DALLAS — In addition to airing every game of the 2024 NBA Finals on our station, WFAA is also hosting a special presentation called "The Pregame" before each and every matchup in the series. Head here for more information.
Before the Dallas Mavericks boarded their private plane Tuesday at Love Field for the trip to Boston, Luka Doncic quietly reminded us, as he often does in does in fluent English and in Spanish, that he's just a kid from Slovenia living a very big dream.
"Just playing in the NBA Finals," Doncic said when asked what he was looking forward to the most in the next two weeks. "Every kid that plays basketball dreams about this. So, I was one of them. Just playing in the Finals."
And he has the benefit of a coach who has been on this flight path before. After the Mavs final practice session before their Boston flight, Jason Kidd referenced his own NBA finals victory with the Mavs in 2011, playing alongside Dirk Nowitzki.
"Oh, a lot harder. A lot harder to coach," Kidd said of the difference between having the ball in his hands or the chess match he gets to orchestrate now. "Oh it's fun, but it's harder. I gotta wear glasses now because you watch so much video."
"As a player I didn't have glasses. As a coach it is fun. It is a lot harder but you have to enjoy it because you're never guaranteed to be back here. We felt that we could do it again," Kidd said of the 2011 NBA Finals victory. "But we never made it back."
The Mavs are bound for the NBA Finals after an unprecedented year: a mid-year change of ownership, a mid-year roster overhaul that brought them center Daniel Gafford and forward P.J. Washington. But when asked about the relatively few months they had to develop team chemistry, Doncic said he believes they've been together long enough to bring the NBA Finals trophy back to Dallas.
"I don't think people understand how hard it is to win games in this league, especially in this playoffs," he said when asked how he makes his 30+ point games look so easy. "So, I think we earned to be here. We deserved it."
"You can say it's been really hard," he said of the Mavs trip through the NBA playoffs. "But we deserve this and our chemistry is great and we stick together."
Sticking together for an NBA dream that officially takes flight today.