BOSTON – If the Dallas Mavericks can reach back and put on a sterling defensive performance in Game 5 against the Boston Celtics similar to what they
produced in Game 4, this best-of-seven NBA Finals series will almost assuredly be headed back to Dallas for a Game 6.
That’s the plan according to any of the Mavs, who trail this series, 3-1, after blowing out the Celtics, 122-84, last Friday in Dallas when their defense produced some historic numbers and prevented Boston from ending the Mavs’ season with a four-game sweep. So, how did the Mavs manhandle Boston to the point where the Celtics surprisingly threw in the towel and pulled all of their starters for the rest of the game with 3:18 remaining in the third quarter and Dallas comfortably ahead, 88-52.
“We were playing like how we play,” rookie center Dereck Lively II said. “We were running and talking and playing free. We were just trusting one another.
“We were getting back into the mentality of trusting the pass, trusting the next pass, and on the defensive side, just trusting the person behind you, trusting the person who is talking.”
That trust led to the Mavs holding the Celtics to their fewest points of the season (84), their second fewest points in the paint this season (26), and their second-worst field goal percentage of the season (36.2 percent). Plus, the 38-point whipping was the third-worst in Celtics’ playoff history, and the plus-34 paint differential was the largest in a Finals game in the past 25 years.
“We just finally followed the game plan to a T,” forward Derrick Jones Jr. said. “The first three games, we knew what we had to do. We just had a few mistakes and a few lapses on the 
defensive end where we should have capitalized on a few things.
“(We) let a few offensive rebounds go, had a few turnovers — had a few too many turnovers. We just had to lock in on things we had to shore up on.”
It was an all hands on deck type of performance by the Mavs in Game 4. And they’re ideally going to need something close to that on Monday in order to get this series back to North Texas.
“I’m very confident in this team that I’m with,” Jones said. “We’ve been showing it all playoff long.
“Even if we go down, we still fight. No matter what, we stay together, we fight until the end. It’s never over until that buzzer sounds.”
And before that final buzzer sounds Monday at TD Garden, the Mavs know they’re going to have to deal with the massive noise coming from the crowd. Even during different stages of Sunday night’s baseball game between the visiting New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox, the Boston fan base was chanting: “Let’s Go Celtics, Let’s Go Celtics, Let’s Go Celtics.”
To that end, Lively said: “It’s going to be loud and nasty. You do your best not to focus on the crowd. There’s going to be a lot of people talking to you.
“Social media, walking down the street, you’re in the hotel room, you’re in the hotel, you’re going to hear people talking to you. You’re going to hear people talking to you coming to the arena. It’s part of the game, part of the job. You have to deal with adversity and people always telling you (that) you can’t, and you’ve got to do it.”
Lively, though, believes Game 4 was just the beginning of something historic for the Mavs, who are looking to become the first NBA team to overcome a 3-0 deficit and win a best-of-seven series. There have been 156 deficits of 3-0 in a best-of-seven series in NBA history, and the previous 156 teams have all prevailed.
“We’re not going to say that Game 4 was our best game,” Lively said. “Game 4 was a good game, but we’re not hanging our hats on it.
“We adjusted, and now it’s just taking what we did in Game 4 and adding a little bit more aggression into Game 5.”
The Mavs also know they won Game 5 in their previous three series during this playoff run.
In the first round against the Los Angeles Clippers, Dallas took a 3-2 series lead with a 123-93 victory on the road in Game 5, then went on to win that series in six games. In the second round against Oklahoma City, the Mavs prevailed on the road, 104-92, in Game 5 and captured that series in six games.
And in the Western Conference Finals against Minnesota on the road, the Mavs closed out that series by winning Game 5 on the road, 124-103
“If we look at the analytics of our group, they are young, and as the series goes on, they get better,” coach Jason Kidd said. “Hopefully that’s true (Monday) night.
“Sometimes when you do play an opponent over and over, you get used to the tendencies and you start to capitalize on that on both ends, defensively and offensively. Hopefully our group has seen enough of Boston to understand what they are good at, and hopefully we can take that away (Monday) night.”
And hopefully, the Mavs reiterated, repeat what they did to the Celtics on the defensive end of the floor in Game 4.
“I felt like we gave ourselves the best opportunity to be the better team (Friday) night,” Jones said.
“(Monday) night we’re going to try to do the same thing.”
Here are some other nuggets surrounding Game 5 between the Mavs and Celtics.
*There was a lot of chatter – some of it probably undeserved — about the lack of defense point guard Luka Dončić played during the Celtics” 106-99 victory last Wednesday in Game 3 of this series. Dončić slammed the door shut on those critics when – according to ESPN Stats & Information — he held the Celtics to 2-of-9 shooting and also forced four turnovers in Game 4 when he was the primary defense.
*Mavs guard Kyrie Irving played for the Celtics from 2017-’19, and had this to say about his former team. “You just expect to have a magnifying glass on you everywhere you go,” Irving said. “I don’t think Boston appreciates being kind of second class to New York in terms of the media capital of the world, but this is the media capital of the world as well. There’s a lot of history here off the court. The community has integrated into the Celtics’ team. That’s probably the best way I could say it. The community is what makes the Celtics great here, the Boston pandemonium. That’s what makes this space so loud and so special, and they take pride in it. If any player is coming here, getting drafted here, thinking about coming here for free agency, getting traded here, I just think do your homework and make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
*Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis sat out Games 3 and 4 with a rare lower leg injury, and is listed as questionable for Game 5. Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said Porzingis is “trying and doing everything he can to try to put himself in position to be out there. I know that for sure.”
*If the Mavs can somehow get a spark Monday from guard Tim Hardaway Jr., this series could indeed be extended. Hardaway was 5-of-7 from three-point land and scored 15 electrifying points while only playing in the entire fourth quarter of Game 4. Granted, Hardaway’s eye-popping performance occurred when all of the starters were off the court. But scoring 15 points in just 12 minutes is still an impressive stat line regardless of who’s on the court.
DALLAS MAVERICKS (1-3) at BOSTON CELTICS (3-1)
When: 7:30 p.m., Monday
Where: TD Garden, Boston
TV: ABC
Radio: KEGL 97.1 FM The Eagle; 99.1 FM Zona MX (Spanish)
X: @DwainPrice
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