BOSTON — Jrue Holiday led the scoring. Derrick White added a chase-down block. Jaylen Brown and Jayston Tatum pitched in, too, with their passing and defense.
The Dallas Mavericks can stop worrying about who the best player on the other team is. Everyone is contributing to the Boston Celtics’ quest for an unprecedented 18th NBA championship.
Holiday had 26 points and 11 rebounds, and White sprinted down the court to swat away the Mavericks’ last chance on Sunday night as Boston beat Dallas 105-98 to take a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals.
Tatum made up for a rough shooting night with 12 assists and nine rebounds to go with his 18 points. Brown scored 21 with three steals, White had 18 points and three steals, and Payton Pritchard’s only basket of the game was a banked half-courter to beat the third-quarter buzzer and give Boston an 83-74 lead entering the final period.
“That’s why they are the No. 1 team in the NBA with the No. 1 record,” said Mavericks guard Luka Doncic, who scored 32 points with 11 rebounds and 11 assists — the first NBA Finals triple-double in franchise history. “They have a lot of great players. Basically, anybody can get off.”
Doncic, who was listed as questionable to play less than two hours before the opening tipoff, had the 10th playoff triple-double of his career. But he scored only three points in the fourth quarter, converting a three-point play with 1:15 left as Dallas scored nine in a row to cut a 14-point deficit to 103-98.
After Derrick Jones Jr. blocked Tatum’s dunk attempt, White ran down the court, joining with Brown to block P.J. Washington’s potential dunk. Brown made a layup at the other end, and then Doncic missed a one-footed, running floater from 3-point range with 28 seconds left, ending the visitors’ last chance at a comeback.
“It’s not all on him. It’s a team,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said of Doncic, who had been battling chest, knee and ankle injuries. “He put us in a position. He was really good tonight. Unfortunately, we just couldn’t get over the hump. We’ve got to find someone to join Luka and (Dallas guard Kyrie Irving) in that scoring category.”
Games 3 and 4 of the best-of-seven series are Wednesday and Friday in Dallas; Boston has not lost on the road this postseason. It was the ninth time the Celtics have won the opening pair in the NBA Finals: They have won the previous eight, and have never been forced to a Game 7 in any of them.
A day after Kidd seemed to attempt to sow dissension in Boston’s locker room by calling Brown — not Tatum, an All-NBA first-teamer — the best player on the Celtics’ roster, Boston showed why it doesn’t matter. The two NBA All-Stars combined to shoot just 2-for-12 from 3-point range, but they filled up the box score in other ways.
“How they play together is sacred, and something that can’t be broken,” Holiday said. “I don’t prefer one or the other, I prefer both. Because they’re both superstars, and they’re showing it on the biggest stage in the world.”
Kristaps Porzingis limped his way to 12 points for Eastern Conference champ Boston, which has held home-court advantage throughout the playoffs after finishing the regular season with the best record. Tatum was 6-for-22 shooting and 1-of-7 from 3-point range; the Celtics were 10-for-39 from long distance overall.
“I’m really tired of hearing about one guy or this guy or that guy and everybody trying to make it out to be anything other than Celtic basketball,” Boston coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Everybody that stepped on that court today made winning plays on both ends of the floor.”
Unlike the Celtics’ 107-89 victory in Game 1, when they were 7-for-15 from 3-point range in the first quarter to sprint to a 17-point lead, they missed their first eight attempts from long range on Sunday. Dallas, which won the Western Conference title as a No. 5 seed, led the entire first quarter.
Tatum was scoreless in the quarter and had only five at halftime, when he was still 0-for-3 from 3-point range. Boston was still just 5-for-30 from long distance when Pritchard banked in his half-courter at the third-quarter buzzer.
That excited the crowd, which previously had spent most of its time serenading Irving with boos — and semivulgar chants. Before the game, the scoreboard showed Irving’s postgame quote from Game 1, where he said he thought the crowd would be louder.
The fans roared.
Irving, who scored 16 points, has lost 12 games in a row against the Celtics, one of his former teams.
“A little disappointed in myself not being able to convert a lot more of my opportunities in the lane,” he said. “My teammates look for me to convert a lot of shots and lessen the burden not only on Luka but the entire team.”