TLDR: Boston has won 10 of 12, has 3 days off and gets to sleep in its own beds before Sunday at TD Garden. Dallas spends that stretch flying from Minneapolis to Cleveland to Boston, and that may matter as much as anything else in this game.
The 10-2 Celtics come home rested after sweeping a 4-game road trip. The 7-4 Mavericks arrive on the second night of a back-to-back after games in Minnesota and Cleveland. Dallas has Flagg playing well and Washington scoring, but it's missing Lively and other frontcourt depth. For Boston, the open question is whether Paul George is back from his illness.
+Queta had 11 and 13 against a team missing Lively
Before you even look at the rosters, look at the schedule. The Celtics finished a 4-game road trip with a 98-93 win in Toronto and don't play again until Sunday, November 15, when the Mavericks come to TD Garden for a 6:00 PM ET tip. Dallas plays twice before then: Thursday at Minnesota and Saturday at Cleveland. That makes Sunday the back end of a road back-to-back, with 2 cities in 4 days and a Celtics team waiting that has had half a week to rest.
Dallas has been playing well. As of Wednesday the Mavericks had won 3 straight, Cooper Flagg had set a career high in a 130-93 blowout of Brooklyn, and P.J. Washington put up a season-high 26 in the NBA Cup win over Utah, 22 of them before halftime. The trouble is the frontcourt. Dereck Lively II (foot) is still out, and Tarik Biberovic (heel) and Sergio de Larrea (knee) were both ruled out for Minnesota. Morez Johnson Jr. is listed probable with a shin issue. Minneapolis and Cleveland will show how much of this group shows up in Boston healthy. There's no board yet, and with 2 Dallas games still to play, there shouldn't be one.
Boston's last game was the most telling of the 5-game run. The Celtics fell behind 59-37 in Toronto, and Jayson Tatum went 6-for-21 from the field and 2-for-11 from three. They still won, because Tatum went to the line, hit 10 of 12, and made the tying and go-ahead free throws with 25.2 seconds left. Derrick White added 19, Payton Pritchard had 14, and Neemias Queta had 11 points and 13 rebounds. A team that wins with its best player shooting like that is in a good place.
The question for Boston is Paul George. He scored 36 in his return to Philadelphia, then missed Toronto the next night with an illness. He's listed day-to-day, and the extra days off should help. If he plays, the Celtics have one more scorer than a tired Dallas team can probably handle. If he doesn't, Boston has already shown it can win without him.
Inside is where Dallas is most exposed. Without Lively, the Mavericks will have trouble keeping Queta off the glass, especially on tired legs. They'll need Flagg and Washington to score, and Kyrie Irving to control the pace. Their best shot is to turn this into a halfcourt game and take advantage of anything left over from Tatum's cold shooting in Toronto. Dallas has the talent to make this close. The schedule makes that much harder.
