Topic summary
2024 NBA playoffs
The 2024 NBA playoffs was the postseason tournament of the National Basketball Association's (NBA) 2023–24 season. The playoffs began on April 20 and concluded on June 17 with the Boston Celtics winning the 2024 NBA Finals over the Dallas Mavericks for their 18th championship, the most in NBA history. It was the Celtics' first championship since 2008.
After setting by far the best league record with 64–18, the Celtics were widely seen as the title favourites, having won fourteen more games than the nearest competition in the East, while the defending champions Denver Nuggets and Oklahoma City Thunder both were touted as contenders after finishing on a 57–25 record each, with the latter clinching the number one seed in the West by virtue of maintaning the head-to-head advantage against the Nuggets. The Dallas Mavericks also emerged as a serious title contender midway through the season after several roster changes have been made prior to the start of the playoffs.
While the Celtics stormed to the NBA Finals by beating both the reigning Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first two rounds 4–1 each before sweeping the Indiana Pacers in the Conference finals, both the Thunder and the Nuggets were eliminated in the Conference semifinals by the Mavericks and the Minnesota Timberwolves, respectively, with their respective star players Luka Dončić and Anthony Edwards having stellar playoff-runs. The Timberwolves with play-off debutant Edwards notably swept the Phoenix Suns led by Kevin Durant and Devin Booker in the first round. They proceeded to beat Denver in the Conference semifinals in seven games before getting eliminated by Dallas in the Conference finals in five games, denying Minnesota their first NBA Finals in franchise history, while the Mavericks reached the NBA Finals for the first time since their title-winning 2010–11 season.
The Celtics emerged as clear favourites in the NBA Finals by winning their elusive 18th championship title to become the all-time record holder in terms of championships ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers who had won 17 titles. It was their first since 2008 after being bested in their most recent Finals appearance against the Golden State Warriors two years prior. Boston won the series in five games despite suffering the largest blowout loss in Finals history in Game 4, in which the Mavericks won by nearly 40 points at home (122–84) in order to avoid a sweep. Along with his first NBA championship, Jaylen Brown was named the Finals MVP after averaging 20.8 points per game in the series, becoming the first Celtics player since Paul Pierce in 2008 to be awarded as Finals MVP. On the losing effort, Dončić was the scoring leader throughout the entire playoffs (635) and therefore scored by far the most points on average (29.2) on the Dallas roster. It would later turn out to be his final postseason tournament with Dallas before his unexpected trade to the Los Angeles Lakers the following year.