The 2024 NBA Finals - From a Mavs fan

 Greetings, I am 15-year-old Garrett Zhou, a Durham Academy High School student. I enjoy studying, exercising, playing soccer, and maintaining discipline in general. My history with soccer is fairly straightforward: I began playing when I was 7 years old, and at the age of 12, I was chosen for the ECNL regional Carolinas team as the top player in the state. I was selected to travel with 20 players from my club, NCFC, to play against NY Red Bulls Academy, PDA Academy, and NYFC Academy that summer. I'm currently with the second-ranked NCFC 09 ECNL club.

I've never stated before that I am a Mavericks fan, but I am. I will give you my honest opinion on the NBA finals this year.

Firstly, if you don't know, here is some quick information about the NBA Finals. The NBA Finals are played every year by the winner of the Eastern Conference of the NBA playoffs and the winner of the Western Conference of the NBA playoffs. I won't dive too deep into that, but I will link some great articles if you want to learn more about that. This year in 2024, the 5-seed of the West the Dallas Mavericks won the Western Conference and the 1-seed of the East the Boston Celtics won the Eastern Conference. 

When you compare the two teams, it becomes very clear which team is more talented coming into the Finals. Boston's usual starting 5 are Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Kristaps Porzingis. Dallas has a usual starting 5 of Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic, Derrick Jones Jr, PJ Washington, and Daniel Gafford. Every one of Boston's starters is an elite defender, not to mention good scorers, and calling Derrick White and Jrue Holiday 'role players' is just a disservice. In the regular season, White averaged 15.2 points, 4.1 rebounds, 4.4 assists, and 1.3 blocks per game while shooting 46% from the field. Meanwhile, Derrick Jones Jr averaged 9.3 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists, and 1 block per game while shooting 48% from the field. Pretty big difference, right? Boston's 'role players' are just so much better than the Mavericks. 

Even if in my opinion Luka Doncic is the best offensive player in the league, the lack of many scorers on the Mavericks team is such a big hurdle to overcome. Kyrie has also been brilliant offensively, but neither of them are elite defenders, while Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are both good perimeter defenders. Sometimes, I'll see the Mavs playing 4-on-5 while Luka is arguing with the ref, which sometimes is frustrating to see. 

Game 1 at Boston: Frustrating to watch, we simply got outplayed by everyone on the Celtics. Kyrie didn't show up, and decidedly it was a deserved 107 - 89 win for the Celtics. It was a good scoring night for the Celtics overall, with 6 players in double digits and each of those 6 players having at least 5 assists or rebounds.

Game 2 at Boston: Huge-blown opportunity. Boston was not shooting well today, and we had the chance to be able to snatch a win. Luka had a 32-point triple-double, but when the Mavs' second top scorer isn't Kyrie, but PJ Washington, you were in for a rough night. Jrue Holiday had a huge 26 points for the Celtics, and although it was close, it was the game we should have won.

Game 3 at Dallas: I'll be the first to admit Luka had some fault in this game. Fouling out in the fourth quarter when the comeback was going strong was a huge blow, as the Mavs are -12 without Luka on the court. He wasn't efficient overall, going 1/7 from 3 and playing some abysmal defense. Elsewhere, Jaylen Brown continues his quest for Finals MVP and gets 30 in a huge performance. Tatum has a game that goes under the radar; he had 31. The only positive from this game was Kyrie's performance. 

Game 4: Huge morale booster. Blowing out the Celtics in front of our home fans was huge, and Joe Mazzula pulling out all his starters with 3:18 left in the third quarter was great. Luka played better defense, and although his 3-pointers didn't want to go in, he was cooking in the paint and had 29 points in less than 3 quarters. Kyrie also had a good game with 21, but shout-out to D-Live. Youngest player ever to have a double-double in an NBA Finals game. Overall, huge win.

Game 5: Expected, almost. I knew Boston was better than the Mavs, and they played like it during this game. Luka had a slow start and heated up towards the end of the game, but by then it was too late. Kyrie again had a poor performance, with only 15. Josh Green with an eye-opening performance, but it was never enough. Congratulations to the Boston Celtics for winning the 2024 NBA Finals, becoming the winningest team of all time with 18 chips, and congrats to Jaylen Brown for winning the Bill Russell Finals MVP. Deserved, and we come back stronger next season. Go Mavs.

As always, thanks for reading, and have a great day!