Porzingis sets the tone as Celtics limit Doncic in stunning NBA finals opener

“JDo you want Boston?’ asked the mock disbeliever hype video voiced by the co-owner of Birmingham City FC, who had a decent career in the other kind of football. “Take it from me,” Tom Brady warned. “That’s a bad idea.”

Hard to disagree after the first game of the best-of-seven NBA Finals. The Boston Celtics crushed the Dallas Mavericks 107-89, though the occasion was essentially a tale of the unwanted.

Booed by New York Knicks fans when the team drafted him with the fourth overall pick in 2015, Kristaps Porziņģis suffered a torn ACL in 2018 and was traded to the Mavericks the following year, where he was again dogged by injury and struggled in the shadows by Luka Dončic. The 7ft 2in Lets was sent to the woeful Washington Wizards in 2022 and to the Celtics last year.

Misfortune struck again when he suffered a calf injury against the Miami Heat on April 29, and Boston barely seemed to notice the 28-year-old’s absence, losing only one of its next ten games. On Thursday, though, he stood out in his comeback at the TD Garden, coming off the bench and serving as the catalyst for a first quarter that set the tone for much of the evening.

Porziņģis scored 18 points in his first 13 minutes as Boston raced to a 17-point lead after the first quarter through deadly shooting from distance, extending their lead to 21 points at halftime. In total, Porziņģis contributed 20 points, second among the Celtics behind Jaylen Brown, with 22. “Man, I’m glad he’s back,” his teammate, Jayson Tatum, said afterward on ESPN/ABC.

“Fighting for a spot on the offensive end, being physical, playing on both ends of the floor, I thought he played great,” Boston head coach Joe Mazzulla said.

“I was so caught up in the moment, the crowd, even from the moment I walked out to warm up I got goosebumps,” Porziņģis told ESPN. “Everything clicked,” he said, adding that he is not yet fully fit. “A month and a half without playing, it’s hard to jump and be in the same condition as if you were playing all these rounds and all these games. I still come there.”

The Celtics ran the most efficient offense in the regular season in the history of the league, with 122.2 points per hundred possessions, and were the best team, with 64 wins. They have continued that form into the postseason and have now won eight straight. There was some logic behind their victory on Thursday, an assertion of the natural order against a Dallas unit that had a dull 34-28 record as recently as March. Boston tore apart their intimidated and confused opponents with an intensity that bordered on fanaticism.

A 29-point Boston lead was cut to eight in the third quarter as Luka Dončić almost single-handedly sparked a comeback, but the Celtics shuddered only fleetingly and Brown stepped up and stood high at both ends of the court. “We have to take away those threes, that’s what hurt us the most,” Dončić told reporters.

All in all, this was a stunning opening act worthy of the operatic scope of these NBA playoffs – operatic in that they are full of drama, very loud and seem to last forever. The play-in tournament began on April 16 and the finals will conclude sometime between June 14 and 23 as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver valiantly tries to do his part to help humanity and reverse our situation. shrinking attention span.

While fixed dates make logistical sense and the healing Porziņģis was grateful for the break, the modern news cycle is rushed and volatile. Dallas hadn’t played in a week, while Boston’s previous game was May 27, so long ago that the likely next leader of the free world wasn’t yet a convicted felon.

The effect of waiting for the ratings may matter more than ever: it did reported This week, the NBA announced it is close to agreeing on a new broadcast rights deal worth as much as $76 billion over 11 years, although Silver objected to that at a pre-game news conference. “To a certain extent you try to predict the future, which is of course impossible,” he said.

Even if some details remain to be negotiated, it seems safe to predict that any future in which media companies agree to more than double their existing spend is a future in which viewers can expect more brazen commercialism. If Terrible announcement notedThere were so many ads at halftime that the five-person ESPN/ABC crew had less than two minutes to analyze the action. Somewhere, a TV executive is wondering if it’s time to ditch the in-game tactics interviews with players and coaches so the stars can spend even more time buying junk food and insurance.

Even in America’s most progressive Major League, uncomfortable political truths are unlikely to get much attention now that Mark Cuban has sold a controlling stake in the Mavericks to a Trumpist billionaire.

The new owner, Miriam Adelson, a Las Vegas casino magnate who reportedly… gave more than $218 million to right-wing causes with her late husband in the 2020 cycle, is Said to be the main backer of a pro-Donald Trump group looking to raise more than $100 million this year. That is enough to pay Dončić’s salary for more than two years, which would be a less controversial use of the money. The family behind The Venetian hopes to put a new arena in the center of a Texas casino resort; The Slovenian has a certain sound.

There is certainly no bigger celebrity in Dallas right now, and perhaps no player more admired and feared across the NBA than Dončić. The Ljubljana-born 25-year-old led the league during the regular season with an average of 33.9 points per game and entered the finals as the playoff leader in total points, rebounds, assists and whining to officials. This increased his average to 28.7 points over six regular seasons, a career mark behind only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain (both 30.1).

Stopping a player as round as Dončić? Mazzulla admitted in the build-up that damage control is the only viable approach. Despite the result, and although he appeared to be struggling with a lingering knee injury, Dončić still scored a game-high 30 points in his finals debut. He was the first player to have a double-double with 30 or more points in his first Finals game since Tim Duncan of the San Antonio Spurs in 1999.

“Our job is to limit the other guys as much as possible,” Tatum said. Job done, as Dončić collected just one assist, an indicator of systemic offensive dysfunction. Kyrie Irving, jeered by the Boston fans upon his return to one of his former teams, scored just 12 points.

Two years after losing to the Golden State Warriors in six games, the Celtics are justifying their status as favorites against a franchise making its first appearance since the triumphant 2011 season when their coach, Jason Kidd, was in the lineup. However, Dallas bounced back after losing its first game against the Los Angeles Clippers and the Oklahoma City Thunder earlier in the postseason.

“These guys are not going away,” Porziņģis told ESPN. “They keep throwing punches and coming after us, and we’re coming after them just like we did tonight.”