of great looks,” Brown said. “If you go back and look in the first half, Sam (Hauser) had a bunch of great looks, (Derrick White) had some looks that didn’t go down. But we didn’t panic. We kept guarding, we stayed in the game and we kept trusting it and we made enough tonight to win the game.”
Joe Mazzulla had no problem with Game 2 outing rough shooting
The same sentiment was echoed by Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla who stressed the importance in taking the opportunities that the defense gives the opposing team. Which when you have a team like Boston that can excel in a multitude of areas, you have to take it whether the team is missing more than making on a given night.
“I liked every shot that we took,” Mazzulla said via The Athletic. “That’s the most important thing, is take what the defense gives you, whether it’s a layup or 3.”
“So usually what happens is you have those empty possessions on the offensive end, your defense starts to weigh in or you start to mistrust the discipline of your spacing and your shot selection,” Mazzulla continued. “And you end up giving up transition (opportunities) and getting cross-matched. So the guys trusted and stayed disciplined and we were able to stay out of cross-matches and we were able to kind of keep the game in the way we wanted to play it.”
What Brown wants to see from the Celtics heading into Dallas for Game 3
One would have to think that Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd will adapt and try different techniques on defense that can frustrate the Celtics on offense. While they have been slowing down the performance of Tatum, it has led others like Brown, Jrue Holiday, Derrick White, and others to excel which shows how dominant Boston can be, but they can not let the physicality falter.
“Be as physical as we possibly can, full team effort,” Brown said. “Just keep touching them. That’s it. I think that those guys are tremendously gifted offensively. They came out swinging. Luka came out in the first quarter, we knew what he was going to do. We knew he was going to be aggressive. But we just stayed with the game plan. We stayed just consistent and we were able to turn him over a few times that helped us push the lead out.”
At any rate, the Celtics do have a 2-0 lead over the Mavericks heading in to Game 3 which will take place Wednesday night as they hope the fans of their opponents don't awaken an explosive outing. Boston is looking to win their 18th championship in its franchise history and the first since 2008.
Follow Us
Subscribe