NBA Finals: Celtics vs Mavs

Who wins?

  • Celtics in 4

    Votes: 22 5.0%
  • Celtics in 5

    Votes: 120 27.3%
  • Celtics in 6

    Votes: 222 50.6%
  • Celtics in 7

    Votes: 52 11.8%
  • Mavs in 4-5

    Votes: 3 0.7%
  • Mavs in 6-7

    Votes: 20 4.6%

  • Total voters
    439
  • Poll closed .

Jed Zeppelin

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As I've said a lot now, Mazzulla's combination of scheme, buy-in and player implementation is really underrated. It's not just Xs and Os: it's more like running a company well.
For those of us who have been watching every game for the whole JB/JT run, one of the most consistently maddening things about them has been the inconsistency of the offensive gameplan especially wrt hunting mismatches.

They’d often find a thing that worked, then never go back to it. Run screens to get Tatum or Brown switched onto better defenders. Or, otoh, force mismatches to the point that they don’t play within the offense anymore.

To finally be the team that was dictating the state of play nearly every night and leaving everyone in the dust thinking “what can we possibly do?” was simply amazing. The JB/JT maturation coincided perfectly with CJM coming into his own and POBOBS putting the perfect cast around them.

Finally, it’ll never not be funny that the discourse simply hated this.

“Why doesn’t Jayson Tatum dominate big games?”

Jayson Tatum dominates big game.

“No, not like that!!!”
 

Montana Fan

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Am doing a game 5 rewatch. Am through 3rd quarter and the C’s truly have had the clamps on all game. Not a possession that Luka wasn’t hounded by JB or Jrue 30 feet from the basket. Kyrie had a hand in his face all night. And Hauser, musta gotten his hand on half a dozen balls. What a performance by the D.
 

Euclis20

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Am doing a game 5 rewatch. Am through 3rd quarter and the C’s truly have had the clamps on all game. Not a possession that Luka wasn’t hounded by JB or Jrue 30 feet from the basket. Kyrie had a hand in his face all night. And Hauser, musta gotten his hand on half a dozen balls. What a performance by the D.
It really was something. The 3 point shooting went ice cold (1-9 from 3 in the 3rd quarter and just 5-18 in the 2nd half) and it seemed like Tatum, Horford and Holiday missed a combined 5-6 point blank layups that they'd normally make 95% of the time, and it just didn't matter. It's not like Luka lit it up, but he was the only Mav to hit a field goal from 5:55 left in the 3rd (Green 3) and 7:42 left in the 4th (Kyrie 3). That's over 10 minutes with nothing but a couple of Luka baskets.
 

PedroKsBambino

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Agreed, that was the secret sauce all playoffs in the clutch - the offense didn't lock up as much as in the past, but had cold stretches. But the defense, in key stretches especially in 4th quarters, was all-world vs Cle, Ind, and Dallas. Those teams simply had no offensive answers.

The Celtics switchable, dialed-in 5 man unit with Horford leaves you so little - some great scorers can beat Al one on one on a P&R; some super-quick guys can get around White sometimes; you can get rebounds against them when they don't gang-rebound. But man...you work SO hard for each shot against that five when they are dialed in it's just unique and so impactful. Trip after trip the other team would run 2-3 actions, 20 seconds off the clock, and end up wtih a 24 foot pull up, or a fallaway, or a contested mid-range. So hard to compete when that is what the Celtics leave you with
 

chilidawg

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Agreed, that was the secret sauce all playoffs in the clutch - the offense didn't lock up as much as in the past, but had cold stretches. But the defense, in key stretches especially in 4th quarters, was all-world vs Cle, Ind, and Dallas. Those teams simply had no offensive answers.

The Celtics switchable, dialed-in 5 man unit with Horford leaves you so little - some great scorers can beat Al one on one on a P&R; some super-quick guys can get around White sometimes; you can get rebounds against them when they don't gang-rebound. But man...you work SO hard for each shot against that five when they are dialed in it's just unique and so impactful. Trip after trip the other team would run 2-3 actions, 20 seconds off the clock, and end up wtih a 24 foot pull up, or a fallaway, or a contested mid-range. So hard to compete when that is what the Celtics leave you with
Indeed. They were a record setting offense, but defense is really what won this. What do they say, "Defense wins championships"?
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Indeed. They were a record setting offense, but defense is really what won this. What do they say, "Defense wins championships"?
Agree that their defense was special and not enough folks are focusing on this.

And to think people were worried about our defense when we traded Marcus for KP (granted that was before Jrue came on board).
 

PedroKsBambino

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Highlights from that great video (thanks for posting WBCD

On PnR/lob game: Half the number of pick and rolls with Luka/big in Finals as WCF....and those PnR generated .68 points per possession vs Boston vs 1.25 vs Minnesota.

On corner threes: 14% of all Dallas shots in WC were corner threes...6% of shots in Finals for Dallas were corner threes

Just like Joe wants, we won the math game.
 

Euclis20

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Indeed. They were a record setting offense, but defense is really what won this. What do they say, "Defense wins championships"?
The main criticism (besides Tatum slander) was that they couldn't win if the 3s stopped falling. Boston shot a relatively average .360 from 3 in the playoffs (tied for 6th best among all playoff teams) and was only above their season average from 3 in 5 of 19 playoff games (and 4 of those 5 were in the first 2 rounds). Didn't matter, they still won easily.
 

Jimbodandy

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Highlights from that great video (thanks for posting WBCD

On PnR/lob game: Half the number of pick and rolls with Luka/big in Finals as WCF....and those PnR generated .68 points per possession vs Boston vs 1.25 vs Minnesota.

On corner threes: 14% of all Dallas shots in WC were corner threes...6% of shots in Finals for Dallas were corner threes

Just like Joe wants, we won the math game.
Great observation. Taking away the corner 3s and lobs was a huge part of shutting down Dallas's offense. Those are easy, high percentage shots, and they weren't there. That forced the big2 to fight for everything for 40+ minutes.
 

lovegtm

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It really was something. The 3 point shooting went ice cold (1-9 from 3 in the 3rd quarter and just 5-18 in the 2nd half) and it seemed like Tatum, Horford and Holiday missed a combined 5-6 point blank layups that they'd normally make 95% of the time, and it just didn't matter. It's not like Luka lit it up, but he was the only Mav to hit a field goal from 5:55 left in the 3rd (Green 3) and 7:42 left in the 4th (Kyrie 3). That's over 10 minutes with nothing but a couple of Luka baskets.
It was crazy. The Celtics expected points were probably 120+, but they were missing (as you said) 85%+ layups over and over and over.
 

lovegtm

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Just like Joe wants, we won the math game.
Yup, and one thing that often gets lost in discussions about "winning the math game" or "taking too many 3s": NBA teams really, really don't like to lose the math game. Teams are trying their asses off to get those corner 3s, because everyone knows how valuable they are.

Knowing you want to win the math battle is just the start; a ton of execution and talent is required after that to do so.
 

Jimbodandy

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Yup, and one thing that often gets lost in discussions about "winning the math game" or "taking too many 3s": NBA teams really, really don't like to lose the math game. Teams are trying their asses off to get those corner 3s, because everyone knows how valuable they are.

Knowing you want to win the math battle is just the start; a ton of execution and talent is required after that to do so.
And planning. Most obviously is on the players, but taking that math equation and game planning and communicating it...that's on the staff. High fives all around. Great discipline by the players to buy in, stick to the script, and execute their asses off. Great game plans too.
 

PedroKsBambino

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I've said it a few times this year, and in the playoffs, and will say it again here: I thought Mazzula was outcoached by Spo last year in the playoffs, and while I saw some good stuff I was very concerned he wouldn't grow fast enough to support what was clearly a championship caliber team. I was totally wrong about that; Stevens knew what he had and was proven correct in his assessment. CJM was great this year, and absolutely outcoached everyone in the playoffs (including Spo, though he was playing with very few cards). He dominated Jason Kidd in the finals adjustment-wise and game-planning wise - it was like watching a Belichick team who knew what to do, how to do it, and then had drilled in the execution as well.

There was an interview I believe Zach Lowe did where Mazzula talked about timeout usage. Matter of factly he talked about having tracked (and with the video team analyzed) every timeout in the last five minutes of a game. And then stated his conclusions about the value of being sure you stayed "on plan' for timeouts and had one late when you needed it most - to advance the ball, etc. And how many games were lost without that timeout. Whether or not he did it perfectly last year, and to my eyes he used them a bit more this year, it is a great example of his process and analytical orientation. Which is a whole lot more involved than all of us going on gut within a single game on when to call one.

Just a reminder that we only see a small portion of what goes into coaching a team....and (as HRB in particular noted last year) when you don't have your staff and don't have your system, it's even harder to know what someone is and isn't capable of doing coaching and game-planning wise.
 

tims4wins

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Yup, and one thing that often gets lost in discussions about "winning the math game" or "taking too many 3s": NBA teams really, really don't like to lose the math game. Teams are trying their asses off to get those corner 3s, because everyone knows how valuable they are.

Knowing you want to win the math battle is just the start; a ton of execution and talent is required after that to do so.
When Joe was mic'd up during game 3, he kept repeating that they had to work their asses off to get great shots. It's easy to say words like win the math game and take more corner 3s than the other team. It's very, very hard hard to turn that into reality. And that's where the national discourse goes... off course.
 

Euclis20

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View: https://twitter.com/celtics/status/1805601849917194345


This may well have been posted elsewhere, but I didn't check every thread. Whatever the case, the whole series is fantastic, but the final episode tops them all.
Thanks for posting, this entire series really was excellent.

Rewatching the 4th quarter again, it's kind of remarkable that the Celtics don't score in the final 3 and a half minutes of the game. Tatum was the only Celtic to make a field goal in the final 8 minutes (Brown hit a couple free throws, and that was it). The game never got truly out of hand until Boston got up by 26 with about 4 minutes left, even though the Celtics made just 6 field goals in the 4th quarter.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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I've said it a few times this year, and in the playoffs, and will say it again here: I thought Mazzula was outcoached by Spo last year in the playoffs, and while I saw some good stuff I was very concerned he wouldn't grow fast enough to support what was clearly a championship caliber team. I was totally wrong about that; Stevens knew what he had and was proven correct in his assessment. CJM was great this year, and absolutely outcoached everyone in the playoffs (including Spo, though he was playing with very few cards). He dominated Jason Kidd in the finals adjustment-wise and game-planning wise - it was like watching a Belichick team who knew what to do, how to do it, and then had drilled in the execution as well.

There was an interview I believe Zach Lowe did where Mazzula talked about timeout usage. Matter of factly he talked about having tracked (and with the video team analyzed) every timeout in the last five minutes of a game. And then stated his conclusions about the value of being sure you stayed "on plan' for timeouts and had one late when you needed it most - to advance the ball, etc. And how many games were lost without that timeout. Whether or not he did it perfectly last year, and to my eyes he used them a bit more this year, it is a great example of his process and analytical orientation. Which is a whole lot more involved than all of us going on gut within a single game on when to call one.

Just a reminder that we only see a small portion of what goes into coaching a team....and (as HRB in particular noted last year) when you don't have your staff and don't have your system, it's even harder to know what someone is and isn't capable of doing coaching and game-planning wise.
Big fan of CJM but it's amazing how much better a coach gets when he has a bushel of veteran two-way All-Star players. :)
 

lars10

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Big fan of CJM but it's amazing how much better a coach gets when he has a bushel of veteran two-way All-Star players. :)
I think this is unfair to JM.. there’s a reason the Cs looked like an almost different team between game 4 and 5 in the finals.. and that had a lot to do with coaching.
 

bankshot1

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This year there were a lot of Celts and a sophomore coach with lofty goals and a pretty big chip on their respective shoulders. There was a lot to prove and they did. Wire to wire they were the best.

They were a highly motivated group. Next year it will be a big part of CJMs to do list to keep the hunger, motivation and attention to the game plan at the fore in their quest to repeat. It's hard to repeat for lots of reasons, and I suspect it will be for the best team in the league and by a wide margin.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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I think this is unfair to JM.. there’s a reason the Cs looked like an almost different team between game 4 and 5 in the finals.. and that had a lot to do with coaching.
As I said I'm a big fan of CJM but hard disagree on this. Coaching doesn't turn a 38 point blowout loss into an 18 point win. G4 was a matter of the Cs being super flat emotionally - I mean who wouldn't given they went up 3-0? - and DAL not wanting to get swept. Just like MIN took G4 from DAL and then lost in five.

Yes CJM did some adjustments on offense but G5 was won because BOS had all of the defensive answers so long as DAL did not get out in transition.

Really it's pretty damn hard to judge coaching from a fan's seat. I know I like what I hear from Joe and from the players about Joe, but who the fuck really knows. Not me.
Me either. In the final "All In" video, CJM says that he thinks pretty much every coach is about the same - it's just about the players. That probably goes too far - I mean Chris Finch couldn't figure out that MIN should stop rotating off corner 3P shooters to contest ATB 3Ps? - but I bet any number of coaches would have won with this BOS squad. Even KC ("Roll out the ball and let them play") Jones. :)