If the conversation around Luka Doncic’s flaws was starting to feel reductive, it’s because the deeper you go into the postseason, the more the old adage applies: A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
For three games, the Boston Celtics identified Doncic as that link and targeted him mercilessly on defense, earning a commanding 3-0 series lead that put Doncic’s plodding lateral movement under the postseason microscope. The viewers’ scrutiny, especially as Doncic nursed multiple injuries and made up for his teammates’ lack of production, might have seemed unfair. But victory on the NBA’s biggest stage requires perpetual refinement. Before the media can get a word in, the opposing team’s scouting report reduces great players to their most glaring flaws, forcing them to respond. That’s what Doncic did in Game 4, embracing the parts of the game that have given him trouble, keeping his cool when refs blew the whistle against him, moving his feet to prevent paint penetration, and playing faster on offense. Doncic isn’t the only Maverick learning from the unforgiving but illuminating test of the NBA Finals. “These are a lot of lessons, not just for Luka,” Jason Kidd said before Game 4. “A lot of my guys are learning.” The question, as Boston works to craft a response in Game 5, is whether the Dallas Mavericks learned too late.
If any team were to overcome an 0-3 deficit, it would probably be one like the Mavericks—a young, maturing squad that features a young, maturing superstar, likes to get off a ton of 3-pointers, and is facing off against a team that also likes to get off a ton of 3-pointers and that hasn’t exactly been known for maintaining big leads. Still, even without a miracle, the rest of the series feels like a testing ground for the Mavericks. They are suspended in this strange, liminal space, having learned the lessons that come with losing before the opponent doles out the inevitable, final, fatal blow. It happens: Sometimes, by the time you know better, you’re not in a position to do better. For Doncic, who entered the league as a young prodigy, the Celtics are a great lesson in the merits of consistently doing the boring stuff.
Doncic’s small adjustment created a huge ripple effect, discombobulating the Celtics offense, which struggled to create alternative paths to the rim once he shut the water off. Despite hitting 14 3s (its playoff average is 14.6), Boston’s 87.5 offensive rating in Game 4 is the worst mark it’s posted in the regular season or playoffs since losing Game 2 of the 2022 NBA Finals over two years ago. Take this representative stretch, after Joe Mazzulla called a timeout early in the second quarter and implored his team to create confusion and make the extra pass. “It’s just one advantage,” he told them. “We need multiple advantages.” In Boston’s first play out of the timeout, it took Jaylen Brown two screens and 16 seconds of the shot clock to get matched up with Doncic, who bodied him up on the drive and forced a kickout to Payton Pritchard, who missed a contested 3.
A few minutes later, Doncic forced Brown to reset and use Jrue Holiday as a late-clock release valve:
After Brown clanked a 3 and Derrick White followed it up with an early-clock air ball, the timeout-reticent Mazzulla called another one, only for the Celtics to once again burn 16 seconds creating a fruitless mismatch. This time, it was Jayson Tatum, who lowered his shoulder in Kyrie Irving’s chest and got called for an offensive foul—the ultimate tell that an offensive bag is being put under too much stress and a player is trying to create space that isn’t there to be taken. Even when Tatum did get by Doncic, as he would on the next possession, the Mavericks’ help was better; Doncic executed the kind of rotational switch, contesting White on the 3, that Dallas’s perimeter defenders as a whole had struggled with earlier in the series.
The Mavs, by and large, were sharper and more communicative in Game 4. Kidd, coaching a team that made two deadline deals for two starters, also figured out the right nine guys to play—and how long to play them. Dereck Lively II, who checked in quickly for Daniel Gafford, has grabbed 25 rebounds in the past two games, leveraging his size against the Celtics, who are still playing without Kristaps Porzingis. Boston, which emphasizes offensive rebounding to counterbalance the volatility of its 3-point shooting, grabbed only four offensive rebounds, a postseason low. Maxi Kleber looked healthy and played more minutes than Gafford, P.J. Washington, and Derrick Jones Jr. Dante Exum replaced Jaden Hardy and Tim Hardaway Jr. until garbage time. Irving, who must now figure out how to overcome the specter of the Boston crowd, scored 56 points on 50 percent shooting in his two games in Dallas.
But it was Doncic who set the tone, and it’s Doncic who gives Dallas a reason to think that it’s a match against history. By halftime, it was Tatum who was jawing with the refs, and it is Tatum who will have to find more creative ways to create high-leverage opportunities for himself and his teammates.
Tatum—another budding superstar who knows what it’s like to be analyzed for what he can’t do—is a fascinating, useful foil for Doncic, who just got his first Finals victory not by dropping a 50-point triple-double or throwing 18 pinpoint lobs or nailing stepback 3 after stepback 3. Rather, Doncic did it by internalizing the lessons that losing has already taught Tatum, like the importance of defense and the fact that losing your composure can lose you a series. Doncic didn’t hit a single 3, and he created alley-oops not through methodical half-court manipulation but by getting stops, boxing out, and pushing the ball. Against competition like the Celtics, Doncic needed to embrace the boring stuff before he could tap into Luka Magic. Styles make fights, but styles often coalesce when they collide. Great battles leave a piece of the opponent inside you. Boston, over the course of four games, has forced Dallas to become more detail oriented, physical, and defense minded. Can the Celtics, in turn, close the Finals out by refining their offense, borrowing a trick or two from Doncic’s bottomless bag?
