The Boston Celtics defeated the Dallas Mavericks on Sunday night, 105-98, to take a 2-0 lead in the 2024 NBA Finals and Jrue Holiday was the big story. The second-team All-Defense nominee scored 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting and pulled down 11 rebounds to pair with his standard excellence in guarding Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving.
Holiday was also part of the story in the lead-up to Game 2, and probably not in the way he wanted. Mavs head coach Jason Kidd made headlines over the weekend by calling Jaylen Brown the best player on the Celtics, a comment many felt was a transparent attempt to sow dissension between Brown and Jayson Tatum. For their part the two superstars essentially brushed aside the comment when speaking to media.
When Holiday was asked about it, though, he went viral because he said he didn't think Kidd was lying before going on to sing Brown's praises. After the big Game 2 win, Holiday took a moment before his press conference to address the situation.
"I felt like people kind of took that out of context," Holiday said, "and I've been hearing that I prefer JB over JT. That's not what that was. I like to praise my teammates, I like to praise my teammates when they're playing well, and I feel like that's what I did my best to do.
"When I got here, JT was the first person to text me. Both of them know how I feel about them as players. To compare them is something I would never do because they are two completely different players... Just to address the comment yesterday, I do not prefer one or the other. I prefer both. Both of them are superstars and it's being shown out here on the biggest stage in the world."
Jrue Holiday sits at the podium and before taking questions, he says he wants to address his comments from yesterday where he was praising Jaylen Brown.
Sounds like he was taken out of context.
“I do not prefer one over the other — I prefer both.” pic.twitter.com/w73LsEOWwW
The sideshow surrounding Holiday's comments clearly did not impact anyone in Boston. Along with Holiday's huge night, Tatum recorded 18 points, 12 assists, and nine rebounds while Brown had 21 points, seven assists, and three steals. Collectively the Celtics had their second-worst shooting night of the playoffs from three, hitting merely 25.6% of their tries from beyond the arc, and still won by multiple possessions.
It's starting to feel like nothing can shake this Boston team. Dallas has a limited number of opportunities to prove otherwise. Game 3 will tip off at 8:30 p.m. ET on Wednesday night.
LIAM MCKEONE
Liam McKeone is a Senior Writer for the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. In addition to his role as a writer, he collaborates with other teams across Minute Media to help define his team’s content strategy. He has been in the industry as a content creator since 2017, and prior to joining SI in 2024, Liam worked for NBC Sports Boston and The Big Lead. In addition to his work as a writer, he has hosted the Press Pass Podcast covering sports media and The Big Stream covering pop culture. A graduate of Fordham University, Liam is always up for a good debate and enjoys loudly arguing about sports, rap music, books, and video games. Liam has been a member of the National Sports Media Association (NSMA) since 2020.
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