DALLAS — It’s over. That’s what the numbers say.
There will be a record-setting 18th championship for the Boston Celtics to celebrate soon, maybe very soon. They have a 3-0 lead in the NBA Finals, an advantage that has never been wasted in any NBA playoff series.
On this, the stats are absolute.
The Celtics, to their credit, are taking nothing for granted in this best-of-seven matchup.
On perhaps the next-to-last day of the NBA’s 78th season, the Celtics — who could finish off the Dallas Mavericks in Game 4 on Friday night — were desperately trying to keep things as close to business as usual as could be expected, given that the team’s first title in 16 years is now just one win away.
“At the end of the day we’re the most vulnerable in this,” said Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla, who at age 35 could be the youngest coach to win an NBA title since Bill Russell won one as a player-coach for Boston in 1969.
“So we have to remain with a sense of urgency. We have to have an understanding of our environment. We have to know that we’re just as vulnerable as anybody else in this situation, and how we handle that will determine our fate.”
Mazzulla’s point on Thursday: Don’t let up. A team that has gone 79-20 in its first 99 games of the season — on pace for the second-best single-season record in Celtics history — would likely be wise to keep doing what’s worked since the beginning.
“Either you survive or you don’t,” said Celtics forward Jaylen Brown, repeating something Mazzulla told the team earlier Thursday. “That resonates with me.”
It might seem puzzling that it’s the Celtics who are talking about survival and vulnerability when it’s the Mavericks who are backed into the corner no NBA team has ever escaped.
They’re also 0-5 against Boston this season. They’ve been outscored nearly 2-to-1 from 3-point range in this series. They let a 13-point lead turn into a 21-point deficit on their home floor in Game 3, a 106-99 victory for Boston. It’s hard to find the proverbial silver lining right now, though the Mavericks insisted they still have hope.
“We’re not in the offseason yet,” star guard Luka Doncic said. “They’ve still got to win one more game. Like I said, we’re going to believe until the end.”
There were no concession speeches from Dallas coaches or players on Thursday, no outward signs of surrender whatsoever. There was an understanding of how tall this mountain is to climb, though, and how nobody in the NBA has managed to scale it at any point of any postseason.
Boston came close last year, rallying from a three-game deficit to force a Game 7 at home against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference title series, only to lose. And that came after the Celtics lost the 2022 NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors, that series ending in Boston as well.
Those were learning experiences for the Celtics. This series will be one for the Mavericks, a franchise making its third appearance in the NBA Finals.
“When you look at the Celtics, they lose to the Warriors two years ago. They lose to Miami in Game 7 (in 2023). So it’s just experience of understanding that you’re not promised to get back, that you’ve got to work,” said Mavericks coach Jason Kidd, who played for the Dallas team that won it all in 2011 (five years after losing the title series).
“You see the group that is out there today,” Kidd added. “They know how to play. They’re a really good team.”
By late Friday night, they could be a championship team.
The only way for the Celtics to lose this series, obviously, is if they lose the next four games. Never mind the stat about how teams with 3-0 leads in a best-of-seven series are unbeatable: 156 teams have gone up by that count, those same 156 teams have eventually prevailed in those series.
Consider this one instead: The last time the Celtics lost four consecutive games in the same season was in May 2021, which was two coaching changes and a whole slew of roster turnover ago.
“I think from our experiences over the past couple of years, the thing that we’ve really gotten a lot better at is not relaxing, not being complacent. From game to game or series to series, we always want more,” Celtics forward Jayson Tatum said. “Maybe in recent years we took things for granted at some points or were happy to make it to certain rounds, where (now) we’re not satisfied. Even now up 3-0, nobody is celebrating or anything.
“We still feel like there’s a lot more that we can do. There’s a lot more that we want to do.”
There’s really only one thing left for this Boston bunch to do. One more win and banner 18 — which would break the tie with the Los Angeles Lakers for the most NBA championships — will finally be secured by the Celtics.
Mazzulla doesn’t care when it happens, just that it happens.
“There’s four rounds left in this fight,” he said. “And however long it takes, whatever it takes, we’ll see how it goes.”