I promise that when I say this was an underwhelming post-season for The NBA, it’s not because I’m from Southern California. Prior to the start, I did my annual bracket predictions and worked everything out to the best of my predictions. No matter how I swung it, The Boston Celtics were coming out on top. This has been inevitable for so long that I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner. As much as they’re the one team that I willfully root against no matter the opponent, I couldn’t deny that they have one thing that the remaining league hasn’t in at least seven years: consistency.
Ever since the conference finals locked in four teams that weren’t The Denver Nuggets or The Miami Heat, everybody’s been talking about whether another dynasty could ever be achieved. Was the modern age doomed to parity, or would somebody break the curse? Much to my personal disappointment, The Milwaukee Bucks have failed twice now to perpetuate The Age of Giannis. Even watching a pre-season game involving The Nuggets, I finally understood what was so great about Nikola Jokic. There was a lot of hope for some redemptive arcs to be in play, and none of them came to fruition. Once again, this was going to be a narrative about the new generation.
When the audience last saw The Celtics in The Finals, they were going against The Golden State Warriors in a match-up that saw Boston lose 4-2. Ever since, they have been one of the only eastern conference teams to continually show up. Their regular season average for the 2023-24 season was an enviable high. Despite the continuity, they had long evaded the coveted trophy. Were they doomed to be the bridesmaids of Grade A teams?
To back up, nothing spoke of the changing tides quite like their 2022 Finals rivals. In a game that most are likely to want to forget, The Warriors failed to get past The Play-In Tournament against The Sacramento Kings. Along with a notorious regular season that saw a brief suspension of Draymond Green due to reckless on court behavior, star shooter Klay Thompson scored a tragic 0% of points in the entire game play. Even if Steph Curry remains one of the greatest athletes of his generation, The Warriors Dynasty has been speculated to be in its waning years. Given that regular Boston rivals The Los Angeles Lakers would also lose in the first round to The Nuggets, the west needed some fresh blood.
If there’s one opinion I have about basketball over the past three seasons, it’s that we’re in the midst of a generational shift. Whereas the giants of the game still matter, we’re looking at a moment when new faces will put their stamp on the league. Along with The Celtics, there were other teams like The Minnesota Timberwolves, The Indiana Pacers, and the west’s regular season number one The Oklahoma City Thunder that kept The Playoffs interesting. In one of the post-season’s greatest moments, The T-Wolves’ Game 7 win over The Nuggets created one of the most thrilling upsets of the year. Goodbye Joker, hello Anthony “Ant-Man” Edwards.
However, they were no match for the wrecking ball that was Luka Doncic. Much like The Celtics, The Dallas Mavericks came up short in 2022 and were in need of redemption. Controversially, they lost their 2022-23 season’s rankings in a failed attempt to curry favor with The Draft in order to acquire Victor Wembanyama. Ironically, they would play the team that got him (The San Antonio Spurs) in the season’s opening game. With that disaster out of the way, they would move onto just doing what they had the year before: dominating the game.
It was the second year since Dallas had traded for Kyrie Irving and were looking to perfect a duo that could take them further than ever before. Given that Doncic’s former teammate Kristaps Porzingis had been recently traded to The Celtics, it only brought home the idea that efforts to make a Mavericks for Doncic wasn’t an easy task. Even then, Irving brought a worthy adversary and the supporting line-up led them to into The Playoffs with one of the greatest underdog stories of the year. Not only was Doncic having a banner year, but his years of proven success was setting him up as Dallas’ most essential player since Dirk Nowitzki. Many (myself included) mention frustration at him not winning regular season MVP, if just for how many games he carried with ridiculous stat sheets. Given how the post-season went, it becomes especially damning to overlook his accomplishments.
To be honest, the eastern division of the post-season was abysmal this year. For as exciting as it was to see teams like The Pacers achieve a rarified air, it was also an era where it felt like everybody fell victim to injuries. The usually reliable Miami Heat missed The Playoffs because of Jimmy Butler’s injury. The Bucks missed the cut because of Giannis Antetokounmpo bowing out. So many teams face-planted before too long and made once exciting season into the most once-sided runs in history. This is something that happens every year and is the most enjoyably tragic element of basketball. If anything, it made everything an endurance test that also proved how random the idea of fate could truly be.
And then there’s Doncic. In the grand scheme of things, his name should’ve been mentioned alongside Butler and Antetokounmpo in terms of injured players who cut the post-season short. There should’ve been a great “What if?” in the first or second round that fans lived with, bitterly, for years. Doncic’s injuries were one of the NBA’s worst kept secrets. He was receiving injections and wearing ice packs. He did everything to not let his body fall apart on him. If anything, the off-season is going to be a scary time because we’re one update away from hearing that his body caught up with him… especially as he may potentially join The Olympics basketball team for Slovenia.
Overall, Doncic’s day-to-day health was a gift and a curse to The Mavericks. Even with Irving’s noble efforts, the team wouldn’t have gotten as far as they would’ve without him. This first started in the first round against The Los Angeles Clippers. As a fan of the “L.A. our way” team, I had bought into the narrative that this was the year. Maybe it was because The Clippers were transitioning to The Intuit Dome for the 2024-25 season or that they had acquired James Harden midway through the season and was getting results. More than that, the whispering suggested that this was a “make it or break it” season that could find the Paul George-Kawhi Leonard era coming to an end with nothing more than one western conference finals appearance to show for it. I may not like the modern Lakers team and their consistent line-up changes, but to their credit they’ve gotten results.
So in my mind, I saw The Mavericks vs. The Clippers as a 1 against 4 match-up. Los Angeles would just keep switching out stars while Dallas had no choice but to tire out their golden calf. That was my theory anyway. Given that I’ve already written about it, I won’t bore you with how nerve-racking the experience of watching them fall apart was. I will mention that while I like the guy, people calling Leonard our star player upsets me because he’s only played THREE post-season games in two years. That doesn’t even win you one year, let alone one round. Much like what I saw Harden do for The Brooklyn Nets and The Philadelphia 76ers, his record was spotty at best. Even the reliability of Paul George, Russell Westbrook, and Ivica Zubac were eventually stripped by Dallas finding weak points.
I’ll give Dallas credit for having more going on than I’d have expected. They had P.J. Washington out there like a sniper waiting for a three. Irving had some excellent nights. Whatever they were doing was working and would for the next two rounds. Whereas they’d lose the first game with a noticeable deficit, they retooled themselves and assaulted their opponents like a bulldozer.
Making this all the more bizarre was how Doncic did it following the first of many injuries. Some optimism formed when it was revealed that he had injured his leg midway through The Clippers series. However, he kept pushing himself into the next game. Maybe he hobbled more, but he was still one of the best players on the court. It’s a pattern that held up against The Thunder and T-Wolves.
In every game, I kept watching wondering where the “break” would be. I’m not necessarily suggesting that he had permanent damage, but there had to be a point where his body gave out and left the team in shambles. Flashbacks to The Warriors playing The Toronto Raptors ran through my mind. I can still see Kevin Durant falling like a mighty status. There’s Klay Thompson hobbling to the sidelines. They had put up a good fight to get there, but it wasn’t enough. In both cases, they would be out for a whole season. Given how Doncic was exerting even more energy, there had to be a moment where it all just… happened.
Again, I don’t want to discredit The Mavericks’ supporting players. However, it’s easy to believe that the absence of Doncic would’ve meant immediate expulsion. If he was even out for two weeks, it would cost them the series. More than the games themselves, gawking at Doncic’s audacity became the most entertaining part of the game. It was a legend in the making to see how far one man would push his body for success.
While the “break” never actually happened, it could be seen in his face. He was often flushed or huffing in the fourth quarters. Given that he lead the post-season in many stats, it spoke to how active he was on the court. There was no rest.
Fate finally settled in during The Finals. To return to The Celtics, they had entered on a winning streak that many hypothesized would finish with non-stop wins. In fact, many could reasonably suggest that the only reason they threw a game was so they could finish the series in Boston amid an adoring crowd. There was no stopping them. Even the Finals MVP race was suspenseful as pundits questioned whether it would be Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, or Jrue Holiday. Despite his initial absence in the rest of the series, the return of Porzingis lead many to reminisce on The Mavericks’ former duo and how fun it would be to watch them match-up.
Remember how I argued that The Mavericks would fall to The Clippers due to the 1 against 4 style? Well, The Celtics delivered on that promise with such ridiculous finesse. Sure, Doncic was so injured that it actively showed in the later games. It was impacting his shooting and there were points where his yelling over fouls threw him from the game. Everything had finally caught up to Doncic, and many criticized his handling of the stress.
It didn’t help that the world was essentially against him. As much as pundits liked to joke that everybody was against The Celtics, very little was argued in favor of The Mavericks either. Maybe in a series where Doncic was healthier this could’ve played out differently, but everything over the past few years had enshrined this as The Celtics’ moment.
Just looking at the past few years, Boston and Miami were the only teams to have any consistency of showing up in The Finals. Tatum especially had established himself as a powerhouse presence and the supporting squad had only gotten stronger. It felt like they had taken notes from The Warriors’ loss two years prior and filled in the gaps. While some could complain about the Marcus Smart trade, nobody could argue about the results. Porzingis was a secret weapon that made them at times unstoppable.
As much as I’d love to say anything redemptive about Doncic, the best that can be said is that he didn’t take the losses as personally as I assumed. He seemed calm and collected enough. He took blame for being fouled out of Game 3 and talked about trying to find an answer. Even then, it was inevitable. Before Game 5 started, there was a sense that everything was over. Doncic walked out on the court with a sense of exhaustion. Celtics fans, meanwhile, treated it like a coming out party given that not only was it the first Finals win in 16 years, but it was the exact same night.
As mentioned, this is one of the most boring, predictable post-seasons that I have watched in the recent era. It’s not because either team was necessarily bad, but more because this was a survival of fittest. Even with Doncic’s excellent stat sheet, he wasn’t exactly a model of perfect health. Not like The Celtics, anyway, who seemed to be barely phased by the post-season. With exception to Porzingis’ injuries and Derrick White losing his front teeth, they didn’t lose all that much along the way. If anything, they could dedicate their win to the recently deceased Bill Walton, whose name was featured on their jerseys.
At the end of the day, I think the reason it was boring was because of how inevitable it was even from the conference finals. Dallas wasn’t exactly coming in guns blazing. Meanwhile, Minnesota might’ve stood a better chance but was too full of young upstarts. Maybe Denver could’ve stood a chance, but as their loss showed, it’s all about the luck of the draw. The variables were in favor of The Mavericks this time around. It was a miracle that anything meaningful happened in The Finals, but that speaks to how much Doncic has to prove.
Meanwhile, The Celtics have a lot to be proud of. This is one of those teams that feels like they have staying power. They’ve had it for a long time now. The question is whether they’ll be the first team since, ahem, The Warriors, to have a repeat win. Unless poor circumstances happen, I’m regretfully saying it’s possible. I’d like to think The Nuggets play them next year and have a more fruitful outcome. Even then, the narrative of Doncic needing to prove himself has reached the next level. What he did this season was insane and I have to believe he’s only going to get better from here. Hopefully he won’t be as banged up this time.
So yes, The Celtics have the unique honor of being the most decorated team in The NBA. With 18 wins, they barely eek out The Lakers for that honor. The rivalry is alive and well. With that said, I am so down on The Lakers right now that I struggle to believe they have an immediate response in them. As much as it sucks to think that Boston will finally pull ahead with a few wins, it’s just where the game is at right now.
So while I say that this is the most boring post-season that I’ve witnessed in recent years, it still produced enough interesting narratives that will fuel the next few years. Are The Celtics going to be the new dynasty? I think so. It’s been assumed for awhile now. With that said, I want to believe that there’s a redemptive arc by somebody next year to make The Finals more thrilling. For as much as this was a dud year, I have to believe it’s the middle chapter of something greater. It will be more enjoyable in hindsight, the stuff of legend when the bigger picture is fully seen. With all that said, nothing is more exciting right now than seeing how soon until Doncic takes it easy. Like The Celtics, he seems unstoppable right now.
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