Oddsmakers have been in love with this version of the Boston Celtics all season, never having them higher than +400.
The Dallas Mavericks are a different story, having been +4500 in February, when they were 29-23 and in eighth place in the West.
February was also the month when Mavs general manager Nico Harrison pulled the trigger on moves that brought in P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, from which point the team, now more athletic and a better shooting squad, went 22-9.
And there was that move last year that was even more significant.
"Kyrie Irving’s NBA career was in a tailspin in February 2023 and it was time for him to leave the Brooklyn Nets in hopes of a fresh start. Among NBA teams, there was one place that offered an intriguing comfort zone: the Dallas Mavericks, with a pair of familiar faces, coach Jason Kidd and general manager Nico Harrison,” said Andscape.com.
"Now more than a year after the blockbuster trade, the cloud that hovered over the eight-time NBA All-Star upon his arrival in Dallas is gone, and the focus now is back on winning in the postseason and showcasing his basketball wizardry."
Can a GM be team MVP?
By the way, the Mavericks this week signed Harrison to a multiyear extension. Previous Mavs governor Mark Cuban also deserves credit for hiring Harrison away from Nike. The draft night trade with Atlanta that brought Luka Doncic to Dallas pre-dates the tenure of Harrison.
Harrison was also the guy who put an end to the Kristaps Porzingis experiment, sending the seven-footer to Washington for not much, but at the same time getting out from under his contract. The GM didn’t opt to take a shot at Porzingis on his way out by contrasting him with, say, Cal Ripken Jr, but you could almost hear Bill Belichik saying the best ability is availability.
Anyway, Harrison found much better ways to spend that money, and Mavericks fans should feel warmly toward the big Latvian.
On the other hand, Kyrie’s likely welcome in Boston can probably be summed up in one word: antipathy.
Going back on his announcement to fans that he would re-sign with the Celtics, giving fans the finger, stomping on the team logo when he returned as a Net, and accusing fans of acting like “a scorned girlfriend,” – these things do not lead to fond remembrances.
Of course, that stuff happened while Irving seemed to be a bit wacko, and he seems to have either matured or changed meds.
But they don’t like him in Boston. At all.
The Mavericks had a harder road to the Finals than Boston, needing six games to eliminate the Clippers and Thunder in the first two rounds, then had a shockingly easy time with the Timberwolves in the conference championship, winning in five.
The appearance in the NBA Finals is the first since 2011, when their title run was the franchise’s first in its 31-year history, and when current coach Jason Kidd was the point guard.
In the fall of 2010, Dallas opened the season at +2500 and started the playoffs at +1200.
So, that group was more highly regarded than this edition as play began, but what the two have in common is their best player being a European, not so shocking now, with five teams having a non-American as their best player, but definitely unusual at that time (Shaq spent some childhood and high school years in Germany as the adopted son of a U.S. army sergeant, but was born in New Jersey).
Dirk Nowitzki’s Wikipedia page says he is “considered by many to be the greatest European player of all time,” but the editor of that page may want to read up on Nikola Jokic.
Dirk was great, though, 12 times all-NBA, and he retired as the league’s sixth all-time leading scorer.
Like Luka, Nowitzki didn’t really look like the player he actually was, a seven-footer who rained threes all over the place and who had an unstoppable one-footed fadeaway. Doncic, of course, looks like the greatest athlete ever who eats a lot of onion rings.
Also like this year’s Mavericks, the 2011 finalists were going up against a formidable trio in Miami’s LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. You could make the argument that the Heat were a bit top-heavy, while Dallas had more depth.
Oddsmakers liked the star power of Miami, making them -175 while the Mavs were +155.
The Mavericks' playoff run began with a six-game first round victory over Portland, followed by a sweep of the two-time defending champion Lakers (it must have been fun to share the locker room with the uber intense Kobe Bryant after a sweep). In the Western finals, the Mavericks made fourth-quarter comebacks in each of the last three games to win their second conference championship.
In Game 4, the Thunder led by 15 with five minutes to go.
"In those last few minutes, there was one key factor that no Thunder player or fan could anticipate: the otherworldly inspired play of Dallas’s Dirk Nowitzki,” reported the Christian Science Monitor. “Hitting for 40 points, Nowitzki entered rarified air in NBA lore with a shooting performance that television commentator Magic Johnson said reminded him of Michael Jordan in his prime; high praise, and by no means an exaggeration.
In the Finals, Miami was up one game to none and leading game two by 12 with 7:14 to go when Dwayne Wade hit a corner three. To Wade, that seemed like the time to strike a pose in front of the Dallas bench to rub it in a bit. To Dallas, it seemed like a good time to respond with a 22-5 run, capped by a game-winning layup by Nowitzki.
The biggest comeback in NBA Finals history evened the series and the Mavericks went on to defeat the Heat in six games. The first NBA championship in franchise history was also the last Dallas playoff series win until 2022.
