The NBA Finals playoffs kick off tonight and we take a look at the prospects for the first meeting between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks.

The Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks will meet in the NBA Finals, starting tonight

Preseason favorites to win the championship, the Celtics have had a dominant season, going 64-18 in the regular season before winning 12 of 14 games in the postseason.

While the Celtics did sweep the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Final, they were at least tested in those games. Game 2 was the only blowout victory for Boston and Indiana held late fourth quarter leads in the other three games before getting overtaken every time.

In the Western Conference Final, the Dallas Mavericks steamrolled the Minnesota Timberwolves in five games, coming through in crunch time over and over again.

While the Mavericks did not have the same kind of dominant season that the Celtics did, Dallas was an elite team down the stretch, so they could provide a test for the favored Celtics.

Here is a closer look at the Finals matchup.

BOSTON CELTICS VS. DALLAS MAVERICKS

One of the reasons that Boston was favored to win the title this season is that their path through the Eastern Conference appeared to be easier than the road facing any of the top contenders in the West.

That proved to be true, not only in the Celtics winning 64 games during the regular season, but their average point differential of +11.4 was easily the best in the league. By comparison, Dallas finished with an average point differential of +2.3 per game.

Even though the playoff path was expected to be easier for the Celtics, injuries to other top stars made it even less likely that Boston would face a serious challenge. Aside from some close games against Indiana, that proved to be true.

On the other hand, the Mavericks had a more difficult playoff path, albeit one with some good fortune. They knocked out the Los Angeles Clippers, who lost Kawhi Leonard to injury, then battled to knock out the Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round.

Even going into the Western Conference Final, the Mavericks were underdogs against the Minnesota Timberwolves, but after taking the first two games in Minnesota, it looked a lot like Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving were ready to handle the crucial moments with the game on the line, in a way that the Timberwolves were not.

While Dončić and Irving are the big scoring stars for Dallas, combining to average 51.6 points per game between them in the playoffs, the Mavericks’ postseason success has depended on contributions from the supporting cast. Forwards P.J. Washington and Derrick Jones Jr. have been timely contributors and centers Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively have been effective at both ends of the floor.

After acquiring Washington and Gafford at the trade deadline, the Mavericks compiled a record of 21-7 before dropping the last couple of games of the regular season when they rested their stars. With their rotation solidified, Dallas played a lot more like an elite level team and that has continued through the playoffs.

The challenge for the Mavericks is whether their stars are going to still be able to fill it up against a Boston team that has a strong defensive record and has players who should be suited to defending Dončić and Irving. Boston guards Derrick White and Jrue Holiday were both second-team All-Defensive players this season and should be able to make Irving work for his buckets.

Irving had a rather tumultuous end to his time with the Celtics, for whom he played in 2017-2018 and 2018-2019, and he will surely be cast as the villain by the Boston faithful in this series.

Dončić is such a spectacular scorer that he may be able to go for 30 points, but Boston’s Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum both have the size to deal with Dončić’s physicality, in a way that maybe the Timberwolves did not.

On top of that, Tatum and Brown have combined to score 51.0 points per game in the playoffs, so they should be able to make Dallas’ stars work on the defensive end, too. If the games are close, it could very well come down to which team’s stars rise to the occasion and Boston seems more equipped to wear down Dallas’ top players.

The news gets even better for Boston as the Celtics are looking at a potential return to action for center Kristaps Porziņģis. The former Mavericks big man has not played since Game 4 of Boston’s first-round series against Miami due to a calf injury. When healthy, though, 7-foot-2 Porziņģis provides rim protection and the ability to knock down three-point shots. He ranked third on the Celtics with 20.1 points per game this season.

Boston has played well without Porziņģis, but having him available should help to give them even more favorable matchups.

The Celtics are favored and deservedly so. They have the better and deeper team. The danger is that Dončić is one of the best players on the planet and if he gets hot, then the Celtics could be in for a serious battle.

Pick : BOSTON CELTICS