Luka Doncic was sensational for the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals against Jayson Tatum and Boston Celtics. But his teammates? Not so much.
Apparently, though, that was the Celtics' plan all along. They know they won't be able to stop Doncic from scoring. They can make life hard for him sure, but considering his elite offensive skills, he's going to score whatever they do. Boston acknowledged that fact right from the start, and so they instead focused on limiting his teammates.
That strategy worked big time, with Boston securing a dominant 107-89 win to open Game 1 and make a statement early on.
“Obviously somebody like that is going to score, and get his points. Our job is to try to limit the other guys as much as we possibly can,” Tatum told Lisa Salters in his walkoff interview after the win, via Trevor Hass of Boston Globe.
Doncic finished with 30 points and 10 rebounds, numbers that made quite the history as he became the first player since Tim Duncan in 1999 to record a 30-point double-double in their NBA Finals debut.
However, one glaring stat from Doncic was his one assist. Prior to Thursday night's showdown, Doncic has had at least two assists in all of his playoff games. Furthermore, this season, he never had fewer than three dimes, according to Tim Bontemps of ESPN.
Of course that doesn't mean Doncic was not passing to his teammates. As Tatum said, they focused on limiting the production of the rest of the Mavericks outside the Slovenian wonderboy. No one besides Doncic scored more than 20 points for Dallas, with the next top-scorer being PJ Washington with 14 points. Doncic's running mate in Kyrie Irving continues his struggles against Boston, finishing with 12 points on a horrendous 6-of-19 shooting.
Defense played a big role for the Celtics, as they recorded nine blocks and six steals. The Mavericks, for their part, just had one block even though they had eight steals.
Jayson Tatum, Celtics' balanced offense topple Mavs
It certainly helped the Celtics that they were also on-point offensively, particularly from long distance.
Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis led the way in the 18-point victory, with the former scoring a team-high 22 points along with six rebounds, two assists and three steals. KP, for his his part, chipped in 20 points. The Latvian's 11 points in the first quarter got Boston going, allowing them to control the game from start to finish.
Jayson Tatum added 16 points along with 11 rebounds and five assists.
As mentioned, the Celtics' 3-point shooting was also a difference-maker. All Celtics starters made at least two triples, and the team finished with 16 makes from distance out of 42 attempts. The Mavericks made just seven 3-pointers out of 27 tries.
Now, the challenge for the Celtics is maintaining that kind of production throughout the series. While they dominated Game 1, there was a moment when the Mavericks cut their lead to just single digits in the third quarter. Fortunately, Boston was able to bounce back and stop Dallas' fiery comeback.
Game 2 of the series is scheduled for Sunday. The Celtics certainly can't take off the pedal to the metal as they look to protect homecourt advantage.
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