Welcome to the 2024 NBA Finals, featuring the season’s most dominant team against a title contender that remade itself at midseason.
The 64-win Boston Celtics, behind the most efficient offense in NBA history, have lost only twice during the playoffs and are led by the play of Jayson Tatum and Eastern Conference finals MVP Jaylen Brown.
The fifth-seeded Dallas Mavericks, meanwhile, solidified their claim as the biggest winner of the trade deadline. In February, the franchise added center Daniel Gafford and forward P.J. Washington, who have meshed perfectly with Dallas’ star duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving to create a giant killer in the Western Conference.
Will Boston capture its 18th championship and set an NBA record, or will Dallas lift the Larry O’Brien Trophy for the first time since 2011, when coach Jason Kidd, as a player, helped the Mavericks to their only title?
Our NBA insiders are setting the stage for the Finals — Game 1 tips off Thursday, June 6 at 8:30 p.m. ET (ABC) — including breakdowns of the biggest stars, most important matchups and each team’s keys to the series.
The Celtics won 64 games during the regular season, the most in the conference since the LeBron James-led Miami Heat in 2012-13, and that domination has carried over into the playoffs. Boston led the league in net rating by 4.4 points per 100 possessions in the regular season and through the first three rounds of the playoffs.
After battling through longer series in previous playoff runs, Boston went 12-2 through the East bracket this postseason, with just four of those games featuring clutch minutes (defined as the score being within five points in the final five minutes or overtime). And Boston dominated those too, including coming from behind to win three of the four games in its conference finals sweep of the Indiana Pacers.
