It will feel wrong for Jeff Van Gundy to win his first NBA title with the Celtics.

Stephen Bondy

NBA

by Stephen Bondy

DALLAS — Look, this isn't the same as Wade Boggs riding a horse and taking a victory lap around Yankee Stadium. It's an image of a betrayal that took Bostonians about eight years to get over — the Red Sox losing three straight games in the 2004 American League Championship Series … too soon.

But it will still be difficult for Knicks fans to see (or at least imagine) Jeff Van Gundy, the star of the Knicks' last golden era, winning his first NBA title with the Celtics.

Van Gundy was unceremoniously fired by ESPN before last season — a poor decision on the part of the network and compounded by the mental instability of his successors, Doc Rivers and JJ Redick — but he joined the Celtics as a senior consultant and was described by coach Joe Mazzulla as a “big weapon.”

And in his first season with Boston after 12-plus years with the Knicks until 2001, Van Gundy is one win away from receiving a ring. That ring will feature a shamrock.

I feel like something is wrong.

Of course, the Celtics still have to win. They had a chance to win the series in Dallas on Friday night, but they laid the leprechaun's egg. Losing by 38 points in the Finals is a stretch, but the Celtics were mediocre and Dallas rallied at home.

Kudos to Mavericks coach Jason Kidd for getting the best out of his team, especially defensively, despite being down 3-0 against a better team.

The Celtics hadn't scored fewer than 84 points since Game 7 against the Heat last year, the team's worst Finals loss and the third-worst in league history.

“Our group was ready to go. They were ready to celebrate,” Kidd said. “We fought back. We were desperate. We had to keep playing like that. We had to understand that they were going to find a way to close the door.”

“The hardest thing in this league is to close the door on a win against a team that has nothing to lose. You saw that tonight. They let go of the rope pretty early.”

But now the series, and the champagne, will move to TD Garden on Monday for Game 5, where the Celtics are 45-6 this season, including the playoffs, and where X-factor Kristaps Porzingis is gradually returning from a leg injury.

The Celtics would have to lose twice at home to lose this series, and while Jayson Tatum has been known to fumble, losing a championship in 2024 is inconceivable.

“Don't dwell on it. [Game 4] “It's too much. It happened. You can't change what happened,” Tatum said. “I say it all the time, if we lose by two or we lose by 30, it's the same thing. But we've got to be better. I'm not going to make excuses. We've got to be better, and we will. We'll be better.”

But the Mavericks can still preach hope. No NBA team has ever bounced back from a 3-0 series deficit like Dallas found itself in before Friday, but several have emerged from their current 3-1 slump. Mavericks point guard Kyrie Irving certainly understands the possibility. He and LeBron James led the 2016 Finals comeback against the Warriors in one of the most unlikely endings in NBA history.

“If you look at the situation we're facing objectively, history is going to be made either way and we want to be on the right side,” Irving said. “This comes from the same sentiment, the same phrase I used the other day: 'Just give it your all.' I felt in Game 3 we had a good chance to close that game out to at least put ourselves in a competitive position.”

“Then we waited until Game 4 and finally played our best game. It took a while for everyone to come together and play for each other like we did tonight, but there's definitely a chance we can do it again. We know it'll be a tough battle against the same great team in Boston. We're going into their home field and have another chance to extend our season. That's all we can hope for. We've done our job. [in Game 4]But the job remains an uphill battle, and we know that.”

As the saying goes, that would be like climbing Everest equipped with only socks, underwear and a box of Pop-Tarts. If the Mavs fail that daunting task, Van Gundy, who has reportedly received “strong interest” in joining the Clippers' coaching staff next season, could finally get his hands on a ring.

When asked about his former Knicks colleague joining the Celtics, Tom Thibodeau jokingly said, “That's awful!”