Luka Doncic is not generally a man of many words. He was a man of even fewer following Dallas’ 107-89 loss to the Boston Celtics in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. “We didn’t do our job well,” Doncic remarked. “So we’ve got to focus on the second one.”

Making his Finals debut, Doncic played a so-so game by his standards: 30 points and 10 rebounds, becoming just the first player since Tim Duncan in 1999 to score a 30-point double-double in his first Finals game.

He was 12-for-26 from the floor, including 4-for-12 on 3-pointers, and he wasn’t the offensive force that carried the Mavericks to the Finals.

He had just one assist which isn’t sufficient. For a player that averaged a career-high 9.8 assists during the regular season and 8.4 through the first three rounds of the 2024 playoffs, the one assist was concerning.

It was his lowest assist total for a single game since departing a regular-season game against Phoenix with an early injury last season and finishing with no assists. In a game in which he played at least 20 minutes, it was his lowest single-game assist total since May 7, 2021.

“Give the Celtics credit,” Dallas coach Jason Kidd said. “They performed a tremendous job defending, making it tough on us. We had some excellent looks that didn’t go down. We’ve got to move the ball. The ball just stuck too much. And we’ll be better in Game 2.”

Assists are dependent on teammates making shots, and the Mavericks didn’t do that. They shot 41.7% from the field and 25.9% on 3-pointers. “I think we really got good shots.” Doncic stated. “We just didn’t make them.”

It was a team effort by Boston, but Celtics guard-forward Jaylen Brown had a fantastic defensive game, which included guarding Doncic. Brown had 22 points, six rebounds, three steals and three blocks.

“What you saw tonight is kind of the challenge he took for himself coming into the year,” Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla said. “Not wanting to be defined by one thing.

Wanting to make plays. Wanted to be a well-rounded player and develop better and better. So his spacing, his ball movement, his defense on ball and off ball.”

Down 58-29 late in the second quarter and behind 63-42 at halftime, the Mavs made a rally in the third quarter. Doncic had 10 points, six rebounds and two steals in the third quarter, and Dallas reduced Boston’s lead to 72-64 on Doncic’s 3-pointer with 4:28 left in the third.

“In those moments, we were playing our basketball,” Doncic added. “We were getting stops. We didn’t allow them to offensive rebound. We were having fun out there those two seconds, and that’s what we’ve got to do more.”

Dallas had two chances to get it closer but committed two mistakes, and Boston used a 14-0 run to increase the lead to 86-64.