The Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, 106-99. Jayson Tatum led Boston with 31 points. The Mavericks’ Kyrie Irving scored 35 points in their defeat. The Mavericks are currently down 0-3 in the Finals, and no team has ever come back from that deficit. Kristaps Porzingis was ruled out of the game before it even began due to a foot ligament injury. With how he’d been performing in the first two games, it was a significant loss, but the Celtics have played many games without him during this stretch, making his absence less destabilising than it could have been.
Dallas faced an exceptionally loud crowd in the AAC and got out to a fast start, opening up a 13-point lead in the first quarter. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, whose jump shot appeared to have returned in a big way, made scoring look easy, and Dallas looked like they had resumed their dominance in the paint, scoring 20 points to Boston’s eight. Still, the Celtics were not going to let this game slip away with a 3-0 lead, and at the end of the quarter, the score was nearly even, with Dallas holding a meagre 31-30 lead.
The rest of the half played out as if Doncic and Irving had received a memo about how stars should perform. They took 30 of Dallas’ 44 shots and scored 37 of its 51 points. Luka struggled with his outside shot, shooting 1-for-6 from distance, but his work in the paint appeared natural. Meanwhile, Kyrie found his jumper, hitting a three for the first time in this series and went 4-of-5 in the half. Other Mavericks contributed in what was primarily a back-and-forth period. Dereck Lively’s intensity burst off the screen throughout the quarter, motivating his teammates to react to every Celtic basket. PJ Washington made two solid passes down low, resulting in easy baskets for Dallas’ bigs. The second quarter ended as it began, with the Mavs leading by one point, 51-50.
Boston started the second half well, making their first seven shots in the third quarter and eventually developing a 10-point lead. The Dallas offence, which looked so locked in during a 31-point first quarter, fizzled to 19 in the third. The Celtics had no such issues, shooting 65% from the floor and putting up 35 points.
As the fourth quarter began, things appeared to deteriorate further. Boston’s three-point onslaught continued, and the advantage grew to 21. On the verge of being entirely washed out of its own building, Dallas began to show indications of life. A 12-0 run by PJ Washington and Josh Green reduced the Celtics’ lead to nine with little under eight minutes remaining.
Call it Dallas’ defense, call it Boston going cold, but Dallas put together a 20-2 run, and by the halfway point of the quarter, the Boston lead was all but gone, 93-90. Looking at a 21-point deficit in the fourth, Dallas could’ve easily just let go of the rope, but the team showed tremendous grit to fight their way back into contention.
Then, as both teams were fighting to get a bucket, Doncic picked up two personal fouls and, after a failed challenge, was fouled out of the game with six fouls. It was his first time fouling out of a playoff game. The score was still 93-90, and with Dallas -12 in non-Doncic minutes, it was going to be a big lift to complete this comeback.
Dallas go
t to within 1 when the score was 92-93, but after a Boston bucket and Dallas turnover, the Mavericks never had the opportunity to take a shot for a chance to grab the lead. In the end, Dallas couldn’t quite complete the comeback and the Celtics won game 3 106-99.
