NBA Conference Finals – Mid Series Update
Out west, the series does indeed seem over after just 3 games. Last night, Golden State beat Dallas in Dallas to stake a 3-0 lead in the series. While it’s not impossible for the Mavs to climb back into this, no team in NBA history has come back from 0-3. So, it’s not likely.
What happened? Well the Mavs fell back to earth and became the Mavs again and Golden State just continued on being Golden State. It was perhaps too much to hope for that Luka Doncic and the Mavs could continue playing at the level they did against the Suns. Sooner or later those shooting percentages had to fall back and regress to the mean.
Last night the Mavs shot just 40% from the field and only 28% from 3. No way that kind of a performance in a game 3 when you’re already down 0-2 is good enough. Especially against the Warriors who are hyper focused on getting back to the Finals. It’s where they believe they belong. Sure, Steph is older and Klay isn’t exactly Klay. Draymond is more brittle and there is no Kevin Durant to bail them out but there is an energized Andrew Wiggins capable of both scoring and defending. In fact through the first 3 games Wiggins has the highest plus/minus of any player on either team. So it isn’t likely now that Golden State will faulter. However, if Doncic and his crew can pull off that which has not previously been pulled off, it would certainly add to his growing legacy.
Back East we still have a series. After 3 games, the Miami Heat are leading the Boston Celtics 2-1. As with every 7 game series, each game becomes more critical. Going into tonight’s game 4 in Boston, the Celtics understand that they can’t afford to go down another game to the Heat. Jimmy Butler has been as good a superstar as we’ve had this year in the playoffs, doing everything his team needs to keep winning games. Never flashy, Butler’s workmanlike approach just keeps finding ways to get points and at the other ends stops when they are needed. He will get a big boost tonight as well when Kyle Lowry comes back from injury.
The Celtics know they need this game tonight. And they know they have to stay healthy. Both Jayson Tatum and Marcus Smart spend significant time on the floor in game 3 and a couple of times it looked like they would be lost for at least the game if not the series and season. But this is what the Celtics have done all season – fight back against adversity to find new ways to persevere and win. Several times this year the Celtics looked like they were down and out for the count but somehow, they kept finding ways to fight back and win. Don’t count them out of this series yet.
We’re going to have 2 extraordinary teams for the finals.