On the cusp of the NBA Finals, which began Thursday, pitting the Dallas Mavericks against the Boston Celtics, the indignities didn’t end there.
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Despite recent sporting heartache — the Dallas Stars were eliminated Sunday from the NHL conference finals — there was an optimism bordering on arrogance surging through the city. (Of course, this story was reported well before the 107-89 Game 1 beating.)
Days before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, on a sidewalk bench in the Lower Greenville neighborhood, at a dive bar near the campus of Southern Methodist University, outside a trendy co*cktail joint in the Deep Ellum district that has “Star Wars” posters in French plastered on its walls, people are feeling good. Their predictions reflect this: Mavs in seven. Mavs in six.
A few people even predict Dallas will sweep Boston, which led the league with 64 wins during the regular season.
“I’m really confident,” said Reggie Douglas, a 35-year-old Mavericks fan who works in logistics. Asked what he thinks of Boston, Douglas offered up Tom Brady and a vague sense of out-of-control and nasty fans.
“I’ve heard some bad things, although I haven’t been there myself,” he said. “Just ruthless fans.”
He was adamant this Mavericks team is “battle-tested,” a recurrent rhetorical point in watering holes throughout Dallas. To reach the Finals, the Mavericks had to dispatch the Los Angeles Clippers, a team some fans here say has troubled Dallas in the past; the West’s top seed, the Oklahoma City Thunder; and the Minnesota Timberwolves, who were themselves fresh off eliminating the defending champs, the Denver Nuggets, with reigning MVP Nikola Jokic.
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The Celtics, they argue, had a much easier path to the Finals, defeating the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Indiana Pacers, all of whom were depleted by injuries to key players.
“They had the Finals almost given to them,” said Seth Russell, a 36-year-old security guard, barback, and bouncer. “They went through a field of puppies and flowers, and the Mavs went through the gauntlet of hell.”
But he was quick to point out a common ground between Texas and Massachusetts: an unabashed parochialism.
“When I went to Europe, they were like ‘Oh you’re American’ and I’m like ‘No, I’m from Texas,’ ” Russell said as he nursed a watermelon cider at City Tavern, a sports bar on Elm Street downtown.
The bar’s owner, Adam Lewis, offered a unique perspective on the impending matchup.
Lewis’s family has had Mavericks’ season tickets since 1988, but his favorite player of all time is Celtics legend Larry Bird. To him, Boston isn’t “Whitey” Bulger or the Wahlbergs, but the smell of the old Boston Garden. He attended a game there when he was a kid, he said, and the place smelled “like a locker room that hadn’t been cleaned in four years.” That’s the thing he remembers most.
The walls of the bar reflect his allegiances. There is a game-worn jersey signed by retired Mavs star Dirk Nowitzki. A signed Doncic jersey. But in another room, there is a photo of Bird and his chief rival during his playing days, Lakers great Magic Johnson. And a framed Bird jersey, a gift from Lewis’s father in the 1990s. Lewis plans to fly to Boston for Game 2 with his brother and some friends.
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“It’s going to be a real hard fight,” he said.
Overall, Mavericks fans were amiable, happy to chat with a Bostonian about the impending series. Any trash talk came with a smile and a laugh. The mood was playful, not barbed. Sports-wise, it’s not Philadelphia or New York. The rivalry between New England and North Texas is basically nonexistent.
Several people on barstools downtown were keen to mention how much they love “The Town,” the 2010 Charlestown heist flick directed by and starring son of Cambridge Ben Affleck.
Much more strangely, three different people, in three different locations throughout Dallas, want to discuss “Celtic Pride,” a comedy flop from the 1990s about a pair of hare-brained Celtics fans that boasts a dismal 12 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s where their stream-of-consciousness goes when someone mentions “Boston.” So much for John Winthrop’s “City upon a Hill.”
There is other weirdness. There are not one but two establishments in Dallas that share a name with the assassin of Massachusetts’ favorite prince, John F. Kennedy, who was slain here in 1963. Elsewhere, there is a combo Dunkin’-Buffalo Wild Wings, which locals seem to think is either an abomination or a stroke of genius. One resident wants to know: would that be sacrilege in Boston? Some things are unknowable, they are told.
And while the city is buoyant over the Mavs’ playoff run, fans say the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys will forever be the number one team in town. It is, after all, Texas, where football is king, and this is the home of “America’s Team.”
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Still, ahead of the NBA finals there is a palpable energy throughout Dallas. Some locals revel in the Mavericks-Celtics subplots. They point out that Kyrie Irving, a talented but mercurial guard, used to play for the Celtics and is now considered a heel by many Boston fans. Some advise Celtics fans not to boo him because that will only motivate him and a motivated Irving, they said, is difficult to stop.
Irving is not alone in facing his old team. Many local fans point out that Kristaps Porzingis, Boston’s big man, played for the Mavericks from 2019 to 2022, with some describing his time in Dallas as frustrating. Daniel Al-Qassem, a 36-year-old general manager of a local bar, said he met Porzingis during his time in Dallas and described him as “a super sweet guy.” Al-Qassem holds no animosity toward him.
“It just didn’t work out,” he said.
Speaking near a couple of pool tables at the bar Milo Butterfingers, Al-Qassem warned that Dereck Lively II, a rookie big man for the Mavs, could play a significant role in the series.
“The Celtics are a really evenly matched team with us,” he said.
As a Radiohead song drifted through the bar, he concluded the interview with a bit of diplomacy. “May the best team win.”
Ryan Opelt, meanwhile, is a bit of an outlier. Despite living in North Texas since 1997, the 33-year-old supports Boston teams. That’s because his father, Tim, pitched for the Pawtucket Red Sox back in the day, he said. The key to the series, he said, is simple.
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“Boston can’t lose Game 1 or Game 2 at home,” Opelt said.
Elsewhere, Gabe Sanchez, a 37-year-old bar owner, is another sporting nonconformist around here. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he’s a Lakers fan who has called Dallas home for the last 16 years. At his bar, Black Swan in Deep Ellum, he relished heckling a man in a Red Sox hat, repeatedly yelling out “Wade Boggs,” the allegedly beer-swilling, chicken-eating, Hall-of-Fame Sox third baseman.
“I’m the only one here who respects the Celtics,” Sanchez said on a smoke break. “Because I hate them.”
According to Sanchez, the Celtics should win the series.
Having said that, he added, “Mavs in 6.”
Danny McDonald can be reached at daniel.mcdonald@globe.com. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.
