DALLASDALLAS — Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown embraced for a long time after helping Boston avoid the worst collapse in an NBA Finals game since at least 1997.
The reward for these Celtics was to be one step away from joining their names with those of numerous predecessors who have hung a banner commemorating a title in their arena.
Tatum scored 31 points, Brown added 30 and the Celtics barely withstood a furious comeback attempt by the Dallas Mavericks, winning 106-99 on Wednesday and moving one victory away from setting a record 18th NBA championship. NBA.
Brown finished with eight rebounds and the same number of assists, and the Celtics extended their lead to 3-0 in the Finals.
Boston extended its franchise record with its 10th playoff win and moved to 7-0 on the road this postseason. He can win the series and break the tie with the Lakers for most NBA titles in history if he wins Friday in Dallas.
It wasn’t so easy to put yourself in this situation. The Celtics nearly blew a 21-minute lead with 11 minutes left.
“We’re not really going to try to make a big deal out of it,” Tatum said. “Basketball is a sport of streaks. It will never be as you expect. If you want to be a champion, you have to be resilient in those situations. Tonight we did it.”
Likewise, the Celtics improved to 10-1 in these playoffs in games in which Kristaps Porzingis is absent. The Latvian was ruled out a couple of hours before the match due to a rare ailment in a tendon in his left calf, suffered in the second game.
Porzingis’ status for the remainder of the series is unknown. Maybe it doesn’t matter so much.
None of the previous 156 teams that have been down 3-0 have managed to win an NBA playoff series.
The Mavs came close to pulling off a spectacular comeback in the game — 13 years after a comparable comeback in the NBA Finals (from a 15-point deficit) led Dallas to its only title in history, against Miami.
Boston led 91-70 at the end of a 20-5 run early in the fourth quarter. Dallas responded with a 22-2 burst that brought them within one point with three and a half minutes remaining.
The problem was that Luka Doncic committed his sixth foul with 4:12 left. An appeal was unsuccessful, so the expulsion was declared before Kyrie Irving hit a shot that brought the Mavericks within one point.
Irving totaled 35 points.
Tatum and Brown saved the Celtics from that point on, with some help from Derrick White, who totaled 16 points. The three players combined for the remaining 13 points for Boston, which has not won the title since 2008.
The last time Dallas had been down 3-0 in a series was nine years ago, when it lost to Houston in five games in the first round.
“We just have to make history,” center Dereck Lively II acknowledged. “We have to go out and risk our lives.”
