The Celtics didn’t need either Jayson Tatum or Jaylen Brown to be their best player — or at least their leading scorer — to take Game 2 of the NBA Finals.
Mavericks coach Jason Kidd had tried to pit Boston’s two stars against each other over the weekend by suggesting that Brown is the Eastern Conference champ’s top dog.
As it turned out, the Celtics emphatically proved to be the deeper team in taking a 2-0 series lead with a 105-98 win Sunday night in Boston.
Tatum and Brown didn’t have their best scoring nights, with Tatum missing 16 of 22 from the field and six of seven from 3-point range for 18 points after he’d been held to 16 in the series opener.