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Miami Heat fan Coco Gauff declares her loyalties for the 2024 NBA Finals

Celtics or Mavericks? Her pick is in.

ByBaseline Staff

Published Jun 05, 2024

Her team might've been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, but Coco Gauff still has a personal connection to the squad she's picking to win for the upcoming NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks.

"I think I'm going to go for the Mavericks just because I like Kyrie Irving a lot, and I met him a couple of years ago [in 2019]. I'm not 100% for one team," Gauff said Tuesday at Roland Garros, while proclaiming her favorite team, the Miami Heat, will bounce back stronger next season after losing to the Celtics earlier in the postseason.

Gauff played basketball in her youth, and still was playing both sports when she made the junior US Open final as a 13-year-old in 2017. Her former athletic pursuit has been top of mind during the clay-court season: In Stuttgart, the US Open champion mused about what it might be like to guard superstar Caitlin Clark on the hardwood, and has formed a bond with another WNBA rookie, Cameron Brink, over off-court fashion.

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Gauff's team of choice has an uphill battle in the Finals, as the Celtics are currently the betting favorites. But if the team approaches the series like Gauff is approaching her upcoming Roland Garros semifinal against world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, it will serve them well.

Gauff has won just one of her prior 11 meetings against Swiatek, last year in Cincinnati, and is 0-2 against her at Roland Garros. But the American says she wants to embrace the challenge head-on.

"I'm going to go into the match with a lot of belief that I can," Gauff said. "She's obviously No. 1 in the world, and she won this tournament, like, what, three times already. I think for me I'm just going in with confidence.

"When I played her in Cincinnati, I didn't go into the match thinking, 'Oh, I've never beaten her before, never taken a set off of her.' ... It doesn't mean anything. Maybe I could lose with the same score, maybe not, but I'm just going to go in and just try to win.

"I have nothing to lose. All the pressure is on her."