On Friday night in Texas the Boston Celtics looked to capture banner 18 leading the Dallas Mavericks 3-0 in the NBA Finals. Boston will looking to climb to the NBA mountain top for the first time since 2008, with their two young superstars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown leading the way. While on the other side Luka Donic has drawn the ire of stark criticism around NBA circles for his play in this Finals. For Boston their only question mark heading into game 4 was the health of Kristaps Porzingis who Joe Mazzulla said could appear in the potential title clinching game. The Mavericks would need their best game of the season to keep any hopes of a title alive and it would heavily fall on the shoulders of their star Luka Doncic who would need to rebound massively after fouling out of game 3.
First Quarter:
The Celtics would start the game winning the tip but both teams would fail to score on their first possessions. Kyrie Irving would start the scoring for both sides giving the Mavericks a very early 2-0 lead. Boston would take their first lead of the night off a Tatum 3 pointer going up 5-4 early. Both teams would continue to trade shots throughout the first quarter with as usual Luka and Kyrie combining for most of the Mavericks offense. Dallas would rally out of the first tv timeout going on a 5-0 run to take a 15-11 lead with 5:50 to go in the first quarter.
Dallas would continue to stay hot and get up to a 21-14 lead after a pair of Luka Doncic free throws with just over 4 minutes to go in the quarter. Joe Mazzulla would call his first timeout in the middle of Doncic free throws to try and settle things for a Celtics team that was just a little out of sorts early on. Boston would continue to struggle on both ends, Luka and Kyrie would outscore the Celtics through the first 8 minutes giving the Mavericks a 25-14 lead with just over 3 minutes to go in the quarter.
The Mavericks onslaught would continue as they were dominating the glass with 9 more rebounds than the Celtics early on, giving themselves a 28-18 lead with 1:22 to go in the first. Every mistake the Celtics made the Mavericks would capitalize hitting back to back 3 pointers late in the quarter to end the first leading 34-21.