NBA Finals: Celtics vs Mavs
- Thread starter RorschachsMask
- Start date
FWIW, my theory is Danny Ainge. Ima keep believing that until I hear otherwise.
I really don't think it's anyone noteworthy. Just someone that's really funny.
Does Luka do this to JB if his chest isn't actually hurting? that is some severe frustration, and literally nobody seems to have noticed. including Jaylen
Foster is one of the 12 refs selected for the finals - full list in the below link. Per that article, the actual assignments are posted around 9am the day of the game. The game 1 and 2 assignments are below (also via NBA.com).
https://www.nba.com/news/nba-officials-2024-nba-finals
| Dallas @ Boston | Zach Zarba (#15) | Josh Tiven (#58) | Courtney Kirkland (#61) | Tyler Ford (#39) |
| Dallas @ Boston | Tony Brothers (#25) | John Goble (#10) | Bill Kennedy (#55) | Tyler Ford (#39) |
Cheers. Forgot that they were announced morning of.
Foster should be one of the finals refs, he's excellent. But if we draw him in Game 3, I'm expecting Dallas to have an extreme FTA advantage.
I know Simmons gave him "The Extender" moniker but he had the Mavs-Wolves Game 4 last round and I really didn't notice him calling the game favorably towards Minnesota. In fact, he was the one that whistled the possible 4 point play for Luka (which was clearly not a foul)
Foster is pretty easily the best ref, IMO.
I’ll still be screaming at the tv about the fouls. How does Tatum drive 47 times the last two games, and get a combined 8 FT’s lol.
I’ll still be screaming at the tv about the fouls. How does Tatum drive 47 times the last two games, and get a combined 8 FT’s lol.
Baseball manager: mostly ceremonial figurehead
Football coach: some sort of combination of CEO, military commander in batte. and real-time strategy game player who meat-puppets the players
NBA coach: head of a small, fast-paced company with talented, independent employees
The NBA is all about the players, and in-game is very read-and-react, but coaches can focus on the broad contours they want all that to happen within. The coaches with "stacked talent" have the highest-value-add job in many ways, because coaches are absolutely not created equal in how they maximize that talent.
Jackson and Kerr, in particular, have really clear before-and-afters. They both inherited talented but underachieving teams, and put in place offenses that drastically improved utilization of that talent. Mazzulla has done something similar with this iteration of the Celtics: he got a lot of talent this year, and immediately configured it in ways that are pretty novel and hard to defend.
There's a LOT MORE to go into here, and I'm sure other posters will extend this and riff on it a lot. Suffice it to say that I think coaching has a big impact, but talent is a necessary condition to even start making that real impact.
I also think that, if a team is really talented, it's historically been worth it to ditch your "gets the guys to try and win 50 games" coach, and get a guy who maximizes elite talent. Spo is pretty unique in being great in both situations.
I feel good that, if I see Foster reffing a game, it won't devolve into refball.
Wrt Tatum getting mugged on drives: at a certain point, you need to adjust to 2024 and just pass out of it more when there are multiple bodies. You're not getting enough of those calls for it to pay off.
I thought Tatum looked for the pass on drives too much in game 1, and probably forced a couple of overtly contested layups in game 2.
Game 3 will be the right balance, if I had to guess.
Game 3 will be the right balance, if I had to guess.
Or did Kerr take over GSW at the right time for maturation of players?
Curry was entering year 5
Klay year 3
Dray year 2
If his chest was hurt, that gesticulating probably caused more pain than a gentle hand placement.
Yes, this happened repeatedly. I agree with you, I think he needs to challenge them head on, especially when it's Jones Jr. back there. Even on those dunk fails, he was moving away from the rim and tried to dunk from the side.
The ref I don't want to see is Marc Davis...he's been awful to the Celts for decades.
I also think that the majority of fouls that aren't being called are with the body... so when Tatum goes into one or two defenders and is still getting the shot off with no arm contact..that isn't getting called. It's the obvious contact with the arm that is still getting calls. I think Tatum, at the end of the game, had the right intent... his, and the team's, outside shots weren't falling so he tried to drive to get one more basket or foul shots that basically would have ended the game. As I recall two of Dallas' possessions leading up to that were foul calls on drives.
Definitely agreed on the game 2 approach. I think that he thought that some of those layups were there when they really weren't. He should adjust.
Davis is plain awful period. If it's him, I'd be disappointed. At least we got Brothers and Zarba out of the way for the short term.
I didn't watch a lot of Luka off ball.. but also on a critical drive late.. he grabbed PP from behind and dragged him back so the driver had a free run to the basket.. at the least PP could have fouled him, but he was also going for the dribble but couldn't because his arm was pulled. Kind of wondering if Luka is doing a lot of this kind of stuff without people (refs) seeing.
The officiating has been turrible. They are missing a dozen calls a game against Luka. If they were calling it straight he’d be living on the line.
Kerr installed a ton of new stuff on offense, that completely changed the nature of their attack from what it had been under Mark Jackson. Doesn't get nearly enough credit for this.
Certainly CJM isn't the only coach who could have figured out these adjustments but he did and he got the players to buy-in so he gets the credit.
For example, now that we've been seeing DAL players shoot from ATB, I have to wonder out loud why MIN constantly closed out hard on ATB 3Ps leaving DAl to have repeated wide-open corner 3Ps. Did Chris Quinn tell MIN to close out hard on all 3Ps? Did he tell them not to close out but the players did anyways? Whatever the reason, which I'm sure we'll never know, MIN is home and DAL is playing.
It seems clear to me that Kerr developed a system that maximized the strength of his three (or four) HOF players. Would they have won under another coach? Maybe. But some coaches might not have even played Draymond, much less had him drive the offensive engine with his passing and screening so Kerr gets the credit.
(It will be interesting to see whether Kerr is able to develop another team into a title contender.)
As far as the NBA goes, a great coach with average players probably isn't going to win anything.
An average coach with great players might be able to win.
Great players and a great coach (plus great health!) typically mean dynasties. I'm hoping for this result.
Like what stuff?
Really, just curious. This is good education. Yall talking Defense stuff has enjoying a new level of Bball watching
I actually think it's been pretty good, because they've let a lot go consistently. I thought it was very poor for the first 6 minutes or so of Game 2 and then was largely fine after that. Rather let some go than call all the ticky tack BS.
The 5 out offense with DG and AI ( original lineup of death I believe). Had them playing at a MUCH faster pace , and gave the splash brothers total freedom to launch as many 3s as possible. All their “beautiful game” type motion off ball passing stuff was Kerr too. if I remember correctly, when GS was having all that immediate success that year after they canned Jackson, anytime he was (awkwardly) having to broadcast their game, he would gush and talk about how important Linvingston was , since he was a new addition. Yet, anyone with eyes could see it was the same cast just playing and emphasizing a new play style.
He will. But I think sometimes we forget that just as the best shooter misses some wide-open looks, no one is going to make the right decision *every* time. Especially when the first move is "blow right past Doncic" so many times. There are going to be a few second moves that could have gone differently. We aren't really used to seeing 40 drives down the lane in a game like that. (I'm not, anyway). So we are going to see correspondingly more sub-optimal plays, even though the percentage of the right play is the same.
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I’m sure you know I was kidding about the Luka complaining. I actually think the officiating has been pretty good and agree with those who said that Scott Foster is solid.
Here's a 2017 article that goes into some of what Kerr put in - part triangle, part motion offense. How Steve Kerr revolutionized the Golden State Warriors' offense on a charcuterie board (espn.com)
Here's a short video of some of their concepts: The Most Explosive Offense in Basketball | Golden State Warriors Offensive Breakdown (youtube.com)
I remember a story about a coach (can't remember if it was high school or college) who took GSW's system and implemented into his team and started winning every game. I can't find the story right now but I remember the coach would see something in a game, tape it, break it down, install it in his team, and it would work. It was pretty funny.
edit: I found the article here: Team Plagiarizes Golden State Warriors. Team Is Undefeated. - The New York Times (nytimes.com) . Coach is now with Texas Tech.
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Exactly what I was thinking of!
Pro athletes are so far above us 6’4” inch, 7 % body fat MENSAA Members
Chris Finch is the Wolves coach. Chris Quinn is the douchey Heat assistant coach who used to play at Notre Dame. He's got an incredibly punchable face.
Agree with the bolded, except I'd change the first sentence to definitely isn't going to win anything. Look at the Heat the past couple of years.
The article states that PP is shooting 35.7% on such shots, which is remarkable.
Txs for correction. I probably should have looked it up but I'm being lazy today.
There was 1 game this season where he had made 2 half-court+ shots in the dying seconds of different quarters. But the 2nd one was just too late to count.
Was it against Sacramento?
I think they are letting them play. For every non call against Luka there is a Lively or Gafford not letting Al or KP set the first pick
They also played with more pace and got better on defense (although the impact was more marginal). A lot of that was recognizing Dray’s unique ability to be a small ball 5. David Lee was third on the team in minutes in 2013/14 and Bogut was seventh. Combined (ignoring games missed) they averaged 60 mpg. That’s a lot of time to traditional bigs by modern post-Warriors standards but wasn’t at all unusual then. In 2014/15, Bogut was 6th and Lee was 8th (with Dray shooting up to third). Bogut and Lee combined for 42 mpg (again, ignoring missed games). Factoring in missed games the difference gets much larger. Bogut and Lee averaged 49.5 mpg across all games in 2013/14 (adding their total minutes and dividing by 82). Under Kerr, that dropped to 30.3 mpg. If you add in bench bigs, the story stays the same. Traditional bigs (excluding Dray) played 72.2 mpg under Mark Jackson. That dropped to 51.2 mpg under Kerr. If you jump forward a year, traditional bigs played 48.7 mpg, in line with Kerr’s first year.
The numbers above aren’t the whole story or even the main story. They reflect the system changes but I think provide a pretty clear reference point for how big that change was.
'Zards. February 9. This stat proves Pritchard has been among NBA's most clutch players - Yahoo Sports.
Note it's funny that PP says Joe put him in but rumour has it that PP subbed himself in.
This is 100% accurate. Lively has been frisking Porzingis like his personal TSA agent routinely.
Good news is that if we've all seen the whistles being put away the last few months, the players have too. We also saw that the Celtics struggled with the transition to the new "let them play" model, but got it out of their system. They seem OK with the physicality. I can't imagine that it's a surprise to Dallas either.
Sharp money doesn’t necessarily “set” the betting lines but betting groups absolutely “move” the line but in a series such as this that movement isn’t coming until game day when the betting limits are increased. This doesn’t guarantee anything as even the best groups are hitting in the 57-61% range long term.
Agree with you. IMO the officiating has been fine. In Luka’s opinion, not so much.
I don't know if I've ever seen so many words that I have less of an idea of what they mean. I do recognize the word "rare".
He has an owie in both legs.
(sounds like a very rare dislocation of a tendon in the left, and his right calf is still bothering him.)