And it's not just shooting: those 5 guys have to be able to make plays and maintain advantages against closeouts.
Right, hell you can look at the Pacers who have an unambiguously great offense in place but 2 of their top 6 in these playoffs were guys that defenses are mostly comfortable leaving open at the 3pt line. The Dubs have Draymond, etc.
I fully expect him to sit out game 4 down 3-0.
This.
We all know this isn’t the best matchup for Doncic especially with his knee but the Mavs weren’t able to connect their help defender to Jaylen as they were to Ant last series. Jaylen seems prepared to know precisely when/where the help was coming from and sliced away from it. Game 2 is going to tell the story of this series if Kidd can devise a way to clog up the middle as they like to do off dribble penetration. If it doesn’t happen on Sunday it isn’t likely going to happen which is the path to a sweep that I talked about all week. If they do find something that works and/or bothers our shooters then we have a 5-game series with the Mavs holding home court (for whatever that’s worth in 2024 for these two teams) and things can get funky for us.
Al alone: +8
It felt like a typical game for them this year. Get a lead. Maintain the lead.. if the other team makes a run, counter.
I guess those would be casual fans who are not really paying attention. Indiana had the highest scoring offense in the regular season as well as the playoffs by pretty comfortable margins. Dallas has Luka and Kyrie who are known as special offensive players but as a team the Mavs are not among the league leaders in PPG or offensive efficiency.
Yeah, and it isn't just having people to shoot threes. Jrue in particular is really good at cutting to the basket when he senses help coming off him--and he has the skill and strength to finish at the rim in those kind of moments that few guards possess.
This looks like it but I don't trust this vendor.
Yeah I purposefully didn't say it was a problem, but it wasn't a success, either. Wonder if they'll use it more, but more interestingly, I wonder what their intent with it was.
KI had an air ball that Gafford dunked home that may have been scored as a "lob."
Another silly/ignorant thing I heard (on the Locked on Mavs podcast but I'm sure elsewhere) was, "If TJ McConnell and Andrew Nembhard can torch BOS, how will they defend Luka and Kyrie?".
I wondered out loud at the beginning of the season whether BOS has the best shooting starting five in history. Obviously GSW had better individual shooters but I can't think of another team that had 5 starters who could shoot this well. It's kind of unguardable.
I think this is going to happen. Maybe game B or game 3 are a bit closer at the end. But I think we are looking at a sweep and 3 of 4 games with double digit wins.
If they get punched in the face again, and lose game 3, I doubt Luka plays game 4.
From this article: Mavericks' movement stymied by Celtics' defense in Game 1 loss - ESPN
The bolded is a fantastic callout. It's not an accident that the lobs were being broken up and were generally unavailable. Great scheming on that.
Nike made them for the NBA, not for sale
That's a scam/AI site I think. At best selling copyright infringing material, at worst selling your CC info.
God, that really does encapsulate so much of what's stupid about the majority of basketball analysis: the decontextualized mano-mano nonsense of it all.
I don’t care for the play in tournament but I think their run in it was very valuable for them.
They beat Dallas without Luka!
Lot of guys do that (Tatum and Brown I know do) to get the runout dunk, he has a 4 on 1 essentially under the basket. The runout isn't a big deal, he's moving the wrong direction to be involved in rebounding. The problem there is....Luka never moves an inch for the rebound, and for some reason PJ Washington ignores Tatum and the ball to go shouldercheck Jrue who has NO CHANCE of getting a rebound off a 3 crashing on the baseline. If the Mavs play that even vaguely competently he should have a dunk
Luka does the same thing every time. He shuffles his feet for one action and he can stone wall at that point because he is strong. If the offensive player keeps trying, he will get around Luka who will then try to swipe from behind. After that, he's done. No effort to move or do anything else
Yup, everything in Dallas' scheme (on both ends, actually) is about initial actions. If you have the personnel and reps to be willing (obviously often don't need it all) to use 24 seconds, 5 players, and 2 sides of the court, they can get got.
Mavs have Luka, who we've been told is basically Peak Lebron with a 3 point shot. We're fucked.
I actually went back and looked at how the Pacers vs. Mavs matchups went this season because watching them I was thinking "man, Indiana would have been such a problem for those guys". And sure enough, the Pacers scored 270 points on them in two games, winning one by 17 and the other by 22.
I re-watched the first half of the second game just to see how DAL might react to an offense that actually has movement, cutting, and actions. DAL has few defenders who can play in space; IND basically got anything they wanted. And no one on DAL could stop Myles Turner of all people.
Yup. Luka let his teammates down, not the other way around.
This matches my postgame thoughts that Tatum continually made the right reads and the right plays when he had the ball in his hand. He had a great game despite the numbers not being what we tend to expect from him.
As you know, this team struggles with quick, explosive off the dribble guys.
Other than the excessive turnovers (how many times did he just dribble the ball away or flip an odd pass out of bounds?), that was a great Tatum game.
Dallas is a great matchup for the Celtics. They have multiple wings and Horford to throw at Luka. Their bigs match up well with Washington and Gafford. They switch everything so Luka can't really hunt anyone unless you want to post up Pritchard when he's in the game and even then PP is strong and they'll throw a double at that(and they rotate back so fast). Offensively, Luka and Kyrie can't guard anyone on the Celtics.
I am trying to think of a historical comparison to Luka. I know people say Bird but there is zero chance Bird would play with such low energy/impact on defense.
