NBA Finals MVP Rankings: Jaylen Brown the favorite with Celtics in complete control vs. Mavericks

The Boston Celtics went up 3-0 in the Finals with a 106-99 win over the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday, and considering no team has ever recovered from a 3-0 hole to win an NBA playoff series, let alone the Finals, it feels fair to say that the Celtics are going to be your 2024 NBA champs. 

The only bit of drama left is who’s going to win Finals MVP. 

It feels like there are only three realistic contenders (with all due respect to Derrick White, who has been typically tremendous). Below, I have ranked them as I believe they stand heading into Game 4 on Friday — which, depending on how that goes, could still swing the final vote. 

Jason Kidd said Brown is Boston’s best player, and in this series, at least, he has been right. Brown should be the Finals MVP favorite. He has had three terrific games, with Nos. 1 and 3 being his standout showings. He’s Boston’s leading scorer at 24.3 points per game. 

Brown went for 30 points, eight rebounds and eight assists in Game 3. With a minute left and the Mavericks having trimmed Boston’s lead from 21 to two, Brown hit biggest shot of the series to push the lead back to four and Dallas never got any closer. 

This is to say nothing of Brown’s defense, which has been extraordinary. He has allowed his teammates to stay on their assignments with his ability to not just challenge, but at times overwhelm, Luka Doncic all on his own at the point of attack. Brown is the first player since Tim Duncan in 2002 to card three steals and three blocks in Game 1 of the Finals. This is his award to lose. 

Holiday’s greatness in this series can’t be quantified with numbers, though his 15.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 4.3 assists on 59/41/100 shooting splits is plenty impressive. Holiday has been unbelievable in this series. 

His defense, as usual, has disrupted Dallas all over the court. He is smothering Kyrie Irving, who couldn’t do a thing offensively through the first two games. He’s killing the Mavericks by cutting to open space for easy finishes. He’s getting to the rim off the dribble when the situation calls for it, and his energy on the offensive glass and chasing down loose rebounds has been inspiring. Look at this maniac …

Through the first two games of the series, Holiday had 38 points and no turnovers; that’s the most points any player has scored through the first two games of a Finals without committing a turnover since Michael Jordan in 1998, per Stathead. Holiday’s 26-point/11-rebound showing in Game 2, on 11-of-14 shooting, is the single best performance of this series. 

Tatum’s shooting woes have been well chronicled and his on-ball defense has been pretty poor, but he had a big scoring night in Game 3 — albeit on another inefficient performance — with 31 points and is probably in range of winning MVP if he has a huge Game 4 and Brown doesn’t. 

The biggest factor in Tatum’s favor has been his playmaking. He has 22 assists through three games and has created a lot more offense than that by consistently beating his man into the paint. Kidd can talk all he wants about Brown being Boston’s best player, but at least offensively speaking, the fact that Tatum is the one getting disproportionate defensive attention tells the truth. 

Tatum is the head of the snake, and he has been consistent in his determination to leverage that power by attacking downhill and creating rotational opportunities for his teammates. This stat following Game 2, when Tatum finished with 12 assists, tells it all:

Again, Brown is probably going to have to fall off in Game 4 for Tatum to have a chance to win Finals MVP with a big performance. More likely, the series will need to go beyond Game 4 to give Tatum a chance to string a few big games together. 

But he will have some sentiment on his side. Voters are human and will understand that while he’s getting killed for his poor shooting, everything else he’s doing as the guy getting the most defensive attention is worth recognizing, if the stats open the opportunity to swing the vote.