The Pulse: Why the Celtics-Mavs Finals are personal (2024)

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Good morning! Don’t double-team Luka Dončić today.

Legacies: The deep history of these NBA Finals

This is the point in the playoffs where we talk about journeys. No matter who wins these NBA Finals, both the Mavericks and Celtics have been through much. They’ve both played nearly 100 games, for one thing.

Both sit on the precipice of NBA history. And while the stories of their seasons were rich, I can’t help but focus on two players — the Mavericks’ Kyrie Irving and the Celtics’ Kristaps Porziņģis — and how their own histories play into this series. You wouldn’t usually expect teams from Dallas and Boston to be this entwined already:

Six years ago, Irving was supposedly the future of the Celtics franchise. He’d leave on bad terms. But before that was Boston’s 2017-18 playoff run, when Irving was not loathed — just injured. Two of his young teammates, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, led Boston on a shocking run to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals, where they nearly toppled prime LeBron James. Now, following a run to the 2022 NBA Finals and multiple conference finals appearances, the vision sparked by those former teammates of Irving’s is almost realized.
Five years ago, Porziņģis was supposed to be for Dallas’ Luka Dončić what Irving is now: a potent running mate. Instead, their styles clashed on the court, with Porziņģis becoming a liability on the offensive and defensive ends. He left Dallas in 2022 at a crossroads. The game demanded he adapt or get left behind. In Washington, he lost plenty of games but found a new ethos, as Jay King wrote in April. Now back from injury, his offensive playmaking could be Boston’s difference against Dončić’s Mavs. Juicy.

As for what is actually going to happen on the court, I asked our Mavs and Celtics writers, Tim Cato and Jared Weiss, what they think the one linchpin of this series is.

Here’s Tim:

“Boston doesn’t like to double team its opponents, but Dončić might force them into it. As good as these perimeter defenders are for Boston, he’ll figure out which ones he wants to attack — and how — and it’ll lead to buckets. If he can get Boston second-guessing its defensive identity, changing into unfamiliar defensive schemes because he’s so ruthless, that’s a path to Dallas winning this series.”

And here’s Jared:

“The linchpin for this series, fittingly, is Porziņģis. He has been the edge for Boston all season, the mammoth shooter who allows them to always create advantages on offense while taking them away on defense. The Mavs will try to expose him in space to score on the Celtics defense. So if he can avoid those pitfalls, he can take away Dallas’ ever-dangerous alley-oops and force Dončić and Irving to beat the Celtics on their own.”

I am so excited for this series.

News to Know

OFFICIAL RELEASE: The College Football Playoff has announced dates, kick times and broadcast information for the 2024-25 playoff, the first year of the expanded 12-team format.
See Also
Mavericks 124-103 Timberwolves (May 30, 2024) Game Recap - ESPN
Read more » https://t.co/Ysq0kR5NfA #CFBPlayoff 🏈🏆 pic.twitter.com/Lk6EqE37MM
— College Football Playoff (@CFBPlayoff) June 5, 2024

The 12-team playoff is really here
There is something so tactile about seeing the new 12-team College Football Playoff schedule laid out neatly. This is quite real now, and instead of a two-week, three-game gambit, we are getting 11 games in a month’s time, a stretch that also includes the NFL playoffs. I hope your family members will understand your priorities come December. See our full report on the schedule here.

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Sky harassed outside hotel
Multiple Chicago Sky players reported the team was harassed outside its Washington D.C. hotel upon arrival last night. The Chicago Sun-Times reported a man targeted Chennedy Carter, whose hard foul on Caitlin Clark over the weekend sparked widespread outrage. See our full report on the troubling incident here. (Earlier in the day, the league rescinded one of two technical fouls called on Sky forward Angel Reese on Tuesday.)

More news

Kyrie and LeBron James really miss each other, by the way.
Colts center Ryan Kelly challenged NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to put on a helmet and “come talk to me” about an 18-game season.
Premier League clubs are expected to reject a proposal that would abolish VAR. Replays for everyone.
Could Conor McGregor’s long-awaited return to the UFC be in peril? The organization has stayed mum as doubts grow about UFC 303.

Tee Time: A 15-year-old in a PGA Tour event?

We have two golf items, one timely and one lookahead. Quickly, with the help of golf writer Brody Miller:

1. I’m intrigued by this Justin Thomas redemption arc we’ve seen since the Masters. Can he win this weekend at the Memorial?
Brody: The hardest thing about tracking Thomas’ arc is: It’s changing every few weeks. His disastrous 2023 (not even making the FedEx Cup playoff!) was primarily about having a career-worst year from tee to green. Then, he had a great September-February before his putting fell off a cliff, as he missed three cuts in five tournaments. But all week at the PGA Championship, he kept repeating that his game feels really good. Credit to him going T-5, T-21 and T-8 at big-boy events since Augusta. He’s definitely in the mix at the Memorial, where driving the ball well and accurately is everything. It’s a big test for where he really stands.

2. It was announced yesterday that 15-year-old Miles Russell will play at the PGA Tour’s Rocket Mortgage Classic. What’s the scoop on this kid?
Brody: The weird thing about golf is you’re always hearing in the background about the “next big thing.” Sometimes they’re true, sometimes not. But lately, they’re all breaking through. Ludvig Åberg went from college star to top-10 player in months. Nick Dunlap went from top junior to winning a PGA Tour event as an amateur. And now there’s Russell, who at 15 was already getting whispered about as this incredible lefty racking up junior wins. But then he played a Korn Ferry Tour (basically pro golf’s second tier) in April and finished T-20, making him the youngest player to finish inside the top 25 in a PGA Tour or Korn Ferry event. Once again, the “next big thing” went from the background to possibly the real deal.

Watch This Game

NBA: Mavericks at Celtics
8:30 p.m. ET on ABC
Just turn it on.

WCWS: Texas vs. Oklahoma
8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
If you need a basketball break, head here. Oklahoma can win their fourth straight national title after blistering their rivals 8-3 in Game 1 last night.

Get tickets to games like these here.

Pulse Picks

At the heart of this Mavericks run, though? General manager Nico Harrison’s gutsy belief in a Kyrie Irving trade. Sam Amick reports out a great story on the Harrison-Irving relationship, a pair of men few expected to be here.

Mike Jones issued one pressing question to each new NFL defensive play caller. Honestly a fascinating class of new guys there.

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Are the new NBA schedule and rules to blame for a slew of injuries for the league’s best players? Mike Vorkunov investigated.

MLB All-Star voting begins today. Jim Bowden has some early predictions on rosters.

Michael Salfino has an interesting look at why MLB fantasy owners need to add Jake Myers to their roster if he hasn’t been snapped up already.

The last days of Birmingham-Southern’s baseball program will become a documentary, as Kennington Smith III wrote. It’s hard to not love this team.

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: The video of Lily Yohannes’ debut goal for USWNT on Tuesday. So good.

Most-read on the website yesterday: David Ornstein’s story on James Maddison being left off England’s 2024 Euros squad. Surprising.

(Photo: Brian Fluharty / Getty Images)

Chris Branch is a staff writer for The Athletic's daily newsletter. Before joining The Athletic, he covered the Phillies for The News-Journal and worked as a content strategist for various industries. He graduated from LSU, where he worked for The Daily Reveille. Follow Chris on Twitter @cbranch89