As the NBA world gets ready for the finals between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks to begin on Thursday, there’s a few storylines heading into this series. Both teams have had solid performances and superstars step up in crunch time. As for the Celtics, they may not be considered overwhelming favorites (-220 favorites), but a lot of changes will likely happen to the roster if they don’t hoist up the trophy at the end.

Here’s a few things the Celtics need to do in order to win the franchise’s 18th NBA Championship–and it starts with game 1.

Make Luka Doncic work on defense

There’s no question that the top player on the Mavs is Luka Doncic. The six-foot-seven point guard is a matchup nightmare for nearly any player in the league. He can’t be truly guarded and be held to under 20 points. However, one of the Mavs downsides are that they always need either Doncic and Kyrie Irving on the court–which means the C’s need to make Luka work on defense.

The last two series against the Thunder and especially the T’Wolves I saw Luka sit in the corner or the top of the key on defense then not have to defend for the whole possession. Luka preserves his energy on defense by not fighting over screens and rarely boxing out. Luka may creep up to the basket when a shot goes up to rebound, but he doesn’t fight for boards. Luckily for the Celtics, they have five several guys that can score on all three levels and can score off of screens. It’ll be extremely important that the Celtics move around and force Luka to use some energy on defense so he’ll won’t have as much energy on offense and in the closing games.

Use experience as a weapon

It feels like Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have both been to the conference finals nearly every season they’ve been in the NBA. They also have been to the NBA Finals and lost to the Golden State Warriors. We also can’t forget the fact the Jrue Holiday was brought on for his veteran experience to go with his tenacity on defense. This season the C’s not only have the talent from top to bottom, but they have the experience now and will have to use that in order to win because they have that advantage over the Mavs. Al Horford will come off the bench with Kristaps Porzingis coming back, and Horford is a vet who’s been there too.

The Mavs have Kyrie Irving, someone who hit a game-winning shot over Steph Curry to capture a NBA Championship. He’s the one that makes them very dangerous, but Irving also used to play for the Celtics for two seasons with Brown and Tatum. They knew how Kyrie plays and his tendencies, not to say Irving can be locked down, but they can get some stops on him. The Mavs front court is filled with eager young guys who don’t have the experience, the C’s should use it to their advantage. Whether it’s getting inside their heads, putting their bigs in foul trouble early, or switching up the defense to confuse them– C’s should use experience as an advantage.

Control the boards

With great defenders such as Derrick White and Jrue Holiday on the roster, the C’s can force miss shots and late shot-clock heaves–but it’ll mean nothing if they can’t keep the young guys off the boards. This entire playoffs, the C’s struggled in the rebounding department at times because of the absence of Porzingis. Without the size, the C’s allowed second chance shots which have let teams fight their way back in games. Tatum oftentimes had to defend the power forward position which hindered him on offense, but the rebounding effort has to be all five players on the court.