Boston Celtics started the pursuit of a record 18th NBA title with a dominant win over Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals 2024.
The Celtics, who broke open a 29-point lead in the first half, cruised to a dominant 107-89 win over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night at TD Garden. The Celtics have now won eight straight games, and they’ve won every Game 1 they’ve played this postseason.
Luka Dončić and the Mavericks, on the other hand, are now playing from behind in the franchise’s first NBA Finals appearance since it won the championship with Dirk Nowitzki in 2011. The Mavs had won five straight road games entering Thursday night, too.
Jaylen Brown scored 22 points, while five of his team-mates also recorded double figures. The Celtics’ defensive display was just as good as Mavs appeared clueless except for star player Luka Doncic.
Doncic, who scored 30 points and 10 rebounds, helped his side to close the deficit to eight points in the third quarter but the home side pulled away again in the fourth quarter.
“When they cut it to eight, that’s when the game started,” said Brown.
“I liked how our team responded. We stayed composed. Offensively, we got to our spacing and was able to push that lead back out and make some plays.”
On a disappointing night for the Mavericks, the Texan side will be looking to take hope from their performance in the third quarter.
“I think in those moments we were playing our basketball,” said Doncic.
“We were getting stops. We didn’t allow them to offensive rebound. We were having fun out there in those moments, and that’s what we’ve got to do more.”
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Sherjeel Malik is the editor at FanHaat with a writing experience in multiple sports. He oversees the editorial and content coverage at FanHaat and writes often around combat sports, football and other marquee sports. A professional highlight of his career was when WWE’s Paul Heyman shared one of his articles on his social media.
Apart from writing, editing and watching sports, he likes to indulge in reading fiction, watching war documentaries and is a fan of Liverpool FC
