Run may be over, but this team is so far from done

Mavericks guard Luka Dončić turns the ball over against 

Celtics guard Jrue Holiday during the first half.

Smiley N. Pool/staff Photographer

18 Jun 2024 - The Dallas Morning News

BRAD TOWNSEND btownsend@dallasnews.com

BOSTON — The most implausibly long joyride in the Mavericks’ 44season history ended here Monday night, on Boston’s famed parquet court, at 9:59 p.m. Central.

It ended with Boston’s 10688 victory in TD Garden in Game 5 of the NBA Finals and with the Celtics celebrating their league-record 18th championship.

It ended on the 236th day and 104th game of a Mavericks season that basketball pundits were certain would end weeks ago. The ride’s over, but for the Mavericks and their fans, the thrill and sense of attaining the franchise’s third finals berth endures.

“We’ve been together for five months,” said Luka Dončić, alluding to the trade-deadline deals that revamped the roster and catapulted Dallas through the playoffs. “I’m proud of every guy that stepped on the floor, all the coaches, all the people behind.

“Obviously we didn’t win finals, but we did have a hell of a season, and I’m proud of every one of them.”

Dončić led the Mavericks in Game 5 with 28 points, but he labored physically through much of the finals and on Monday co-star Kyrie Irving was limited to 15 points. Dallas never led Monday and trailed by double-digit points throughout the second half.

“It doesn’t matter if I was hurt; how much was I hurt,” Dončić said. “I was out there. I tried to play, but I didn’t do enough.”

Monday night’s result, and that of this series, were unsurprising, even with Dallas coming off a 38-point whipping of the Celtics in Game 4.

Except for members of the Mavericks organization, seemingly every soul came to TD Garden fully expecting to celebrate another championship, aptly on the 16th anniversary of the Celtics winning their most recent title in 2008.

This series pitted a 64-win, No. 1 seed Boston team against a 50-victory, No. 5 seed Dallas squad that as of Feb. 4 was 26-23 — and as recently as March 16 was in eighth place in the Western Conference.

Had the Mavericks won Games 5, 6 and 7 and become the first NBA playoff team in 157 tries to overcome an 3-0 series deficit, it would have been the most unlikely underdog rally in these parts since the colonists beat the British.

“This is just the beginning,” third year Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said. “A lot of people -- excluding the people in the locker room -- didn’t have us here. “Yes, we lost 4-1, but I thought the group fought against the Celtics and just unfortunately just couldn’t make shots.”

Barely a year removed from missing the playoffs, the Mavericks were bidding to add a second championship to the one the franchise attained in 2011, when current Mavericks coach Jason Kidd was a 38-year-old point guard and the team’s only star, Dirk Nowitzki, was 32.

That team, as constructed at the time, never got a chance to defend its title. An NBA labor lockout and tightening of salary cap restrictions factored into several key players not being re-signed.

This Mavericks team, in contrast, is poised to run it back largely unchanged next season, built around 25year-old Luka Dončić, 32-year-old Irving and fortified by 25-year-old trade deadline acquisitions P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford.

“Failure at this stage definitely sucks,” Irving said. “It’s a bitter feeling because you want to keep playing and you feel like your best game is coming up next. But I’m grateful for the opportunity to grow with these guys in this locker room, and everybody across the organization.”

Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison said that after Patrick Dumont and mother-in-law Miriam Adelson purchased majority interest of the Mavericks in December — and especially after the February trade acquisitions — he reminded Dumont that the roster was “primed” for three good playoff runs.

“If you look at our team and our contracts in the age of our players, I think everybody’s kind of age-appropriate and in the terms of the contracts,” Harrison said.

“This is one playoff, so we’ve got two more years to go with the core that’s already together and already under contract and already age-appropriate.”

Harrison noted that of Dallas’ top eight players, four — Derrick Jones Jr., Washington, Gafford and rookie Dereck Lively II — had little-to-no playoff experience before this postseason. Washington and Gafford have been Mavericks only half a season, and Lively is only 20 years old.

“When you ask, ‘How do we come back better next year?’ " Harrison said, “Well, can Lively get 10, 15, 20% better? We’ve already seen him improve before our eyes.

“We have really good contracts and really good players on those contracts, so if there’s opportunities to make small, minor changes, we’ll look to do that. But we’re really excited about our core. We just think that they’re at the infancy stage of how good they can be.”

This was Dončić’s sixth NBA season, and age-wise, he’s barely entering his prime.

It took Michael Jordan’s Bulls seven seasons to win their first NBA championship. It took Lebron James seven seasons and two Finals losses to break through for his first title, in 2012.

In the eight seasons entering this one, Boston lost six conference final series and the 2022 NBA Finals. It’s little wonder that 15 minutes before Monday’s tipoff, Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight blared through TD Garden.

After the Mavericks lost the 2006 finals to Miami, it took them five years to win their first championship — with an extra-gratifying Game 6 victory on Miami’s home court.

The current Mavericks don’t want to wait five years, and, if they do return to the finals, there’s a good chance they’ll face Boston, built around Jayson Tatum, 26, and Jaylen Brown, 27.

“The history is there for us to learn from, when you look at great players and the struggles,” Kidd said. “The great ones try to get back to the biggest stage because now they understand experience is a big thing.

“For great players, you have to fail to understand how to be successful at the highest stage.”

Dončić said that while growing up in Slovenia he didn’t study that history, but he has come to learn it as the Mavericks advanced to the 2022 conference finals and this year’s finals.

“They’re a great team,” he said of the Celtics. “They have been together for a long time, and they had to go through everything, so we’ve just got to look at them, see how they play, maturity, and they have some great players. We can learn from that. We’ve got to fight next season.”

It was only 16 months ago that the Mavericks acquired Irving, pairing him with Dončić to form the NBA’S most dynamic backcourt.

After going only 5-11 in the games they played together during last season’s 38-44 finish, Dončić and Irving not only have proved to be compatible, but also formidable.

“At 32, I just feel like the sky’s the limit,” Irving said. “I have an opportunity to be on a special team that can be one of the teams that dominates in this era.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out the past few years, how to be on a great team, be in an organization where I’m trusted, and also we’re able to succeed and fail together.

“And doing it in a way where we still have each other’s backs and no one is giving up on the goal. Our goal is still to win a championship. That’s why I play basketball every year.”