Celtics hold off Mavs, on brink of record 18th title

DALLAS — For a few minutes in the fourth quarter of Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, the Boston Celtics looked like they were about to have some bad habits come back to haunt them.

The Dallas Mavericks, who had looked dead and buried when trailing by 21 points with 10 minutes to go in the fourth, and who already trailed 2-0 in this best-of-seven series, roared back into the game with a 22-2 run, putting Boston’s lead in peril and — particularly with the status of Kristaps Porzingis in doubt moving forward — threatening to make this a series.

But just when things were looking bleakest, the Celtics turned them right back around, holding Dallas to one field goal over a five-minute span as they righted the ship, claimed a 106-99 victory and took a 3-0 lead in this series.

As a result, Boston is now one win away from a record-setting 18th NBA championship — one the Celtics can claim as soon as Friday in Game 4 here at American Airlines Center.

“Experience is the best teacher,” said Jaylen Brown, who finished with 30 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists in 41 minutes. “All year long we’ve been hearing about the Celtics are the past, for the last six to eight months, that’s all we’ve been hearing is all the different shortcomings we’ve had in the past.

“This is a new team, you know what I mean. We’ve learned from those experiences. And in these moments, you can see that we learned from it. We stepped up to the plate, and we found a way to win.”

It looked like Boston had found a way to win much earlier, having responded to a 25-12 run by the Mavericks over the opening seven minutes of the game — a run that saw Kyrie Irving, who finished with 35 points after combining for 28 in the two games in Boston, get going for the first time in the series — by going on a 79-45 run over roughly the next 29 minutes to take a commanding 91-70 lead with 11:07 remaining in the game.

At that point, Dallas appeared to be staring the end of its season in the face, especially with Porzingis sitting out because of an unusual tendon injury in his left leg suffered in the previous game and Boston getting what it wanted at both ends anyway.

But then, just as quickly as Boston had established control of the game, Dallas rediscovered itself. As Boston went 1-for-11 and committed three turnovers, the next 7:57 of game action saw Dallas pull all the way to within 93-92 on an Irving layup with 3:37 remaining, after Luka Doncic had fouled out a few seconds earlier. It was at that moment, however, that things started to swing back in the other direction, as a Brown putback of a Jayson Tatum miss was followed by a Derrick White 3-pointer and a Tatum dunk that pushed Boston’s lead back to six points.

“Yeah, I think just we had some turnovers, which allowed them to get out in transition,” White said. “And just a couple of things that we’ve been doing really well, we kind of just let go of the rope for however many minutes that was. It seemed like, what, two minutes, they cut it to two, three or something.

“It happened quick, and we just settled back down. Understand it’s a game of runs, and we just trust what we do.”

In the past, it might have been the kind of moment when the Celtics let go of the rope and let Dallas close the game out. But this time, Boston persevered through its struggles, and as a result improved to 7-0 on the road in these playoffs and 21-7 on the road over the past three postseasons — the best road winning percentage over a three-year span in the playoffs in NBA history, breaking a tie with the 1991-93 Chicago Bulls.

And the Celtics did it by getting contributions from across the board. With Porzingis sidelined, backup center Xavier Tillman stepped into the rotation and played 11 impactful minutes, hitting a corner 3 and putting up 4 rebounds and 2 blocks in 11 minutes, including at one point being isolated against Doncic and blocking his shot. Sam Hauser went 3-for-4 from 3-point range and was a game-high plus-16 off the bench, after going 0-for-5 from 3 in Game 2.

And Tatum, after going 6-for-22 in Game 2, finished with 31 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists, as he and Brown combined for 61 points to do enough to counterbalance Doncic and Irving and put Boston over the top. As a result, this generation of Celtics has now moved to within one victory of finally checking the last item off its to-do list, and moving Boston back ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers, on the day NBA legend Jerry West died, on the league’s all-time title charts.

But after the Celtics were down 0-3 in the Eastern Conference finals last year, only to force a Game 7 in that series, Boston knows better than to think its job is done when it is only on the precipice of everything this group has spent years building towards.

“Honestly, not too difficult from the standpoint of last year we were down 0-3 in the Conference Finals, and we really felt like we were going to come back,” Tatum said. “We almost did. You know, we were [my] sprained ankle away from having a real shot.

“So, you know, we are not relaxing or anything like that. You know, not even focusing on winning or Friday or whatever. However long it takes, that’s our motto. However long it takes, that’s what it’s going to take, and nobody is not trying to relax at all.”