That’s over his career, regardless of the roster. This year I think they lost to the Hornets when he had 40 lol.
NBA Finals: Celtics vs Mavs
- Thread starter RorschachsMask
- Start date
Mavs adjustments seem obvious... Might not win given talent but...
Post Luka more, it was very effective in limited doses.
Stay home on shooters, can't let the Celtics swing to open 38-40% 3pt shooters.
Let your guards get cooked. Need better effort, but also play off, let Tatum and Brown take dribble 3s and 2s.
Edit-forgot.. Oddball wing/big screens to get Horford and Porzingis back on the bigs for Luka/Lively PnR
Post Luka more, it was very effective in limited doses.
Stay home on shooters, can't let the Celtics swing to open 38-40% 3pt shooters.
Let your guards get cooked. Need better effort, but also play off, let Tatum and Brown take dribble 3s and 2s.
Edit-forgot.. Oddball wing/big screens to get Horford and Porzingis back on the bigs for Luka/Lively PnR
Timpf on his video mentioned having Irving bring the ball up the court to initiate the offense faster.
The only way the Mavs can stop Tatum from driving is trapping him, which would end quite poorly for them. He’s destroyed them off the dribble in every matchup this season. For the season he averaged 9.1 drives per game, that shot up to 15 per game in the two regular season games, and 18 the other night. He’s either too strong for their wings, or too fast for their bigs.
And because they’re willing to let Jaylen go 1 on 1, they have no chance to keep him from getting to the rim.
I know they will try things, but in game 1, they sold out as much as they could to stop Tatum from driving, outside of trapping on the catch. Celtics are just an extremely bad matchup for Dallas, defensively.
And because they’re willing to let Jaylen go 1 on 1, they have no chance to keep him from getting to the rim.
I know they will try things, but in game 1, they sold out as much as they could to stop Tatum from driving, outside of trapping on the catch. Celtics are just an extremely bad matchup for Dallas, defensively.
I wonder if a team could bait Tatum into taking those elbow jumpers a lot. I think you’d want to purposely have a small on him which he usually posts up and then give him a cushion if he catches at the elbow or close. Maybe he’d just drive with a head of steam in that case.
I would play him straight up, if I were Dallas. I know teams are pretty clearly terrified of that, but the alternative is the Celts taking 40+ threes a game, mostly pretty open.
A couple of us have been saying this for a while—and we all hear Tommy’s voice for the words—-when the Celtics push pace under control they are unguardable. Especially by Dallas, who is built for half court D
Won’t work. They have to design their entire D to compensate for Luka’s horseshit effort on that end, so there will be help planted inside no matter what and at least one open shooter once Tatum wins off the dribble.
There’s no fix against against this Celtics team as long as Luka is on the floor.
Why is the assumption that Dallas will have an answer on defense? They have some good personnel, and are very good at designing schemes that can help and rotate behind when a team has guys who can't shoot/drive or post up.
That just isn't the case here. There's no guy they can exploit to make their (frankly kinda vanilla) schemes work.
That's fine when you're racking up regular season wins, or playing Russ, SloMo, Giddey, or Gobert. Doesn't work here.
They still could win 1-2 games based on shooting variance on both ends, but the fundamentals of the series are hard to overcome.
That just isn't the case here. There's no guy they can exploit to make their (frankly kinda vanilla) schemes work.
That's fine when you're racking up regular season wins, or playing Russ, SloMo, Giddey, or Gobert. Doesn't work here.
They still could win 1-2 games based on shooting variance on both ends, but the fundamentals of the series are hard to overcome.
Their media/socials team earns every penny they are paid. Most teams have good, smart young people doing this so a there is a lot of underrated creativity going on with these reels and videos however - and I am clearly biased - the C's socials team stands out. This is just fantastic all the way around. Into my veins...
Interesting take from Kidd today.
View: https://twitter.com/NoaDalzellNBA/status/1799482600224113077
Jason Kidd was asked what makes going up against Jaylen Brown so challenging: “Well, Jaylen’s their best player.”
View: https://twitter.com/NoaDalzellNBA/status/1799482600224113077
Jason Kidd was asked what makes going up against Jaylen Brown so challenging: “Well, Jaylen’s their best player.”
I think Kidd would be happy sending Jaylen to the line rather than having him posterize his starting 5.
mostly being facetious
mostly being facetious
I was listening to Lowe and Tim Legler and both of them seemed really down on what Dallas can do defensively to stop Boston. On offense its easy to say Kyrie can make more shots, and Luka will do a better job diagnosing the defense, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of options for the Mavs to fix their defense outside of the Celtics playing very poorly.
Exactly. When your entire defense has to collapse to stop JT, you’d rather he take a tough shot than find the wide open man.
I thought JB had a grandmother
https://nypost.com/2023/07/26/meet-jaylen-browns-rumored-girlfriend-who-is-a-grandmother/
Yeah I do think the best option is to have Luka surrender 3s, sink low to try and avoid blowbys and see if the Jays will just take the minimal to no contest above the break 3s
Nice try, but they're not going to fall for it.
View: https://twitter.com/NoaDalzellNBA/status/1799497801056809211
View: https://twitter.com/NoaDalzellNBA/status/1799497801056809211
If I'm Kidd, the card I play is excess physicality (something he's had a lot of practice with at home!). If Tatum is going to cover the 5s to take away the lob, you make sure those 5s rough him up. Who cares if they get called for a few fouls, that'll happen anyway, and until they see that it's a deliberate tactic, they'll be hesitant to call a few, you might get away with a bit. Stop the drives at the basket by Tatum by any means necessary. Make the refs throw one or the other of them out of the game for his second flagrant, that level of roughing up. You can bring in a third big like Kleber to take some additional shots at him, too. Just make Tatum hurt, Bad-Boy Pistons style.
While completely unsporting, this might have any of the following effects on Tatum:
- More hesitant to finish drives / looking to kick it out earlier, before he gets a midair shove that lands him on his shoulder. Allows you to stay home more on perimeter shooters.
- Might affect his jumper. Also means after a bit of this, you can cheat up closer to him, assuming he's going to try the perimeter 3 more often.
- Could affect his decisionmaking as he's initiating, especially choosing to initiate drives rather than perimeter passing or screening actions. We don't have anyone who can stay in front of him 1v1 on drives, so making him do literally anything else with the ball is a win.
On offense, I think you plan some more Kyrie iso (he's the only one quick enough to get by our guards), and maybe try some 2-bigs possessions so you can send "whoever Horford is on" or "whoever Porzingis is not on" in for the rim-running and lob plays.
Actually I think the talk about best player defends best is Kidd trying to get Tatum to demand the Luka assignment because Tatum on Lively broke DAL's offense and there is no easy fix
That crazy good stretch of defense by JB that turned the 3rd Q around was him in the "take away the lob" role. So Tatum and Brown switching roles wouldn't be much of a net negative, I don't think.
I think that those two plays were just Jaylen knowing he could leave his man to try. Would have to watch again to see though.
It’s a role that takes a ton of discipline, while Jaylen is better suited on ball. Him on Luka and Tatum defending the lob threat is by far our best course of action. It’s like a LB/DE setting the edge in football, while some guys are better at just getting to the QB.
Yup, if Dallas comes back, it will be because they execute a version of this well.
It's the Draymond Strategy against Jaylen, but executed more subtly and with more precision.
yeah that was so ridiculous
But I'm legitimately concerned that Dallas could execute a good version of it.
I’m less concerned, especially with KP back. Tatum is going to make the right play, and I think Jaylen is getting there.
The only challenge is if the right play is to shoot an iso 3, because the defense is sagging so hard. Jaylen destroyed GSW by taking those, but you might have to be willing to take 10+ of them to break the strat.
If I were Mazzulla I would quote Claude Julien and say “Jason should worry about his own team.”
if they’re getting clean looks, I trust that a good amount will go in, especially Tatum. I just don’t see a path for Dallas outside of the Celtics going incredibly cold for a game.
I’m even more confident after what Kidd tried earlier lol.
This is basically what Legler said, as Kliq pointed out. DAL's problem was that they couldn't keep BOS in front of them so DAL was in rotation all night and they couldn't keep up with the ball (didn't mention that only 4 guys were actually rotating but maybe they will before the series is over).
How many guys on DAL's roster can stay in front of JT or JB? Jones Jr. and who else? Maybe Exum on a good night?
DAL's defense is what it is. DAL is going to have to outscore BOS to win. Good luck with that four times in the next six games.
Dallas needs 2-3 players to go nuclear in order to win and I think Kyrie has to be one of them. I really don’t see it happening
Agree. Just to repeat myself from the other thread, I think Kyrie comes out very aggressive in Game B and hits a bunch of shots in the 1Q. But I don't think either Kyrie or Luka are going to sustain something like through 4Qs against a defense as talented as BOS.
This dude turning into Big Ben. Find that camera, big boy.
View: https://twitter.com/tomerazarly/status/1799473394934788301?s=46&t=11SXTvIYT-tl8b6e7iEUVQ
View: https://twitter.com/tomerazarly/status/1799473394934788301?s=46&t=11SXTvIYT-tl8b6e7iEUVQ
Please Boston fans on hand for game 2, absorb this message and respond in kind. Hats off to Jaylen!
https://x.com/marc_damico/status/1799497597125542145?s=46&t=AIl2A76PsW7m6zyOim0I_A
https://x.com/marc_damico/status/1799497597125542145?s=46&t=AIl2A76PsW7m6zyOim0I_A
i wasn’t there, but seemed like the crowd was pretty into it when they were building up that 37-20 lead. I’m sure it’s hard to maintain intensity when the game is essentially over in the first quarter.