After seven months of NBA basketball, the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks are set to meet on the league’s biggest stage. Led by Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, the Mavs torched the Western Conference playoffs en route to the Finals. On the other side of the bracket, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Boston Celtics breezed through the wreckage of an Eastern Conference depleted by injuries to stars. But the only thing that matters now is what happens when the Finals tip off on Thursday night. Ahead of Game 1, our staff gathered to make their picks and answer some of the biggest questions that will determine who takes home the Larry O’B.
1. Which duo would you rather have in this series: Luka and Kyrie or Tatum and Brown?
Michael Pina: This is Goodfellas-garlic-shaving close. As brilliant, panic-inducing, and insoluble as Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving are when the ball is in their hands, I’m going with the muscle, length, and two-way excellence of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. By going this route, I’m choosing to sacrifice offensive efficiency and crunch-time assurance for two large wings who won’t be poked at on defense, which can’t be said about Dallas’s dynamic duo.
Danny Chau: All else being equal, I’d rather have Doncic, the best player in the series, who has dismantled every single defensive coverage levied against him, and Irving, who has been more malleable and accommodating with his on-court contributions than he’s been his entire career. But all else isn’t equal. The Celtics, at full strength, have one of the best starting fives the league has ever seen, with two backcourt stoppers who can dim Kyrie’s light much in the way the Thunder did in the second round. This is the series where Tatum and Brown’s respective combination of athleticism, defensive versatility, and shotmaking ability ought to prove the most important.
The Ringer’s NBA Odds Machine
Check out our daily predictions hub for the 2023-24 championship
Zach Kram: The easy answer is the duo with the best player, so gimme the pairing with Luka. But the question is closer than my first instinct might suggest. Here’s a fun stat, for instance: In the playoffs, Luka and Kyrie are combining to average 51.6 points per game, while Jayson and Jaylen are combining to average 51.0 despite playing about five fewer minutes.
Howard Beck: If the game were just about shot creation and shotmaking (and especially high-degree-of-difficulty shotmaking), you’d take Luka and Kyrie every time. They’re historically great as a tandem and a much more dangerous offensive duo. If this were a two-on-two tournament, I’d probably take them over Tatum and Brown. But when you factor in everything else—size, length, defensive tenacity, experience on this stage—it tips toward the Celtics.
Tyler Parker: [Dramaturgically hemming and hawing.] The Jays are the best wing duo in the league—both can get you 40, and both can guard. They have played 102 playoff games together and this is their second trip to the Finals in three years. They’ve been a bastion of consistency and catch unnecessary flack for things that have nothing to do with them. It’s not the Celtics’ fault the East is a wasteland of compromised ligaments. For the entirety of their time in Boston, all Tatum and Brown have done is win. Despite all of that, I’d rather have Luka and Kyrie. The reasoning is boring. Playoff series tend to be won by whichever team employs the best player, and Luka plays for the Ricks. Add to that the fact that Kyrie is guarding now, and it tips the scales their way.
Logan Murdock: Luka and Kyrie. The NBA Finals is a stage where wills are tested and any lack of mental fortitude is exposed. Throughout the playoffs, the backcourt of Irving and Doncic have overwhelmed their opponents, beating the Clippers, Thunder, and Timberwolves in demoralizing fashion. And recent history suggests that Jaylen and Jayson don’t have the same mindset when matched up with opponents of a certain ilk (oh hey, Jimmy Butler). The Finals is as good a platform as any to change that opinion, but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Isaac Levy-Rubinett: The selling point for Tatum and Brown is that they can do everything—shoot, score, defend, rebound. And the Celtics are built in their image, with a drive-and-kick five-out style on offense and a versatile scheme on defense. But for all their virtues, Tatum and Brown don’t amplify each other like Kyrie and Luka do. It’s been rewarding to watch Doncic and Irving learn each other’s cadence, style, and preferences and then seek to bring those out in each other the way only point guards can. When the game grinds down in the Finals, I want the duo that plays best together.
2. Outside of those four players, who is the biggest X factor in this series?
Beck: It has to be Kristaps Porzingis, which feels like a strange thing to say about someone who hasn’t played in a month—especially after we saw Boston breeze through two rounds without him. But Porzingis unlocks so much for this team with his 3-point shooting and rim presence. He also has the size (7-foot-2, with a 7-foot-6 wingspan) to disrupt all those lobs to Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford.
Parker: Lively can guard in space way better than Gafford, and the effect he’s had on the scoreboard has been well documented. The kid just keeps making teams deal with him. On the boards, in the paint, at the rim, and he’s even flashed a little passing touch from the high post. He knows his way around a lob. There are increasing bits of sophistication on some of the screens and rescreens he sets for Doncic and Irving, and his level of activity has been somewhere north of toddler on a sugar rush. If he can control the space around the rim enough to keep the Celtics wary of the paint and move his feet when he gets caught in switches, the Mavericks’ upset chances will increase significantly.
Kram: Porzingis’s health looms large. He’s Boston’s best rim protector, and if the Celtics can play with five prolific 3-point shooters at all times, Dallas’s pack-the-paint defensive strategy won’t be nearly as effective as it was against non-shooters on the Thunder and Timberwolves.
Levy-Rubinett: One of the most interesting strategic wrinkles of the Finals is how the Celtics will guard Doncic pick-and-rolls. If they trap to force the ball out of Luka’s hands, the series may well hinge on whether P.J. Washington and the rest of the Mavs can hit open shots and make plays against a rotating defense. Washington averaged 18 points on 47 percent 3-point shooting against the Thunder in Round 2; then he averaged 12 points on 25 percent shooting against the Wolves in the West finals. He has one of the more aesthetically pleasing corner 3s in the game, but to beat the Celtics’ big, physical defense, the Mavs will need it to go in at a high clip.
Murdock: Jrue Holiday. The defensive dynamo will be vital in guarding Dallas’s vaunted backcourt duo of Irving and Doncic. Even at 33, Holiday is among the best wing defenders in the league, giving backcourts fits during the postseason with his quick hands, solid footwork, and lethal anticipation. If Holiday can find a way to limit one of Dallas’s guards, Boston will be in the driver’s seat for its 18th banner.
Pina: Porzingis. We don’t know how he’ll look, physically, which is a huge deal when it comes to guarding Luka and Kyrie in pick-and-rolls. But we do know that if and when he’s right, averaging at least 30 minutes per game, Boston’s ceiling hits the stratosphere.
Chau: It has to be Porzingis, who hasn’t played a game in over a month. Being immediately dropped into the biggest game of your life probably isn’t how most would choose to regain their rhythm, but if he can do what he’s done all season, the Celtics can dictate the terms of engagement. Porzingis completes Boston’s five-out Voltron, and the team’s penchant for finding open shots from behind the arc is more fearsome than anything the Mavs have faced thus far (including OKC’s efficient 3-point attack). He would go a long way in terms of mitigating the massive impact that centers Lively and Gafford have had on Dallas’s run thus far by forcing them away from their domain.
3. Whose legacy will be affected most by the outcome?
Kram: It’s always safe to default to the stars for a question like this, but I’m interested in this series’ legacy implications for Holiday. On the one hand, he is only a two-time All-Star and has never made an All-NBA team (though he has six All-Defensive nods). But on the other hand, this would be his second time serving as a difference maker for a championship team, and if he plays out his four-year extension, he’ll likely end his career as a member of the exclusive 18,000-point, 7,000-assist club. Every other member either is in the Hall of Fame already or will be after retirement.
Pina: I’m not going to talk about someone’s legacy when they’re in their mid-20s, so the two superstars are out. Instead, how about a tie between Irving and Holiday; whoever wins will have a ring with two different teams.
Chau: Tatum, at least in terms of the biggest swing in perception between winning and losing. Luka has entered best in the world conversations, and a championship would vault him into a pantheon that few players his age have ever even sniffed. But losing would be no catastrophe—not yet. If Tatum finally gets over the hump after six conference finals and two Finals appearances, it would go a long, long way toward breaking long-held conceptions about his impact. Another disappointment as the leading man on the favored team, though, would keep the vicious cycle of Tatum anti-hype churning another round.
Murdock: The tandem of Jayson and Jaylen. Their last three seasons have been defined by curious efforts in the game’s biggest moments. Back in the 2022 Finals, they were the face of a surprise success story and got a pass for losing to Golden State. Last season, they lowlighted one of the all-time fumbles in NBA history when they lost to the eighth-seeded Heat. Another postseason loss on their résumés would not only sully their reputation as prime-time performers but also raise questions about such an expensive roster, which’ll only get more expensive in the coming years.
Beck: Irving’s. People will understandably fixate on Tatum and Brown because the Celtics have been great for years without winning it all. But the Jays are just hitting their primes. They have plenty of time. The same goes for Luka. Legacies aren’t made or broken at age 25. But Irving is 32 and has produced mostly chaos in the seven years since he was last on the Finals stage. In Dallas, Irving has become a better teammate and a better leader and avoided the kind of self-destructive behavior that wrecked his tenures in Boston and Brooklyn. Nothing can undo the past. But a ring would certify his evolution and raise his standing historically.
Parker: Jared Dudl—just kidding. Twelve people have won an NBA title as a player and a head coach. A ring for Mavs coach Jason Kidd would make that 13 and ensure he sits down on the bench more than ever next season.
Levy-Rubinett: It’s not like Luka’s reputation will be tarnished if he loses the Finals as a 25-year-old going up against one of the most dominant teams in NBA history. But that’s precisely why he has so much to gain. Doncic is in the midst of one of the most impressive runs in recent NBA memory: He averaged 34-9-10 this season and finished third in the MVP vote. He’s leading a hastily (but effectively) patched-together team that has jelled beautifully around him. Losing the title wouldn’t erase any of that, but winning it would vault Doncic into the best player alive conversation and mint him at a level that nobody else in this series can access.
4. Give us one random prediction for Celtics-Mavericks.
Parker: Grant Williams shows up courtside for one game in a custom Dallas-Boston jersey, proving once and for all that he is an eye roll of extreme proportions and the league’s new, unquestioned agitator-in-chief.
Pina: Derrick White will be the series’ plus-minus leader.
Chau: We’re getting multiple overtime games and one that goes 2OT. Free basketball at the highest level.
Kram: Sam Hauser has been in a slump (no more than six points in any game since the first round), but the career 42 percent 3-point shooter will swing one game with hot shooting off the Boston bench.
Levy-Rubinett: In one game, the Mavericks will start Gafford on Brown and dare Brown to shoot, like the Warriors and Draymond Green did back in March. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.
Beck: Doncic will average a 30-point triple-double and be such a dominant force that—like LeBron James in 2015—he’ll earn multiple Finals MVP votes, despite losing the series. (Jerry West, in 1969, is the only player from the losing team to win Finals MVP.) Also, I will average at least one lobster roll per day while in Boston.
Murdock: Luka and Kyrie will have a combined scoring binge that will rival Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals, when Kyrie and Bron combined for 82 points.
5. Who will win the Finals, and in how many games?
Beck: By now, no one should underestimate the Mavericks. They have the star power, the firepower, and the defense to compete with anyone. But the Celtics just have more of everything—shooting, playmaking, versatile defenders, the ability to play big or small—as well as previous Finals experience. I’ll go Boston in six.
Pina: Celtics in a very competitive five games.
Murdock: Mavericks in six.
Kram: Celtics in six.
Levy-Rubinett: Mavs in six.
Parker: I have been waffling back and forth on this, and no answer feels good. You could probably talk me into any outcome and I’d buy it as plausible. Hard to know what’s what with Porzingis’s calf dinged up. If he’s healthy enough and plays just average, Celtics in seven. If Zinger can’t be effective and Dallas stays healthy, Ricks in six. And because both of those are cop-out answers and the league has insisted on staying as confusing as ever, let’s just get weird and say Ricks in seven.
Chau: Celtics in six.
