The Celtics trounced the Mavericks on Thursday night to kick off the 2024 NBA Finals and took a 1-0 lead in the series. There’s still a lot of basketball to be played and there will likely be swings and adjustments taking place over the next few days. But there’s no denying that Boston looked dominant in cruising to victory in game one.
That doesn’t mean the Celtics are going to steamroll Dallas the next three games and win the Finals in a sweep, but it’s certainly a possibility. Sweeps in the Finals are fairly rare, which makes sense considering it should be a matchup of the league’s two best teams.
How many times have the Finals ended in a sweep?
There have been 77 Finals series’ and only 9 times has one team pulled off a sweep. That’s just under 12% all time. If the Celtics can keep rolling this would be just the 10th Finals sweep ever and the first one this decade.
List of Finals sweeps
1959 - Boston Celtics over Minneapolis Lakers
1971 - Milwaukee Bucks over Baltimore Bullets
1975 - Golden State Warriors over Washington Bullets
1983 - Philadelphia 76ers over Los Angeles Lakers
1989 - Detroit Pistons over Los Angeles Lakers
1995 - Houston Rockets over Orlando Magic
2002 - Los Angeles Lakers over New Jersey Nets
2007 - San Antonio Spurs over Cleveland Cavaliers
2018 - Golden State Warriors over Cleveland Cavaliers
Interestingly enough, of the 9 sweeps, three franchises have been swept multiple times in the Finals, with the Lakers having been swept three separate times. The Bullets were also swept twice and the two most recent sweeps both came at the expense of the Cavaliers.
The Celtics pulled off the first sweep in Finals history back in 1959 and have not been involved in a Finals sweep since. They’re now attempting to pull off their second ever Finals sweep and their first one in 65 years.
The Dallas Mavericks have never swept or been swept, which isn’t that crazy considering this is only the franchise’s third ever Finals appearance. They lost in six games to the Heat in their first Finals back in 2006 but got redemption as they beat the Heat in six to win their only title in 2011.