Celtics defeated Mavs at the end of Game 3 of the Finals to move one step closer to winning the title ESPN

The Dallas Mavericks, who seemed to be finished with a deficit of 21 points at the end of 10 minutes remaining, came back by scoring 22-2 that put Boston’s lead in danger and in danger of turning this into an all-time game.

Tim Bontemps, ESPNJun 13, 2024, 08:55 AM

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Dallas — – For a short period within the final quarter of the Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night it appeared as if it was likely that Boston Celtics‘ mistakes would return to bring them back to.

At the time when things appeared most bleak and the Celtics switched the script and stopping Dallas to a single field goal over a five minute time period, and then clinching the win of 106-99 to take an 3-0 lead in the series.

Boston is just one victory away from an all-time record 18th NBA championship – one that the Celtics will be able to capture on the weekend in Game 4 at the American Airlines Center.

“Experience is the best teacher,” said Jaylen Brown who scored 30 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists over 41 minutes. “All the year we’ve heard about how the Celtics are in the past over the past about six or eight months all we’ve heard is all the different snafussies that we’ve seen throughout the last.

“This is a new team, you know what I mean. We’ve learned from those experiences. And in these moments, you can see that we learned from it. We stepped up to the plate, and we found a way to win.”

It appeared as if Boston could have found a way earlier, as they had responded to a 25-12 run by the Mavericks in the first seven minutes. A streak which was able to see Kyrie Irving who scored 35 points following a total of 28 points in the two games played in Boston beginning to play to score his first points in this series. The Celtics with their 79-45 run in the following 29 minutes helped them gain a 91-70 advantage at 11:07.

At this moment, Dallas appeared to be facing another loss regardless of the Boston’s Kristaps Porzingis missing Game 3 and being at risk moving forward due to an unusual tendon injury to his left leg, which he suffered during Game 2.

As quickly as Boston had regained the game under its control, Dallas rediscovered itself. When Boston fell 1-for-11 and committing three turnovers during the next seven minutes, Dallas was able to pull within 93-92 thanks to an Irving layup with just 3:37 remaining despite being without Luka Doncic who had fouled out just a few minutes earlier. But things began to shift back towards Boston following the Brown putback of an Jayson Tatum missed shot which was then followed by Derrick White 3-pointer and a Tatum dunk, which pushed the Celtics their lead back to six points.

“Yeah, I think just we had some turnovers, which allowed them to get out in transition,” White stated. “And there were two things we’ve been doing very well, we let the rope go for however long it was. It was like, it was two minutes. they cut it down to three or so.

“It happened quick, and we just settled back down. Understand it’s a game of runs, and we just trust what we do.”

If it was the case in the past there could be a time when the Celtics took off the rope, allowing Dallas to take the lead out. However, Boston did not give up and improved to 7-0 at home in the playoffs. It’s 21-7 on road over the three playoff seasons — the highest winning percentage over the course of three seasons in NBA history which is a record that beats the 1991-93 Chicago Bulls.

The Celtics were able to do it with players from all over the. The backup center Xavier Tillman stepped into the rotation and put in 11 influential minutes, scoring 3 corners, grabbing 4 rebounds and registering 2 blocks, one of which was against Doncic. Sam Hauser went 3-for-4 from three-point range, and recorded a game-high plus-16 off of the bench after having gone 0-for-5 on Game 2.

And Tatum who was 6-for-22 in Game 2 scored 31 points, six rebounds and 5 assists. He and Brown put together 61 points. The Celtics are one victory of catching their rivals the Los Angeles Lakers for the all-time championships in the league.

However, after the Celtics were beaten by 3-0 during the Eastern Conference finals last year and had to force a game 7 with The Miami Heat, Boston recognizes that their work remains to be done.

“Honestly, not too difficult from the standpoint of last year [when] we were down 0-3 in the conference finals, and we really felt like we were going to come back,” Tatum declared. “We nearly did. It’s true that we were just a injured ankle just a few steps away from having an opportunity to win.

“So, you know, we are not relaxing or anything like that. You know, not even focusing on winning or Friday or whatever. However long it takes, that’s our motto. However long it takes, that’s what it’s going to take, and nobody is not trying to relax at all.”