New York, United States—Kristaps Porzingis dazzled in his return from injury and the Boston Celtics dominated on both ends of the floor to beat the Dallas Mavericks 107-89 in game one of the NBA Finals on Thursday.
Porzingis, who missed 10 games after straining his right calf in the first round of the playoffs, made an immediate impact on his return as the Celtics built a 29-point lead in the first half then thwarted the Mavericks’ third-quarter surge to gain the upper hand in the best-of-seven championship series.
The Latvian star came off the bench against his former team and scored 11 points with three rebounds and a pair of big blocks as Boston jumped to a 37-20 lead at the end of the first quarter.
After eight lead changes in little more than six minutes, the Celtics began to impose themselves, pulling away with the help of seven three-pointers in the first quarter alone and keeping up the relentless pace as the Mavs struggled to get their offense firing.
Boston finished with 16 three-pointers on a whopping 42 attempts. Jaylen Brown scored 22 points to lead six Celtics players who scored in double figures.
Porzingis finished with 20 and Jayson Tatum scored 16 points with 11 rebounds and five assists.
Doncic scores 30
Dallas star Luka Doncic scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, but Kyrie Irving was limited to 12 points on six-of-19 shooting.
Despite his struggles, the Mavs managed to slice the deficit to eight points in the third quarter, only for the Celtics to pull away again.
“It’s a game of runs,” Tatum said. “This is the NBA Finals, they’re not going to go away easy. We just had to respond and we did a good job of that.”
