In the second game of the NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks 105-98 at home to take a 2-0 lead in the series.
Dallas Mavericks started the game at TD Garden with a better start. The Mavericks took the lead thanks to the high shooting percentage of their star point guard Luka Doncic. The Celtics, on the other hand, couldn’t hit their 3-pointers, so they tried to use under the basket to get back into the game. Towards the end of the first quarter, the Celtics stabilized the game and prevented the gap from widening. The Celtics, who have hit at least one 3-pointer in the first quarter of every game this season, got their first three-pointer of the quarter from Al Horford with 6 seconds left in the quarter. The Mavericks finished the first quarter with a 28-25 lead.
JRUE HOLIDAY IS THE ‘X-FACTOR’ FOR THE CELTICS
The second quarter of the game started with baskets against each other. The Celtics started to establish a dominance in the game and reflected it on the scoreboard, taking the lead for the first time in the game in the 4th minute of the quarter. Although the Mavericks regained the lead twice in the second quarter, they were unable to maintain their scoring advantage and closed the first half 54-51 behind. In a first half in which the Celtics’ Jrue Holiday had a very low 3-point shooting percentage, he drove to the basket without the ball and converted his passes into baskets. Holiday finished the first half with 17 points. Doncic scored 23 points for the Mavericks in the first half.
The game was competitive until the middle of the third quarter when the Celtics went on a 10-0 run to extend their lead to 12 points with 3 minutes left in the quarter. The Mavericks responded with a 7-0 run at the end of the quarter to cut the Celtics’ lead to 6 points. The Celtics entered the final quarter with an 83-74 lead after backup point guard Payton Pritchard’s last-second 3-pointer from the center court.
In the final quarter of the game, which started with baskets from both teams, the Celtics maintained a double-digit lead for most of the game, extending their lead to 14 points with 3.30 minutes to play. In response, the Mavericks went on a 9-0 run to cut the deficit to 5 points with 1.15 minutes left. In the last minute, the defenses did not allow easy points and the Celtics first stopped the fastbreak Mavericks offense with a block and then won the game 105-98 with Jaylen Brown’s layup. With this result, Boston Celtics took a 2-0 lead over Dallas Mavericks in the final series.
TRIPLE-DOUBLE BY DONCIC
The leading scorer of the game was Luka Doncic, who finished the game with a triple-double. Doncic had 32 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. The leading scorer for the Celtics was Jrue Holiday. Holiday finished the game with 26 points and 11 rebounds. Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and Jayson Tatum were the other standouts for the Celtics. Brown had 22 points and 7 assists, White 18 points and 5 rebounds and Tatum 18 points, 12 assists and 9 rebounds. Tatum missed a triple-double with 1 rebound.
FINAL SERIES MOVES TO DALLAS
The third game of the NBA Finals will be played Wednesday through Thursday at 3:30 a.m. ET at the American Airlines Center, home of the Dallas Mavericks.
