Well friends, we've made it. After eight grueling months of regular season and postseason action, the NBA Finals are upon us, and it will either be the Boston Celtics (as expected) or the Dallas Mavericks (whoa!) who will be hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy within the next two and a half weeks. Since the offseason, Boston has been penciled in as the Eastern Conference favorite, and from the opening night of the season through the conclusion of the Eastern Conference Finals, they've looked the part.
Meanwhile, the run made by their Western Conference counterpart was significantly more unexpected. The Dallas Mavericks were in 8th place in the Western Conference at the NBA Trade Deadline when they made two moves on the fringes that have since reinvented their team. The additions of PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, coupled with the increased comfort that Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving have gained playing with one another for a full season now, propelled Dallas to a 24-9 record in their final 33 regular season games, and a 12-5 record in the postseason. A .720 winning percentage stretched out over an 82 game season is a 59-win pace, which would've amounted to the conference's best record.
But make no mistake, the Dallas Mavericks are the underdog heading into the series for good reason. Boston has been historically great all year long, and their championship window will never be more open than it is right now. Yet analysts around the NBA are giving Dallas more than just a puncher's chance to win the series. At ESPN, nine of the seventeen reporters polled picked Dallas to win the series.
So what can we expect from the 2024 NBA Finals? Well, here are five bold predictions for the Dallas Mavericks as they look to capture their second NBA Title in franchise history.
Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving will have one big game in Boston
It is well-documented how Boston fans feel about Kyrie Irving, and Kyrie Irving has made it clear how he feels about Boston. But this time around, with the stakes as high as they are, I don't expect Kyrie to lose his cool, as he has in the past. Instead, I'm expecting a zenned-out Kyrie Irving to maintain his composure throughout the NBA Finals, and continue to give Dallas everything they need from him, whether it be facilitation, spot-up shooting, or defense, which once upon a time was not a Kyrie Irving calling-card.
But at some point in this series, and I think it'll be in Boston, Kyrie is going to go supernova against the Celtics. Yes, Boston has capable defenders in Derrick White and Jrue Holiday to throw at him, but the NBA Playoffs have shown us that great offense will almost always beat great defense, and when Kyrie Irving gets it going, there are very few players on the planet who make it look as easy — or as beautiful — as Kyrie Irving does.
Mavericks center Maxi Kleber will have a moment too
After missing a considerable chunk of the Mavericks postseason run due to a third-degree dislocation of the AC Joint in his right shoulder, Maxi Kleber was able to return to the court and give Dallas 22 minutes of action combined in Game's 4 and 5 against the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals. Where Kleber fits in with Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford within the Mavericks rotation of bigs remains to be seen, but my gut tells me that Maxi's minutes may be on the rise heading into the NBA Finals.
Defensively, Kleber has been trusted in the past to serve as Jayson Tatum's primary defender in Mavericks matchups versus the Celtics. Additionally, with Dallas likely to switch just about everything on the perimeter against Boston, Kleber is their most switchable big by far. Lively will be fine on an island against wings and guards, but this might be a series that Gafford finds himself in trouble. If Gafford sees his minutes cut, Kleber could be the beneficiary.
On the other end of the floor, Kleber represents the only floor-spacing big that the Mavericks have on their roster, and Dallas head coach Jason Kidd has seen Kleber shine in the postseason in the past. During the Mavericks' run to the Western Conference Finals, Kleber averaged nearly 9 points and 5 rebounds per game, and he shot 44 percent from three-point range. For his career, he's a 36 percent shooter, and with all of the attention that Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving will draw, that could leave Kleber open to feast on open threes.
The Mavericks will play all non-Al Horford Celtics bench players out of the series
This just ain't the series for Payton Pritchard, Luke Kornet or Sam Houser… a triad of Celtics reserves who will be hunted relentlessly if they step on the floor at any point in the NBA Finals.
Luka Doncic will crack the top three in NBA Finals scoring
For clarification, we're talking total points and not points per game, though it wouldn't be the most surprising outcome in the world if Doncic pushed for both. But because I'm expecting a long NBA Finals series, that means the total points record could be in jeopardy.
Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, a pair of Lakers legends, will continue to occupy the top spots, with 284 and 268 points respectively, but I think Luka finishes with somewhere around 250 points, which would put him 3rd place all-time in total points in a Finals series. 250 points — four points ahead of Michael Jordan's total in the 1993 NBA Finals — comes out to 35.7 points per game, for those of you who don't have a calculator handy. So it's not as if this is unheard for Doncic, who in his postseason career averages 31.7 points per game.
Now, this is potentially contingent on how Boston chooses to defend Luka Doncic. Surely, Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla will throw a number of looks Luka's way, but predominantly, Boston chooses to play drop coverage and tends not to double ball handlers in pick and rolls. If Boston doesn't regularly take the ball out of Doncic's hands, he'll feast. There's just no way around it. And if they force it out, then Dallas will have plenty of 4-on-3's to potentially punish Boston on the back end. There's no good answer really, which makes me think Boston will do mostly what they're comfortable with, and that could allow Luka to put up massive scoring numbers.
The Dallas Mavericks will win the NBA Finals
I came into the week feeling like I was picking Boston, and as recently as last night, I had shared with others that my pick was Boston in 7. But then I got to thinking about the Luka Doncic/Kyrie Irving partnership. I got to thinking about how dangerous it felt to pick against Luka Doncic when the lights are shining bright. I thought about Kyrie Irving's performance in the 2016 NBA Finals. I thought about the Boston Celtics' recent postseason home struggles. And then I thought about Luka Doncic again.
I had to pivot. I'm going Dallas in 7 games, because it feels icky to pick against Luka and Kyrie in a 7th game, no matter where it's played. Maybe I'll regret this. Maybe Boston, who has been historically great all season long, is due to finally win the title after making the Conference Finals six times in the last eight seasons. Or maybe these two teams are more even than we realize, and if that's the case, then picking the team with the best player in the series is actually not so bold at all.
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