What does Dallas have to do to climb back into the NBA Finals?

The NBA Finals resume tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET from Dallas, as the Mavs return home down 0-2 and look to prevent the Celtics for pushing them to the brink of elimination.

Of course, one of the big stories to come out of Game 2 was the injury to Kristaps Porzingis, who had just returned from injury at the start of the Finals. The injury has been classified as a “serious injury” but his status is still questionable for tonight’s game and whether he plays is in the hands of the Celtics’ medical staff.

Bully Ball’s Rachel Nichols joined Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic Sr. on Wednesday’s edition of GoJo and Golic to preview Game 3 and more.

GoJo notes that we saw a better performance from the Mavs in Game 2, but they still fell short against a Celtics team that did not have its best shooting night. Is Rachel feeling more or less confident in the Mavs’ chances to make this a series coming off Game 2? Rachel points out that it’s going to be hard because the Celtics are 78-20 between the regular season and playoffs, so it’s hard to envision Boston losing four of its next five games. So by not winning a Game 2 in which the Celtics had what will probably be their worst shooting performance of the series, Rachel says the Mavs have dug themselves a pretty deep hole.

Rachel notes that going into the Finals she picked the Celtics, and while the Mavs have been a great story and a revelation throughout the playoffs with a bright future and the best player in the series, the bottom line is she’s not surprised to see the Celtics’ deeper roster succeed.

Senior, after trying to wipe away all the evidence that he picked the Mavericks before the series began, asks as Dallas tries to get back into this series, will it be a case of the Mavericks doing better things or the Celtics not playing well. Rachel says it has to be a case of Dallas doing better things. She notes that the role players that have come up big for them in this postseason did not have a good showing in Boston. She would expect some of the Mavs’ role players will perform better in their friendly home confines and she would expect Kyrie Irving to find more windows. Rachel thinks if the Mavericks can win Game 3, and they’re currently favored by three points on DraftKings Sportsbook as of writing, they’re going to have to play better because they can’t depend on the Celtics to play worse, as they already struggled shooting the basketball in their Game 2 victory.

Senior follows up by asking Rachel about what the Celtics’ championship window looks like going forward. Rachel thinks the Celtics have had great timing with the way the CBA works and it’s going to be open for a while. However, she does say that we won’t see dynasties like Michael Jordan’s Bulls (happy anniversary to the Bulls’ first title in 1991, by the way) going forward due to the sheer number of talented players in the league these days.

Check out the full interview with Rachel above for more basketball talk. You can also watch or listen to the full show below and make sure to tune into GoJo and Golic weekday mornings from 8-10 a.m. ET on DraftKings Network! See more about how to watch DraftKings Network here.

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Watch GoJo and Golic every weekday on Samsung TV Plus, Roku, Xumo Play, Google TV and DraftKingsNetwork.com from 8 to 10 a.m. ET. The show is also available via audio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow Mike Golic Sr. on X at @golic and Mike Golic Jr. on X at @mikegolicjr.

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