DON’T FORGET WHO BROUGHT JRUE HOLIDAY TO THE CELTICS: BRAD STEVENS, MVP

It’s absurd to compare Boston players when so many can determine an NBA Finals victory — including Holiday, who has yet to commit a turnover and turned the Brown vs. Tatum debate into a sideshow

     You may wonder why I answer Brad Stevens when everyone else says John Calipari and Tim Floyd. He’s the college coach who took an NBA plunge, accepted a presidency atop Boston’s basketball operation and acquired Jrue Holiday last October. The rest of the sports world said: “Gee, Milwaukee acquired Damian Lillard.’’ Stevens pointed at his own wrist and said, “Celtics Time.”

     This could be news for Dan Hurley, who ponders the same fate. This also is a lesson for those who thought the Butler man should have stayed in Indianapolis and, instead, made the move now pushing his team toward an 18th title banner. Holiday had 26 points and 11 rebounds Sunday in a 105-98 win over Dallas, which places him behind only Michael Jordan in mistake-free efficiency with 38 points and no turnovers in the series. The former Golden State general manager, Bob Myers, already has an MVP after two Fidel games.

     “Brad Stevens,” he said.

     It was Holiday who reminded us that he won a championship with the Bucks and is about to win again. This was another night where we saw a team of sweet emotion, as Aerosmith played on the broadcast, that still hasn’t played its finest game. The Celtics seem primed to join previous big leaders — 86 percent — who win a crown after taking a 2-0 lead. And a familiar story applied, all wrapped around Stevens and how he prepares would-be champions around hand-picked coach Joe Mazzulla.

     This wasn’t a game where Jaylen Brown proved he was the best player on his team, though he qualifies this postseason. Nor was it a game where Jayson Tatum shut up enemy coach Jason Kidd for making the weekend remark and playing dumb head games. As we saw in Game 1, when Kristaps Porzingis was the unexpected star, Holiday was the grace of Game 2. Both were superb Stevens specials. If the Celtics win it all, someone should give him a cigar in honor of patriarch Red Auerbach. Until then, he’ll let Mazzulla do his talking.

     “The closer you get to thinking about your goal,” he told his team afterward, “the easier is it to relax.”

     And enough with talk about Mazzulla’s players, as he has noted before: “I’m really tired of hearing about one guy or this guy or that guy and everybody trying to make it out to be anything other than Celtic basketball. Everybody that stepped on that court today made winning plays on both ends of the floor.”

     Winning even once in Texas will be difficult if Luka Doncic continues to be a voodoo doll. He played with a thoracic contusion in his chest area, adding to a right knee sprain and left ankle soreness. Though he’s still beefed up over 240 pounds, at what point does he suffer a serious injury? He has been marvelous this postseason in leading the league in points, rebounds, assists, steals and minutes. Yet we’re not seeing Doncic at his best, even with his usual triple-double (32 points, 11 rebounds, 11 assists). He missed a one-footed floater with 28 seconds remaining that ended hopes. Eight turnovers don’t create miracles on the parquet floor. In the fourth quarters of both losses, Doncic hit 2 of 10 shots and missed three three-pointers.

     “I think my turnovers and my missed free throws cost us the game,” he said. “So, I've got to do way better in those categories. Every game we lose is a missed opportunity for us.”

     Luka Magic? Try tragic. Stuck in the corner at one point, Doncic was surrounded by defenders and suddenly flung the ball into summertime, where it could have hit the John Hancock Tower. This was one of many self-absorbed moments where he decided only he could help the Mavericks, all while Kyrie Irving lost again to the TD Garden fans who tortured him with more blow-up dolls and “F— Kyrie” chants. After all the nationwide chatter that Irving his located his lost soul, he struggled in both games, hitting only 7 of 18 shots and missing all three of his three-pointers. He has yet to beat the Celtics since bolting town for the Brooklyn Nets in 2019.

     “A little disappointed in myself not being able to convert more of my opportunities in the lane,” Irving said. “A lot of shots were hitting the back rim. That could piss you off as a competitor, but it's all part of the game of basketball. And you have to accept the ups and downs of this. That is, I would say, the toughest challenge when you're in a series. You want to play extremely well, especially when you're playing in a Finals.”

     Is Irving freaked out returning to Boston? Could be. “I’m going to still be aware that a lot of people want to see me fail,” he said. “Putting into perspective the blow-up dolls and remarks that are getting said, that’s basketball. When I leave here and I walk around Boston, I don’t hear a lot of the things that I hear when I’m playing on the court. But I don’t forget things, either. Somebody threw something at me while I was here. I’ve heard it all. Nobody asked me how I felt after that and why it could be a little bit of a traumatic response when I’m back in this environment after somebody does something like that.”

     Go ahead, Dallas mopers, and focus on a late foul that wasn’t called. P.J. Washington was driving for a basket that would have cut Boston’s lead to three points. He was pushed on the back by Brown, then fouled on the hand by White.

     “You’re right,” White actually said on TV.

     It wouldn’t have mattered. The Mavericks cannot win when Irving struggles and Doncic is battered. “We’ve got to support each other,” Kidd said.

     This came a day after Kidd said, “Well, Jaylen's their best player, so just looking at what he does defensively. He picked up Luka full-court. He got to the free-throw line. He did everything, and that's what your best player does. He plays both sides, defense and offense, at a high rate, and he's been doing that the whole playoffs.”

     Maybe he should have said Holiday was the best player, not that he would have found agreement. “I don't think he's lying. I think JB, he's been aggressive in every single way,” Holiday said. “He's been getting to the paint, getting to the free-throw line, also making plays for other people. And then, he's guarding Luka, he's guarding their best player. I've been on teams where, just any team, where does your best player have such a heavy load on the offensive load, and then just as equal a heavy load on the defensive end? That's hard to do, especially against somebody like Luka.”

     At some point, whether it’s Brown or Tatum or Holiday or Porzingis or White, pick your poison. “The job’s not done. We have to do whatever it takes,” Holiday said. On a night when the Celtics hit only 10 of 39 threes, they still won by seven. When Tatum hit 6 of 22 shots, he almost had a triple-double with 18 points, 12 assists and nine rebounds.

     “That is why they are the No. 1 team in the NBA with the No. 1 record,” Doncic said. “They have a lot of great players. Basically, anybody can get off.”

     Who’s the MVP? Can we appoint the executive in charge?

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.