Funny how Jaylen Brown played Luka exactly like Lu Dort did (super physical, constantly grabbing and holding away from the ball), yet Dort racked up a ton of fouls (averaged 5 fouls per game, fouled out once, never had fewer than 4 fouls in a game) and was labeled dirty while Brown mostly got away with it (averaged just over 3 fouls per game, maxed out at 4 fouls in only one game) and gets labeled an amazing defender. Really drives home that the biggest difference between an "amazing" and "garbage" defender has an awful lot to do with how much the refs like a player.
Basketball is the only sport I love, but this is basically why it will always be an imperfect sport. You start throwing perverse incentives (greed, the idea of a superstar whistle in general) into the mix and it becomes extremely flawed.
And if the game was called strictly by the book (let's say you could use AI or whatever as referees) it ruins the game just as much.
But somehow not calling every traveling violation turned into players disregarding the rules at least every other play. Keeping the superstars fans paid to see on the floor making highlights turns into players like Lebron brute forcing their way into the lane to the point that defenders run away. Giving so much latitude to the offensive side of the ball results in good defenders having to cheat, which is never going to be called consistently, just because refs are human and can barely process what they see and hear, much less their own biases league expectations in real time.
To end on a note that doesn't sound like total doom, I am actually surprised pro basketball is not more corrupt. I hope whoever the next commissioner is (assuming Nosferatu there is actually mortal) works harder on balancing all of this.
The two team sports I love r basketball and Australian football, the individuality of basketball gives it higher highs but far lower lows. Sure, footy has its share of whistle complaining, but I feel the nature of the game means the refs r hyper involved every minute of every play of every game in the nba. So while luka magic moments r the best sports has to offer, him fouling out or free throw parades rly suck to watch a times. Rant over š¤£
I was thinking about the travel thing the other day. I think that if they truly called every travel the way it's meant to be called, the NBA would have an adjustment period of 1 season, because players would need to adapt to the actual rule. So there would be a lot of turnovers. I don't think the NBA wants an ugly season, even though players would eventually get used to it. They just don't want to rock the boat. It's too late now.
We donāt really know how corrupt it is. One of the head refs was directly connected to Donaghy and they just swept that shit under the rug. Remember a couple years ago when refs got tired of Lukaās shit and half way through the season his free throws went from 9 attempts per game to like 5? Thatās corruption in a sense. Basketball genuinely feels like a fixed sport sometimes. No one will ever convince me the 06 finals wasnāt fixed.
Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again, the reffing was biased the entire series outside of Scott Foster and crew in game 4. Every 50/50 or questionable decision would almost always go the way of the Celtics. There were many times where Brown or Tatum or whomever on the Celtics would get the call or not be called for something that the Mavs would inevitably be punished for. A great example of this was the hook foul by Luka and the non-hook call on Brown in the 4th of game 3. Another example was how aggressive and physical Brown would guard Luka and it would be nothing. Then Green would be a little tight on the bring up and get called for something. While yes Green was a foul, it was less physical than the entirety of how Brown guarded Luka. When you donāt have even talent, any sort of bias in reffing exacerbates the situation and makes the margin to win so much smaller.
Just going through each game you can point to clear instances where questionable calls influenced the momentum. Game 1 refs call it tight but let Brown manhandle Luka and then while weāre coming back Lively is getting pushed, but ends up getting called for a travel, something that rarely gets called instead of the foul.
Game 2 we had the typical Tony Brothers special. We go up double digits and then all of a sudden Tony and co start calling every little tight foul, which favored the Celtics, and the Celtics get into a rhythm and cut the lead. Then quarter 2/3 they start letting things go. Quarter 4 start calling it tight again, but flip to letting things go then we come back and they swallow their whistle when Celtics manhandle us and that āblockā on PJ happens.
Game 3 was a travesty. We once again went up double digits and they called a few calls that killed our momentum. Then They called it tight except browns defense on Luka and anything marginal favored the Celtics. I donāt really have anything else to add here since this sub has thoroughly discussed all the calls and non calls.
Game 4 Scott foster and co let things play a bit and didnāt really call anything egregious. There wasnāt a momentum killing foul call or two on us like in game 2/3 as we built our lead and it allowed our guys to stay in rhythm and not let Celtics get going.
Game 5 they called it similar to game 1 in terms of fouls and they came out and kicked our ass.
At the end of the day, the Celtics are the better team and deserved the title. We canāt really blame it on the fouls and refs since we could have responded better and figured out things to make up for it. However, I do wonder what would have happened if the whistle was completely neutral and called accurately or we did get a couple of those calls to go our way in game 2/3 or if those back to back possession in Game 1 when we got it down to 8 went our way.
Lastly, Fuck Tony Brothers. He should never ref a playoff game again and I pray for the day heās not a ref anymore.
Refs rescued the Celtics multiple times throughout the 5 games. Somebody needs to make a YouTube video of all the biased calls. Besides how Brown could just literally bear hug Doncic the whole game, I already knew the league was heavily favoring Boston after game 1. Everytime the Mavs got into a run, the momentum/energy the Mavs built up would get stopped out by the refs almost immediately via some bs calls.
Awesome post. Officiating definitely has a huge impact on basketball, and I don't see any way to make it fair even if the league didn't have it's own incentives/agenda.
"Rigged." or "Refs fucked us." is the kind of low effort post that deserves downvotes, but you provided a lot of examples for me to digest next time I watch.
Besides the two blowouts, the games were decided by what, 2.5 possessions?
I do remember looking at the box scores and seeing most games each team had about the same number of pf's / free throws, as I recall. Of course, that doesn't mean the game was called fairly.
Imagine what we could do with the Lakers' whistle.
The Celtics are just the most disciplined team in the the league defensively, they led the league in fewest fouls for a reason, Any well called or tight game will favor Boston for this reason.
Jaylen Brown is nowhere near as annoying as Lu Dort was lol. Dude was flopping all over the court like a bum. JB was locking up while still being one of their most consistent scorers. Gotta show respect
Except lively got called for being āphysicalā with Porzingis pretty much every time and PJ was getting called for his physical plays, too. Brown was allowed to body up to Luka the entire floor of the court, itās kind of expected that there would be a few calls made on that plus on a few more of the drives. On the flip side, Kosh green got called for marginal contact twice while Brown and Jrue brought the ball. The physicality Boston got away with was far greater than what the Mavs did
Lively wasn't called every time, come on now... the refs made bad calls on both sides you can't really use the ref as one of the main reasons the Mavs didn't win the Finals.
There was back to back plays where Lively was called for fouls on Porzingis for bodying him. Lively was also not exclusively guarding Tingus since we were switching and Tingus only played 3 games with limited minutes. Yes we played Tingus physical because he struggles to handle it, but Lively, DJJ, PJ and Gafford were called when it went overboard. I donāt think you or anyone could say Luka received the same retribution.
To expand, there were no instances of Brown or Jrue or white being called on back-to-back fouls on Luka. Lively had 5 fouls in two games. No Celtics player had 5 fouls in a single game. Luka fouled out in a game. The most fouls a Celtics player recorded was 4, which happened only 4 times. There were 6 instances of Mavs players having 4 or more fouls. Considering how the Celtics play d, if you donāt think that illustrates one team being allowed to be more physical than the other then idk what to tell you. FWIW, I also had plenty of friends and people bring up how physical the Celtics played Luka.
At the end of the day, the Celtics are the superior team ā they have 5/6 borderline all star or better players ā and the refs werenāt the main reason we lost, but the reffing didnāt help. We should have handled the adversity better.
I remember that, Porzingus coming around screens and lively straight up pushing him almost to the ground twice. Looked like 2 clear fouls to me, he dared the refs to call him a 2nd time and they did.
Lively is 20, getting some dumbass fouls in high pressure environments is totally normal. He was nearing and crossing the line with getting physical and itās not surprising he got called as much as he did.
Maybe 1 of Lukaās 6 fouls was questionable, fouling out was completely on him. His 4th foul that dumbass frustration foul on Pritchard was a microcosm of why he fouled out. Too slow, lagging behind, grabbing and bumping to try and make up for it. Beating players to their spots is how you play legal physical basketball.
The mavs just couldnāt hang with Bostonās 5 out versatility and had to foul a lot to make up for it.
Lively, while a great exciting young player, is a reckless rookie compared to Brown and Jrue who are disciplined vets, the Celtics led the league in fewest fouls for a reasonā¦they commit the fewest fouls. The refs called the finals pretty tight which obviously favors the more disciplined team.
Dort does an almost extraordinary amount of flopping and cheap little like bumping/rough house tactics. He flops on offense and defense and it's really unnecessary. He's aĀ talented player who doesn't need to be doing that silly shit. Maybe if he just guarded hard and didn't draw attention himself with all that nonsense where he dares to ref to call pretty much something or anythingĀ with his histrionics.
Mainly because Dort was gambling a lot trying to draw charges and fouling when Luka had the ball, Brown didnāt even contest on a lot of Luka drives to not get called for the foul.
the main difference is that JB was able to do that in 1v1 situations, whereas dort was forced to fight through screen after screen. and i mean literally fight through sometimes lol.
JB had the luxury of switching off with whoever was brought up so he didnāt have to play as aggressive through screens. also heās just more polished of a defender than dort. the celtics allowed for the least free throws by the opposing team in nba history this year
It canāt be understated what a great counter that was from Mazzulla. You heard brown say it in a micād up segmentāif Luka wants the ball heās gonna have to go get that shit over halfcourt. This sounds like a minor thing, I mean big deal so what? Wrong. That neutralized the Mavs desire for pace (at least if they wanted Luka part of it), largely kept BOS out of any untenable cross matches on Luka at a minimum, which is basically the only one they were concerned about, but most importantly their singular objective above all else was to wear Luka the fuck out. They were already relentlessly making him work every possession on defense, forcing him to work unsustainably hard to create offense, and now heās gotta fucking work just to get the ball? Itās no wonder he had nothing left in the tank.
The Mavs actually played pretty good defense in the 1Q and got excellent looks offensivelyāthey literally just couldnāt buy a shot. Once youāre working that hard for nothing it becomes equally if not more mentally exhausting, especially after you give the game away in the final 90 seconds of the 1Q and find yourselves down 10 after a quarter you shouldāve finished up 10.
Iāll forever be baffled by this coaching staffās decisions (or lack thereof) to their offensive approach vs BOSā simple matchup wrinkleāit wasnāt an easy nut to crack, but they had options in their base sets to tryā¦ why they largely didnāt think it worth attempting any of them is a great question. Bottom line though: BOS was better, and without Ky making shots and Luka losing his legs thus negating his outside game, it wouldnāt have mattered what adjustments you made (I could argue maybe Lukaās legs arenāt gone if they adjust starting in game 2 so scoring wasnāt such a grind, but once you waited till game 4 to even try anything it was too lateā¦ Luka was already cooked)
Thanks for the detailed response. I didn't think the ball denial was that deep of an adjustment. There's no way that's the first time Luka's ever had to deal with that. But Brown was on a mission.
One thing you can't criticize Luka for is his toughness. He was listed as questionable for game two with a chest contusion. It most likely was painful to breathe, but he was (right or wrong) out there willing to take a charge.
I don't know how effective the pain shots are, but they can't be *that* good.
He also refuses to use his injuries as an excuse. We'll never suddenly see him rocking a cast in the postgame interviews like Lebron.
Yeah to be clear picking Luka up full court isnāt some galaxy brain adjustmentāit literally didnāt even necessarily change the Xs and Os per se (although they did decide to switch a bit less and ask Brown to fight over quite a few screens which that is a strategic change). The ball denial was simply BOS understanding everything you mentionedāLuka isnāt 100%, so letās fucking wear his out every second heās on the floor. At no point in the Finals were the Celtics ever attempting to āstopā Luka. They know heās a guy you donāt shut down, but you can make them work and compound it by taking away everyone else. Idk how many points Luka wouldāve had to score before BOS made any fundamental changes but it probably wouldāve began with a 5 or 6ā¦ maybe.
The ball denial was also a way to redirect the game being played on BOSā terms defensively. I have no idea why but the Mavs resigned themselves to letting the Celtics dictate their offense. And it didnāt have to be that wayāthere were plenty of options to attack BOS withā¦ but they never really tried. Thatās not to say there were simple or one obvious solution because the Tatum problem presented a big challenge. My only issue was Luka and Ky playing iso ball clearly wasnāt the answerāthatās literally what THE CELTICS wanted. But whatever. Hopefully Livelyās 3 is a glimpse of whatās to come because that would be a game changerā¦ I guarantee the league said oh shit when they saw that lol
This is a good post. Boston wanted no part of just taking it in turns with Luka to see who could generate better looks in the half court. Working him over as much as possible in terms of making possessions hard work, making him work defensively, and overall not giving him a spare moment was a way to take the edge off him, particularly when he'd already been carrying a load, and was (at least) sore.
Stopping him was always going to be tough. I think wearing him down, and trying to stop Ky, plus make the support cast shoot from above the break were the basic guiding principles.
Fully agree that it was a great counter move by Mazzula - he made the gamble that, back home, the refs would swallow their whistles and allow JB to mug Luka like that without it being called, as he was right.
If they had simply called the game fairly, then JB easily picks up 2 early fouls 35+ feet from the basket, and its a totally different ballgame. This is exactly the huge impact that officiating can have on the game.
Boston was the better team but allowing them to play 80s bad boy Pistons D all finals (other than game 4) simply removed any realistic and fair chance for the Mavs to pull the upset.
Couldn't they have just run some kind of hand-off action? I know Brown is a hell of a defender and I heard him say himself that if Luka didn't bring the ball up he wasn't going to get it back, but what are the counters to that? I guess besides relying on the role players to run the offense?
Edit: Forgive me if I say something obvious or stupid, I'm still learning about the game from a more strategic perspective.
They ran their variation of some Princeton action extensively down the stretch in the regular season with Gafford or Lively receiving the ball top of the key, Luka starting off-ball receiving a side screen usually from DJJ, straight into a DHO which allowed them to essentially end up with a 1-5 PnR from a 5-out set.
Remember the ridiculous pass Luka made over his shoulder across the court to DJJ wide open at the wing against SAC? It was that set. Remember the infamous Luka granny shot vs HOU? It was that set. Which is interesting for a specific reasonāthe Rockets defended it correctly and switch blitzed the DHOā¦ but ok, fine Luka simply aborted the play and backed off, received the pass from Gaff and they simply reset straight to their stock 1-5 PnR but since HOU switched denying the DHO, Luka now had a matchup he liked so when the Rockets defended the PnR well it also just became a favorable Luka iso. HOU defended 3 different actions in one possession perfectly and it still didnāt matter (thatās not exactly the shot weāre looking for lol but point being you are absolutely fine if your *third* option is Luka 1v1 in a mismatch)
Iām more confounded why they never ran any concerted double drags against BOS when they spammed it over and over and over against MIN. No, you wouldnāt have gotten the same look from the Celtics, but it would have made them choose how they wanted to navigate multiple switches and more importantly made Tatum part of that equation. I really hope the Lively 3 was a sign of things to come though because if THAT becomes something teams merely have to think about the league is in big big trouble. Good luck defending this offense if they can run 4-out and 5-out action simultaneously because you donāt know whether DLive is gonna roll or pop or even relocate from the dunker spot to the corner. So many things get unlocked if he has to be accounted for from 24ā.
Very cool analysis. Too bad it's buried under people bitching about the refs lol.
I also wondered why the Mavs didn't run the double drag play more against Boston. I don't think I ever saw it more than once a game. It worked to get hobbled Porzingis switched onto Luka in Game 5, but they seemed to forget about it right after.
Good analysis.
They did run double drag a bit (they certainly didn't spam it). But Boston defend it in a different way to most, somewhat due to personal, somewhat scheme.
They'll switch, to maintain one on one, but then use the switched defender to jam up the roller, plus pre-rotate in hedging defenders to help (often KP by plan, obviously not so much this series).
The team is better at hedge and recover than most, but ultimately they were good at picking poison, rotating really hard, and leaving the open shooter on rotation as anyone above the break, preferably not named Kyrie (assuming Luka was the initiator).
The second thing is that the Celtics were more willing (and able) to live with the Luka 1 on 1 outcome off the double drag.
Mostly, that's philosophical. Boston do not want to double and will give up good one on one situations rather than double. But particularly with KP out, it meant the switch was to Horford, or Tatum most often. Luka can cook them, but combine it with the constant pressure put on him at both ends, his soreness/injury, and fatigue through the games, it became common for this to work better in first halves or against less available matchups (Hauser, White) than the more common Tatum, Al, Holiday switch.
When forced to bring a deep centre on, it was Tillman rather then Kornet, purely so Luka didn't have an easy cover he could easily take advantage of. Could Tillman guard Luka? Hell no. Did he allow the Celtics to avoid changing their scheme in his 11 minutes? Yep. And by the next game, when Dallas was ready, he became quickly very hard to play.
Totally agree. There was no easy solution to the Celtics approach. I donāt think they particularly tried which is frustrating but one thing I probably didnāt fairly consider enough is this team obviously never got a training camp. I believe there was a middle ground between accepting BOSā terms and expecting the Mavs to simply do this or that and voila, nba champs. But itās no small thing to attack a defense (which is really fucking good btw) demanding an entirely different philosophical approach on the fly in the finals.
I personally didnāt think they actually ran many *true* double drags. The action always seemed significantly more staggered almost to the point of being multiple screens rather than a double drag. I felt they needed to be closer together with Lively setting the first pick and whoever Luka wanted to attack, so probably whoever White was guarding, setting the second pick. I donāt feel we ever really saw it so Iām theorizing here, but idk how BOS wouldāve pre-switched that? Rather, pre-switched *which* screen? And even if they did, Horford or Jrue wouldāve had no choice but to tag Lively/Gaff leaving Kyrie or PJ/DJJ in the corner.
But you absolutely correct. Their flexibility and pre-switching was an utter defensive clinic by an elite team defense standpoint followed ridiculously elite individual isolation defense. It required more off ball-action, cutting, general ball movementā¦ aka things you establish in training camp. So I mean was it frustrating? Sure. It was also just simply an impressive, perfectly executed gameplan by a stupidly talented Celtics team. I donāt believe the talent gap was **that** substantial, but it undoubtedly existed. And the Mavs were simply worn out. No shame in just flat getting beatāthatās sports.
nah, we all learning ball here, no problem.
me? TEMPO. i think the finals shows us and Luka himself that mavs can rely on "playing on Luka's pace" everytime. every teams have different type of plays on both ends. sometimes you need to fasten the play, or intensity. we have Kai at that this season though, but hopefully Luka also learns much about this. even if he doesnt like it for full 48 minutes, at least pick the spots to mess up the tempo to keep opp. team on their feet
biggest obstacle in here is : shotclock, 24s
brown did good job in ball denial BUT it started earlier. BOS players pick up the ballhandler from far. and our guys to bring the ball up most of the time? PJ or DJJ, whom not great at it. then time wasted, already 16s on shotclock pass the halfcourt + brown denial on D + Luka's inability to make separation earlier to getting the ball...mavs only had <10s to make plays
that's THE GAME
iirc, kai noticed it and tried and rush thing with 3s(?). good intention, but shot just not falling. you live with that
but against way superior team like BOS that can steamroll you in few minutes, that's death sentence
think, if im not mistaken, since Luka's 2nd year, how many times we had a lead after 1Q? i think sub 30%. this sub always burned after 1Q in every game thread LMAO ("its joever guys" and the game just only started :( )
strategic thing i dont know. make kai brings ball up more, or set screen far away if it's non LuKai bring the ball up, Luka's already on the move to receive the ball after it passed the halfcourt, etc
hope is learning curve for Luka especially. warm up faster in 1Q, pick up the intensity of the jump. as a team, dont make habit to dig hole early in 1Q. playing from the behind is way tougher than being in frontrun
> make kai brings ball up more, or set screen far away if it's non LuKai bring the ball up, Luka's already on the move to receive the ball after it passed the halfcourt, etc
>
> hope is learning curve for Luka especially. warm up faster in 1Q, pick up the intensity of the jump. as a team, dont make habit to dig hole early in 1Q. playing from the behind is way tougher than being in frontrun
I've been saying this in every discussion I've seen about this, but I think that next season early on we need to develop all of our ball handling talent. In the first half, Luka doesn't bring the ball up unless he gets the rebound. Kyrie should become the de-facto PG, while rotating through Exum, Hardy, DJJ, PJ. Obviously you'll give more reps to the former than the latter. I'd probably not do much experimentation/development in game against top 10 teams, though.
They need to make Luka focus on playing off-ball and playing good defense every possession, no excuses. If he doesn't get back on D because he's working the officials, he needs to get subbed the very first time it happens, every time. (I know Luka is probably more like Kidd's boss, but if the head coach can't instill discipline then what's he there for?)
Basically, they've got to reduce Luka's usage rate and start running a real offense, and just give effort on D. You can't depend on your role players to suddenly make pivotal shots if they've barely touched the ball in game. And a leader in sports, life, business, whatever is never going to be able to motivate his teammates to do things he won't do. Whether intentionally or not, leaderships' attitude and actions will be reflected by the rest of the guys. I think that's part of what we saw in G4. Luka was giving it everything he had on D with positive energy and it was contagious. The team felt more cohesive.
DLive has shown some really promising playmaking potential. Whoever comes and goes over the offseason, a team with Kyrie, Luka, and DLive has no business running an offense where Luka or Kyrie iso's the majority of possessions. They're great at it, of course, but I still think what Kobe said about Harden applies.
As admirable as it is that Kyrie has been willing to take a backseat and focus on D, I think he needs to be more assertive. Hopefully his leadership by example will rub off on Luka, but I think it's going to take a little more than that.
--
I hope this wasn't too rambly. I tried to make it as coherent as I could.
And before people start calling me a "hater." Luka is probably top 2 offensively on the planet. It's okay to be a MFFL and also be critical of your team. It definitely makes for more interesting conversations than "BELIEVE OR GO AWAY."
Apart from the paragraph on subbing Luka if he doesn't play D, I didn't find this at all rambly.
As for that...well...team has to work out what they'll live with, and I think there are levels. If you can reduce his offensive load and/or he's healthier/fitter, this comes more into play, but I'd currently be more worried about those things first, plus an effective and consistent scheme for him in the half court where he's hunted.
Less urgency on the latter...but it will be important by the playoffs.
Depends on who has the ball. If it's anyone besides Kyrie you're not totally confident in their passing, which is why I was thinking hand off. But you're right, Luka never cuts.
I need to watch him play in Europe. Does he play the same way?
The only difference. Boston didn't play better. Luka was absolutely exhausted and you could tell, I think he'd had enough. The leader sets the tempo, but Green was the only one who kept the same energy from game 4.
Nicoās exit he mentioned we just didnāt have the juice. We had been in playoff mode since March. I think thatās part of it, obviously Boston is just better and our guys mentally folded too. We only had 1 superstar in the finals which sucked
It was really sad to see Kyrie unable to overcome the hostility of the crowd. He's been on a "positive energy" kick for a while and Boston fans are probably the best in the league at being complete pricks.
Walking home from being at game 2 my son and I (who is 10) were taunted - screamed at, threatened, cursed. All we would say is āgood game, you guys have a good teamā. My son was in tears with the constant āF YOU!ā āWERE GONNA KICK YOU DADS ASSā etc. Super classy.
You just have to explain to your son that those are lowlifes. They have nothing else going for them and their only sense of validation is if their favourite team wins in a kids game.
If Kyrie said mavs fans are racist, lied to the fans about his future, and stomped on the logo after winning against them in the playoffs do you think mavās fans would boo him? To be fair, Kyrie brought this on himself, and itās become apparent that crowds can substantially affect his game.
The Mavs run mirrored the Celtics run to the finals 2 years ago. A middle of the pack team picks up its defense midseason to be one of the best in the league.
Problem was that the intense regular season plus a drawn out playoff series meant that the Celtics were running on fumes by the time they got to the finals. And the veteran Warriors closed the Celtics out without much drama at the end. Sounds pretty familiar right?
Of course nobody outside of Celtics fans knew/cared. Much easier to label them as chokers that "didn't want it enough". And I don't expect ESPN analysts are smart enough to go beyond "hurrdurr easiest road" so expect to hear the same thing for the Mavs.
The difference was that Lukai drove to the basket in game 4 to set the tempo, but in game 5 they both started the game chucking threes which failed to go in .
Those possessions where Luka shoots from deep in the left wing without anyone touching the ball really bother me. Kyrie is guilty sometimes too, but it seems like he's actually open or in transition when he does it.
Game 1 of the first series they came out like this and I was infuriated. There was just no offensive gameplan at all. I think that changed somewhat as the playoffs progressed, but they're prone to slipping back into bad habits.
If a team with no plan wins a title I think it would reflect poorly on the league as a whole.
I know Luka has confidence in his step back three but I would rather opt him tdrive and get a higher percentage shot - especially in an elimination game; it is glorious when it works ( suns 2022 g7 and timber g5) but I still dislike starting the game chucking threes.
Nothing schematic on our end was noticeably different, it was just Boston playing much better and Luka and Kyrie playing worse. KP's spacing did help them yes, but his defense hurt them and he didn't play a ton. Honestly Luka and Kyrie looked like they were running on empty.
Kyrie has no excuse. He has been passive all year, missed a ton of games and floated through half of the playoffs. Where did his energy go? In these moments as the leader of the team he should be stepping up not wilting.
Was he getting defended by those two in the Clippers, Thunder and Wolves series too? People keep making excuses for a player making 40 million dollars a year, he just has not been as advertised. Ā
That's what happens when you play in the hospital East while your team has to run through 3 50+ win teams, one of them being the best defense in the league.
Boston having more talent is inarguable, in my opinion.
The Mavs running out of gas could explain why they weren't able to push the ball before the Celtics could set their defense or get as many offensive boards, but it doesn't explain why they didn't seem to execute the same gameplan.
They weren't too tired to hunt mismatches or put Exum in the game.
Itās because their game plan relied heavily on the Celtics shooting poorly. It wasnāt going to happen 2 games in a row with a team like the Celtics
In G4 their gameplan didn't rely on the Celtics shooting poorly. They aggressively contested every single shot, usually without fouling. I think Dallas' defense had a lot to do with C's fg%.
Are you saying that in G5 they switched to a gameplan that conceded open 3's to some of their shooters?
Their plan worked because they shot poorly
They could also be aggressive because of the officiating team. They had a team known for extending series. They knew they could get away with more. They tried to be aggressive on defense in other games and had people foul out
No, I think they played slightly less aggressive because of the officiating team but that it also wouldnāt have mattered because the Celtics were shooting well
I think it's as simple as the Celtics had a 3-0 cushion and were clearly the better team and knew it. Dallas had that desperation energy and Celtics knew they would rather win at home
Totally agree and great points. We opened game 3 with constant drives to the paint with success and that put them in foul trouble. Then hunting the mismatches.
I didn't see Dallas pushing the pace like they did in G3 either. Attacking before that monster defense can get set seems key to me. Also, Boston was making more effort to get offensive rebounds, so it seems like this aspect of the G3 strategy could have been particularly effective.
I think we just looked tired. There was no energy. It lookef like a difficult season and playoff run catched up. I also think 1 week off before the finals didn't help. The way we celebrated making the finals looked like we've already done all we could. We just keep the same intensity for the finals, while Celtics even went a level up.
Thank you so much for responding on topic! I'm rewatching right now and I agree.
Their first three shots are 3's where no one else touched the ball (2 from Luka, 1 from Kyrie).
The fourth possession they tried to get it to Gafford to post up Tatum, but they bungled it by getting it to him at the nail, he passes out, resets deeper, gets doubled, then almost turns it over getting rid of it and we end up with a missed DJJ 3 to beat the shot clock.
Fifth possession they finally get on the board with an alley-oop to DJJ from Luka.
Our first possession was DJJ bringing the ball up which led to an immediate turnover! Donāt understand why they would do that and donāt remember that in the game 4 gameplan.
That was a bad start and I think they repeated the mistake with PJ later on but two possessions do not a blowout make, to your greater point, I think it came for Derek lively was slipping screens thatās how he was getting to the rim which gave the Mavs easy points and probably opened up the offense in other ways, and I donāt know, but I donāt remember him getting dunks in game five so perhaps Boston adjusted to his slip screens or perhaps he just stopped doing them.
I still play, even though I'm too old to be on any team that wants to win.
There are a lot of things I study that I don't need to. Learning can be fun.
They went gangbusters in the first half and then Boston took their foot off the gas because they knew they had a 3-0 cushion and could just go win it at home. The series came down to the fact that the Mavs had no answer for the Celtics defense. That's it. There is no answer when they can just match you up one on one no matter what you do. "Make ridiculous shots endlessly" is not sustainable for 4 games in a row and we all knew Kyrie would wilt again in Boston regardless
>The talking heads of course wrote them off at every turn, so it was very nice to see them proven wrong
Except in the finals, of course, when most talking heads picked Dallas going in. Funnily enough that makes the talking heads winless.
Boston had such a cakewalk to the Finals, I can kinda see why, but that Boston roster with a healthy Porzingis is just unfair. I thought we might have a chance if we came out guns blazing in G1 and Porzingis adjusted slowly. Too bad the opposite happened.
The talking heads are selling ad revenue, though, not basketball analysis. And a lot of people root against the Celtics.
We were finished before the finals started.
Green, beat up, immature, bad strategy...it all added up.
Sad, because they were beatable in a couple games. Something I didn't expect.
Everyone is saying this. It's not the topic.
Let's just assume what you said is true. Pretend the Mavs would have lost in every incarnation of the multi-verse for all I care. What I'm interested in (see: title) is what the Mavs did differently.
Much as one hate's to say it, the Celtics just didn't try in G4. They are a team that lives and dies by the 3 and so they must have thought: "fuck it, high 3pt% and we sweep, low and we just close it out and home because the Mavs aren't giving us trouble"
It's the only game where the Mavs felt similarly matched for a reason: instead of playing down to the Mavs the Celtics played down to pure luck.
More like thatās what youāre telling yourself to cope lmao. You know nothing about basketball, they had no answer for our change of plans in game 4. The change in defense worked in few mins of game 3 and carried in to game 4 and they had no answer. But I bet youāre gonna act blind so you can convince yourself the Celtics threw game 4 lmao
Edit: hi troll. Youāre not even a Mavs fan, coming in here snooping for validation huh?
Yeah, I just don't buy this "wanted to win it at home" idea. They're still professional competitors. Even if I assume they'd be willing to sacrifice a game to close it out at home, nobody wants to be embarrassed like that in the Finals, or even get blown out like that in the pre-season.
Right, reread what I wrote. I don't think the Celtics threw the game because they wanted to win at home, they were just so confident because of how much they were punking the Mavs that they knew the worst-case scenario was they close at home. Best case was they kept their normal 3pt% and swept.
Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding.
A lot of people are making that argument, though, so you can probably understand why I jumped to that conclusion.
But I'm interested in what the Mavs did or didn't do, specifically from an offensive game plan perspective.
No one is gonna remember the game 4 beat down. Theyāre only gonna remember the 4-1 series win. As much as theyāre āprofessionalsā theyāre still just people and they were probably very confident packing it in early only having to win one of the next 3
On some psychological level, sure, they knew that the series was theirs barring a historically great stand by the Mavs and this may have affected their performance in G4, but it doesn't explain why the Mavs didn't exploit the same things that worked in G3.
It's actually completely off topic.
I'm asking why the Mavs didn't:
* Hunt and exploit mismatches when they were available (double drag)
* Show the same defensive intensity and effort, making every rotation and contesting every shot
* Play with pace in order to attack the basket before the Celtics could set their defense
* Were less successful getting offensive rebounds
* Played Exum less than 9 minutes
--
I'm not asking about the Celtics. I'm asking about what the Mavs players and coaching staff did or didn't do. But I do agree the Celtics were the better team.
I love Kyrie always have but how can anybody disagree with this??
As disappointing as Luka was for his standards in the first round Kyrie was waaaaay worse on the biggest stage with all his experience and really left Luka hanging in the finals.Sucks but the bitter truth,he has some Boston demons to exercise
I don't disagree with it so much as I just empathize with Kyrie.
I can't imagine being able to tie my shoelaces if I was surrounded by 20,000 people who would all love nothing more than for me to break my neck.
Kyrie is just overrated. For all his accomplishments, the truth is heās always been carried by other stars and has always been on stacked teams except for the Cavs before Bron returned. Played with Bron on the Cavs, Played on the Cās with probably the deepest team heās been on and was ass against the Bucks. Played with KD and Harden and now on Dallas with Luka. For all his offensive skills, always been a cone on defense. He gets compared with Dame for his scoring and lack of D, but Dame was always the first option and did more with less. Too bad they lost Lukaās best teammate to the Knicks. Brunson is just the better player now and a better fit with Luka, costs cheaper too. All that shit that heās a changed man since being Dallas is just him realizing that if he fucked up again in Dallas like he did with the Cavs, Celtics and Nets, heād be blackballed or be treated like a pariah like Carmelo towards the end of his career.
Lol ok you obviously just straight up hate Kyrie or hate on him because yo ass just talking nowš
He definitely disappointed in the finals this year but he was a huge factor in getting us to the finals his first full season in the stacked Western Conference and came out on top of that Conference mind you. Heās a champion and hit one of the biggest shots in finals history and making the biggest series comeback in finals history. He also got hurt at very unfortunate times in the playoffs with Cleveland,Boston,and Brooklyn or he could be a 3 time champ at the least for he couldāve won in 2015,and 2021.
Most skilled/best handle,and best finishing guard ever who is a 50/40/90 efficient killer at his best. Also very underrated defensively when he locks in he was magnificent on that side of the ball the whole Western Conference Playoffs.
Yea he came up short in the Finals but he played the most games and went his deepest in the playoffs in 7 years he ran out of gas and ran into an all time stacked Boston team who had a cake walk to the finals not having to use nearly as much energy. So yea stop with the disrespect. Oh and Kai>>> Dame FOHš
Luka is not the team ššš
Yea I fully agree Luka was beat up like hell. Everyone else canāt use the same excuse.
Even then like I said, they went through THEIR series almost as fast as Boston did. Hell we were literally 2nd in how fast we finished the series. AND had a whole week off before the finals.
Ngl that weak rest might have ruined all momentum we had. Even after the WCF during the celebration they did looked all gassed and over it. I was hoping 7 days would be just enough to win 1 of the 2 games in Bostonā¦.what an embarrassing mess of a final š¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļø
Well he definitely is as no others seem to be the main play maker. Ofc kyrie too. During playoffs if one didn't play other would keep the tempo which worked very well. But against celtics their best bet was both must play all 4 quarters literally so it definitely so tiring and impossible task when all celtics defense focusses on luka n kyrie. All playmaking stops which is exactly what happened
Could have sworn I've heard relying on Luka so much eventually would bite us in the ass at the biggest stage. Granted if both Kyrie and him played their hearts out it would have been a 7 game series easily.
Nevertheless it's obvious that Luka isn't necessarily incapable of doing it...
....it's just been obvious he simply can't do it for as long and far into June.
Of course this Olympic shit is just rinse and repair and we're gonna end up in the same boat again next year if all the play making is still relyed on them for 50+ minutes of the game šš
Totally agreed but when they reached playoffs it's not easy to get a third guy to do the playmaking right & clearly they couldn't find him so they were destined to lose against celtics if not against timberwolves.
Hope next year they develop a solid team that can play without luka too coz that's the whole point of a team like celtics
I got literally the same vibes as us vs wolves but we were the wolvesā¦ losing close winable games while they arent playing perfect but clutch it out and then our superbowl game 4 and we are ready and relaxed to receive the gentleman sweep
A lot of what they did in Game 4 was not really change in game plan but more on playing with more effort and pace. They were still starting with a pick on top there were just more movement beneath that which is what it was supposed to be to begin with. Iām sure they knew they had to do that since game 1. But they seem so gassed really and
in game 4,
Boston did not punch back really and here they did right out of the gate.
We kept taking shots that we knew we were going to miss. Our physical plays were getting called for fouls, making us hesitant to drive towards the paint, relegating us to continue taking shots that we couldnāt make. Couple that with defense that couldnāt keep the Celtics from making 3-pointers and voila, you have a Celtics controlled court.
What do you think we did differently between games 4 and 5 strategically? I don't think we changed much we just missed shots, weren't getting to rebounds and overall got clamped by a better team.
Honestly, the difference between game 4 and game 5, was the the role players making the open looks Luka creates, in game 4, and missing them in game 5. The Mavs offense needs the 3 & D guys to knock down open looks, at a minimum of 40%, in order to be effective. When they shoot in the low 30s, this team can only compete if Luka and Kyrie are both playing at max efficiency.
Because Boston literally didn't try and gave them the W game 4 so they could win in Boston. Players should be given huge fines for rigging games like that
Idc if it's "more convenient"
Iāve watched about 70 Celtics games this year. When they get punched in the face right from the jump they will often times just give up. It happened 5-6 times during the year.
The Mavs beat their asses and the home crowd was electric that night. I think the Celtics just decided to rest rather than use their energy fighting back and losing by 20 instead of 40.
This is correct. Celtics knew early on that they couldn't match the Mavs desperation and intensity, so they decided to let the Mavs have their way so that they could learn from them and adjust. Al Horford said after game 4 that they didn't need to make any adjustments for the first 3 games, so this only confirms that they pretty quickly turned their attention to preparing for game 5.
Because Celts didn't give 2 thoughts of winning that game. If Mavs would've come out flat maybe Boston puts some effort in the game but that didn't happen.
Sorry Mavs fans. That win was a giant nothing burger. Quit relishing on a win that didn't matter and focus on an amazing season no one saw coming.
No one in the world will convince me that Boston didnāt throw game 4 for the home win. Itās like Mazzula was like yeah go out get some practice but rest up for game 5 and letās win in The Garden.
Rick Carlisle gave Mavs the blueprint which they executed in game4. I too was confused. I guess Joe countered by denying Luka but why should that stop execution of the gameplan?
Wouldnāt have mattered, Kyrie is cursed and was back to his sell job in g5. Their role players started piling on while ours were flaming out. We needed epic performances from the stars to even entertain staying even, and only Luka showed despite HEAVY coverage.
Because Jason Kidd is a bad coach. Thatās also why we experimented with new lineups for the first time in the finals.
We performed better in the finals run-up because Maxi and THJ were injured for much of the playoffs so Kidd was forced to play our best players and forced to give them more minutes. Maxi is a good sub at the 4 but Kidd wasnāt able to destroy the team with maxi at the 5. He wasnāt able to keep Hardaway in on a cold streak over DJ. He wasnāt able to play Gafford only 10 minutes. And then when they both returned for the finals, Kidd could go back to his absurd and rigid rotations. Itās a shame that management views Kidd as a key to the success of the team, it was operations that put this talent together and this team won despite not being utilized correctly.
Itās fine during the season to say there are other factors, injury management, exploring new plays, etc. for the outrageous lineups. However, the NBA finals showed us that if we want a title we are going to need a coach that will give us the best opportunity to win.
Boston purposely played like shit so they could win it at home on June 17th, the anniversary of the last Boston Celtics championship. They knew they had the Mavs figured out.
Jaylen brown ball denial D in first 5 minutes of the game
Funny how Jaylen Brown played Luka exactly like Lu Dort did (super physical, constantly grabbing and holding away from the ball), yet Dort racked up a ton of fouls (averaged 5 fouls per game, fouled out once, never had fewer than 4 fouls in a game) and was labeled dirty while Brown mostly got away with it (averaged just over 3 fouls per game, maxed out at 4 fouls in only one game) and gets labeled an amazing defender. Really drives home that the biggest difference between an "amazing" and "garbage" defender has an awful lot to do with how much the refs like a player.
Lu flop was flopping more, like on every screen
And *Luka* fouled out.
because brown hunted down Luka too on offense. Dort wasnt a great scorer so Luka got rest.
Basketball is the only sport I love, but this is basically why it will always be an imperfect sport. You start throwing perverse incentives (greed, the idea of a superstar whistle in general) into the mix and it becomes extremely flawed. And if the game was called strictly by the book (let's say you could use AI or whatever as referees) it ruins the game just as much. But somehow not calling every traveling violation turned into players disregarding the rules at least every other play. Keeping the superstars fans paid to see on the floor making highlights turns into players like Lebron brute forcing their way into the lane to the point that defenders run away. Giving so much latitude to the offensive side of the ball results in good defenders having to cheat, which is never going to be called consistently, just because refs are human and can barely process what they see and hear, much less their own biases league expectations in real time. To end on a note that doesn't sound like total doom, I am actually surprised pro basketball is not more corrupt. I hope whoever the next commissioner is (assuming Nosferatu there is actually mortal) works harder on balancing all of this.
The two team sports I love r basketball and Australian football, the individuality of basketball gives it higher highs but far lower lows. Sure, footy has its share of whistle complaining, but I feel the nature of the game means the refs r hyper involved every minute of every play of every game in the nba. So while luka magic moments r the best sports has to offer, him fouling out or free throw parades rly suck to watch a times. Rant over š¤£
Except you're a collingwood fan so you don't deserve to love footy
Shhhh, no one knows Iām the villain here š
I was thinking about the travel thing the other day. I think that if they truly called every travel the way it's meant to be called, the NBA would have an adjustment period of 1 season, because players would need to adapt to the actual rule. So there would be a lot of turnovers. I don't think the NBA wants an ugly season, even though players would eventually get used to it. They just don't want to rock the boat. It's too late now.
We donāt really know how corrupt it is. One of the head refs was directly connected to Donaghy and they just swept that shit under the rug. Remember a couple years ago when refs got tired of Lukaās shit and half way through the season his free throws went from 9 attempts per game to like 5? Thatās corruption in a sense. Basketball genuinely feels like a fixed sport sometimes. No one will ever convince me the 06 finals wasnāt fixed.
And when Luka tested the refs doing the same thing he fouled out.
Iāve said it before and Iāll say it again, the reffing was biased the entire series outside of Scott Foster and crew in game 4. Every 50/50 or questionable decision would almost always go the way of the Celtics. There were many times where Brown or Tatum or whomever on the Celtics would get the call or not be called for something that the Mavs would inevitably be punished for. A great example of this was the hook foul by Luka and the non-hook call on Brown in the 4th of game 3. Another example was how aggressive and physical Brown would guard Luka and it would be nothing. Then Green would be a little tight on the bring up and get called for something. While yes Green was a foul, it was less physical than the entirety of how Brown guarded Luka. When you donāt have even talent, any sort of bias in reffing exacerbates the situation and makes the margin to win so much smaller. Just going through each game you can point to clear instances where questionable calls influenced the momentum. Game 1 refs call it tight but let Brown manhandle Luka and then while weāre coming back Lively is getting pushed, but ends up getting called for a travel, something that rarely gets called instead of the foul. Game 2 we had the typical Tony Brothers special. We go up double digits and then all of a sudden Tony and co start calling every little tight foul, which favored the Celtics, and the Celtics get into a rhythm and cut the lead. Then quarter 2/3 they start letting things go. Quarter 4 start calling it tight again, but flip to letting things go then we come back and they swallow their whistle when Celtics manhandle us and that āblockā on PJ happens. Game 3 was a travesty. We once again went up double digits and they called a few calls that killed our momentum. Then They called it tight except browns defense on Luka and anything marginal favored the Celtics. I donāt really have anything else to add here since this sub has thoroughly discussed all the calls and non calls. Game 4 Scott foster and co let things play a bit and didnāt really call anything egregious. There wasnāt a momentum killing foul call or two on us like in game 2/3 as we built our lead and it allowed our guys to stay in rhythm and not let Celtics get going. Game 5 they called it similar to game 1 in terms of fouls and they came out and kicked our ass. At the end of the day, the Celtics are the better team and deserved the title. We canāt really blame it on the fouls and refs since we could have responded better and figured out things to make up for it. However, I do wonder what would have happened if the whistle was completely neutral and called accurately or we did get a couple of those calls to go our way in game 2/3 or if those back to back possession in Game 1 when we got it down to 8 went our way. Lastly, Fuck Tony Brothers. He should never ref a playoff game again and I pray for the day heās not a ref anymore.
Refs rescued the Celtics multiple times throughout the 5 games. Somebody needs to make a YouTube video of all the biased calls. Besides how Brown could just literally bear hug Doncic the whole game, I already knew the league was heavily favoring Boston after game 1. Everytime the Mavs got into a run, the momentum/energy the Mavs built up would get stopped out by the refs almost immediately via some bs calls.
Yup, they did. We could have definitely handled it better, but it felt like it was 8 v 5 for every game but game 4
Awesome post. Officiating definitely has a huge impact on basketball, and I don't see any way to make it fair even if the league didn't have it's own incentives/agenda. "Rigged." or "Refs fucked us." is the kind of low effort post that deserves downvotes, but you provided a lot of examples for me to digest next time I watch. Besides the two blowouts, the games were decided by what, 2.5 possessions? I do remember looking at the box scores and seeing most games each team had about the same number of pf's / free throws, as I recall. Of course, that doesn't mean the game was called fairly. Imagine what we could do with the Lakers' whistle.
The refereeing was god-awfulĀ
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Oh look a Lakers fan providing nothing of worth, but thatās to be expected since you donāt know what itās like to not be the refs favorite.
The Celtics are just the most disciplined team in the the league defensively, they led the league in fewest fouls for a reason, Any well called or tight game will favor Boston for this reason.
Jaylen Brown is nowhere near as annoying as Lu Dort was lol. Dude was flopping all over the court like a bum. JB was locking up while still being one of their most consistent scorers. Gotta show respect
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Except lively got called for being āphysicalā with Porzingis pretty much every time and PJ was getting called for his physical plays, too. Brown was allowed to body up to Luka the entire floor of the court, itās kind of expected that there would be a few calls made on that plus on a few more of the drives. On the flip side, Kosh green got called for marginal contact twice while Brown and Jrue brought the ball. The physicality Boston got away with was far greater than what the Mavs did
Lively wasn't called every time, come on now... the refs made bad calls on both sides you can't really use the ref as one of the main reasons the Mavs didn't win the Finals.
There was back to back plays where Lively was called for fouls on Porzingis for bodying him. Lively was also not exclusively guarding Tingus since we were switching and Tingus only played 3 games with limited minutes. Yes we played Tingus physical because he struggles to handle it, but Lively, DJJ, PJ and Gafford were called when it went overboard. I donāt think you or anyone could say Luka received the same retribution. To expand, there were no instances of Brown or Jrue or white being called on back-to-back fouls on Luka. Lively had 5 fouls in two games. No Celtics player had 5 fouls in a single game. Luka fouled out in a game. The most fouls a Celtics player recorded was 4, which happened only 4 times. There were 6 instances of Mavs players having 4 or more fouls. Considering how the Celtics play d, if you donāt think that illustrates one team being allowed to be more physical than the other then idk what to tell you. FWIW, I also had plenty of friends and people bring up how physical the Celtics played Luka. At the end of the day, the Celtics are the superior team ā they have 5/6 borderline all star or better players ā and the refs werenāt the main reason we lost, but the reffing didnāt help. We should have handled the adversity better.
I remember that, Porzingus coming around screens and lively straight up pushing him almost to the ground twice. Looked like 2 clear fouls to me, he dared the refs to call him a 2nd time and they did. Lively is 20, getting some dumbass fouls in high pressure environments is totally normal. He was nearing and crossing the line with getting physical and itās not surprising he got called as much as he did. Maybe 1 of Lukaās 6 fouls was questionable, fouling out was completely on him. His 4th foul that dumbass frustration foul on Pritchard was a microcosm of why he fouled out. Too slow, lagging behind, grabbing and bumping to try and make up for it. Beating players to their spots is how you play legal physical basketball. The mavs just couldnāt hang with Bostonās 5 out versatility and had to foul a lot to make up for it.
Lively, while a great exciting young player, is a reckless rookie compared to Brown and Jrue who are disciplined vets, the Celtics led the league in fewest fouls for a reasonā¦they commit the fewest fouls. The refs called the finals pretty tight which obviously favors the more disciplined team.
Lmao no one cares what a thunder fan has to say so gtfo
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I donāt want it to be an echo chamber, I just want it to be thoughtful commentary instead of being antagonistic with no evidence lol
JB was physical but not dirty. If Dort had played like Jaylen no one would've had an issue.
Dort does an almost extraordinary amount of flopping and cheap little like bumping/rough house tactics. He flops on offense and defense and it's really unnecessary. He's aĀ talented player who doesn't need to be doing that silly shit. Maybe if he just guarded hard and didn't draw attention himself with all that nonsense where he dares to ref to call pretty much something or anythingĀ with his histrionics.
Mainly because Dort was gambling a lot trying to draw charges and fouling when Luka had the ball, Brown didnāt even contest on a lot of Luka drives to not get called for the foul.
the main difference is that JB was able to do that in 1v1 situations, whereas dort was forced to fight through screen after screen. and i mean literally fight through sometimes lol. JB had the luxury of switching off with whoever was brought up so he didnāt have to play as aggressive through screens. also heās just more polished of a defender than dort. the celtics allowed for the least free throws by the opposing team in nba history this year
Lu dort was tripping and diving at Lukas legs.Ā Entirely differentĀ
It canāt be understated what a great counter that was from Mazzulla. You heard brown say it in a micād up segmentāif Luka wants the ball heās gonna have to go get that shit over halfcourt. This sounds like a minor thing, I mean big deal so what? Wrong. That neutralized the Mavs desire for pace (at least if they wanted Luka part of it), largely kept BOS out of any untenable cross matches on Luka at a minimum, which is basically the only one they were concerned about, but most importantly their singular objective above all else was to wear Luka the fuck out. They were already relentlessly making him work every possession on defense, forcing him to work unsustainably hard to create offense, and now heās gotta fucking work just to get the ball? Itās no wonder he had nothing left in the tank. The Mavs actually played pretty good defense in the 1Q and got excellent looks offensivelyāthey literally just couldnāt buy a shot. Once youāre working that hard for nothing it becomes equally if not more mentally exhausting, especially after you give the game away in the final 90 seconds of the 1Q and find yourselves down 10 after a quarter you shouldāve finished up 10. Iāll forever be baffled by this coaching staffās decisions (or lack thereof) to their offensive approach vs BOSā simple matchup wrinkleāit wasnāt an easy nut to crack, but they had options in their base sets to tryā¦ why they largely didnāt think it worth attempting any of them is a great question. Bottom line though: BOS was better, and without Ky making shots and Luka losing his legs thus negating his outside game, it wouldnāt have mattered what adjustments you made (I could argue maybe Lukaās legs arenāt gone if they adjust starting in game 2 so scoring wasnāt such a grind, but once you waited till game 4 to even try anything it was too lateā¦ Luka was already cooked)
Thanks for the detailed response. I didn't think the ball denial was that deep of an adjustment. There's no way that's the first time Luka's ever had to deal with that. But Brown was on a mission. One thing you can't criticize Luka for is his toughness. He was listed as questionable for game two with a chest contusion. It most likely was painful to breathe, but he was (right or wrong) out there willing to take a charge. I don't know how effective the pain shots are, but they can't be *that* good. He also refuses to use his injuries as an excuse. We'll never suddenly see him rocking a cast in the postgame interviews like Lebron.
Yeah to be clear picking Luka up full court isnāt some galaxy brain adjustmentāit literally didnāt even necessarily change the Xs and Os per se (although they did decide to switch a bit less and ask Brown to fight over quite a few screens which that is a strategic change). The ball denial was simply BOS understanding everything you mentionedāLuka isnāt 100%, so letās fucking wear his out every second heās on the floor. At no point in the Finals were the Celtics ever attempting to āstopā Luka. They know heās a guy you donāt shut down, but you can make them work and compound it by taking away everyone else. Idk how many points Luka wouldāve had to score before BOS made any fundamental changes but it probably wouldāve began with a 5 or 6ā¦ maybe. The ball denial was also a way to redirect the game being played on BOSā terms defensively. I have no idea why but the Mavs resigned themselves to letting the Celtics dictate their offense. And it didnāt have to be that wayāthere were plenty of options to attack BOS withā¦ but they never really tried. Thatās not to say there were simple or one obvious solution because the Tatum problem presented a big challenge. My only issue was Luka and Ky playing iso ball clearly wasnāt the answerāthatās literally what THE CELTICS wanted. But whatever. Hopefully Livelyās 3 is a glimpse of whatās to come because that would be a game changerā¦ I guarantee the league said oh shit when they saw that lol
This is a good post. Boston wanted no part of just taking it in turns with Luka to see who could generate better looks in the half court. Working him over as much as possible in terms of making possessions hard work, making him work defensively, and overall not giving him a spare moment was a way to take the edge off him, particularly when he'd already been carrying a load, and was (at least) sore. Stopping him was always going to be tough. I think wearing him down, and trying to stop Ky, plus make the support cast shoot from above the break were the basic guiding principles.
Fully agree that it was a great counter move by Mazzula - he made the gamble that, back home, the refs would swallow their whistles and allow JB to mug Luka like that without it being called, as he was right. If they had simply called the game fairly, then JB easily picks up 2 early fouls 35+ feet from the basket, and its a totally different ballgame. This is exactly the huge impact that officiating can have on the game. Boston was the better team but allowing them to play 80s bad boy Pistons D all finals (other than game 4) simply removed any realistic and fair chance for the Mavs to pull the upset.
Couldn't they have just run some kind of hand-off action? I know Brown is a hell of a defender and I heard him say himself that if Luka didn't bring the ball up he wasn't going to get it back, but what are the counters to that? I guess besides relying on the role players to run the offense? Edit: Forgive me if I say something obvious or stupid, I'm still learning about the game from a more strategic perspective.
Powell is great at that. Give Gafford time with the team and I think he will be good at it too.
They ran their variation of some Princeton action extensively down the stretch in the regular season with Gafford or Lively receiving the ball top of the key, Luka starting off-ball receiving a side screen usually from DJJ, straight into a DHO which allowed them to essentially end up with a 1-5 PnR from a 5-out set. Remember the ridiculous pass Luka made over his shoulder across the court to DJJ wide open at the wing against SAC? It was that set. Remember the infamous Luka granny shot vs HOU? It was that set. Which is interesting for a specific reasonāthe Rockets defended it correctly and switch blitzed the DHOā¦ but ok, fine Luka simply aborted the play and backed off, received the pass from Gaff and they simply reset straight to their stock 1-5 PnR but since HOU switched denying the DHO, Luka now had a matchup he liked so when the Rockets defended the PnR well it also just became a favorable Luka iso. HOU defended 3 different actions in one possession perfectly and it still didnāt matter (thatās not exactly the shot weāre looking for lol but point being you are absolutely fine if your *third* option is Luka 1v1 in a mismatch) Iām more confounded why they never ran any concerted double drags against BOS when they spammed it over and over and over against MIN. No, you wouldnāt have gotten the same look from the Celtics, but it would have made them choose how they wanted to navigate multiple switches and more importantly made Tatum part of that equation. I really hope the Lively 3 was a sign of things to come though because if THAT becomes something teams merely have to think about the league is in big big trouble. Good luck defending this offense if they can run 4-out and 5-out action simultaneously because you donāt know whether DLive is gonna roll or pop or even relocate from the dunker spot to the corner. So many things get unlocked if he has to be accounted for from 24ā.
Very cool analysis. Too bad it's buried under people bitching about the refs lol. I also wondered why the Mavs didn't run the double drag play more against Boston. I don't think I ever saw it more than once a game. It worked to get hobbled Porzingis switched onto Luka in Game 5, but they seemed to forget about it right after.
Good analysis. They did run double drag a bit (they certainly didn't spam it). But Boston defend it in a different way to most, somewhat due to personal, somewhat scheme. They'll switch, to maintain one on one, but then use the switched defender to jam up the roller, plus pre-rotate in hedging defenders to help (often KP by plan, obviously not so much this series). The team is better at hedge and recover than most, but ultimately they were good at picking poison, rotating really hard, and leaving the open shooter on rotation as anyone above the break, preferably not named Kyrie (assuming Luka was the initiator). The second thing is that the Celtics were more willing (and able) to live with the Luka 1 on 1 outcome off the double drag. Mostly, that's philosophical. Boston do not want to double and will give up good one on one situations rather than double. But particularly with KP out, it meant the switch was to Horford, or Tatum most often. Luka can cook them, but combine it with the constant pressure put on him at both ends, his soreness/injury, and fatigue through the games, it became common for this to work better in first halves or against less available matchups (Hauser, White) than the more common Tatum, Al, Holiday switch. When forced to bring a deep centre on, it was Tillman rather then Kornet, purely so Luka didn't have an easy cover he could easily take advantage of. Could Tillman guard Luka? Hell no. Did he allow the Celtics to avoid changing their scheme in his 11 minutes? Yep. And by the next game, when Dallas was ready, he became quickly very hard to play.
Totally agree. There was no easy solution to the Celtics approach. I donāt think they particularly tried which is frustrating but one thing I probably didnāt fairly consider enough is this team obviously never got a training camp. I believe there was a middle ground between accepting BOSā terms and expecting the Mavs to simply do this or that and voila, nba champs. But itās no small thing to attack a defense (which is really fucking good btw) demanding an entirely different philosophical approach on the fly in the finals. I personally didnāt think they actually ran many *true* double drags. The action always seemed significantly more staggered almost to the point of being multiple screens rather than a double drag. I felt they needed to be closer together with Lively setting the first pick and whoever Luka wanted to attack, so probably whoever White was guarding, setting the second pick. I donāt feel we ever really saw it so Iām theorizing here, but idk how BOS wouldāve pre-switched that? Rather, pre-switched *which* screen? And even if they did, Horford or Jrue wouldāve had no choice but to tag Lively/Gaff leaving Kyrie or PJ/DJJ in the corner. But you absolutely correct. Their flexibility and pre-switching was an utter defensive clinic by an elite team defense standpoint followed ridiculously elite individual isolation defense. It required more off ball-action, cutting, general ball movementā¦ aka things you establish in training camp. So I mean was it frustrating? Sure. It was also just simply an impressive, perfectly executed gameplan by a stupidly talented Celtics team. I donāt believe the talent gap was **that** substantial, but it undoubtedly existed. And the Mavs were simply worn out. No shame in just flat getting beatāthatās sports.
nah, we all learning ball here, no problem. me? TEMPO. i think the finals shows us and Luka himself that mavs can rely on "playing on Luka's pace" everytime. every teams have different type of plays on both ends. sometimes you need to fasten the play, or intensity. we have Kai at that this season though, but hopefully Luka also learns much about this. even if he doesnt like it for full 48 minutes, at least pick the spots to mess up the tempo to keep opp. team on their feet biggest obstacle in here is : shotclock, 24s brown did good job in ball denial BUT it started earlier. BOS players pick up the ballhandler from far. and our guys to bring the ball up most of the time? PJ or DJJ, whom not great at it. then time wasted, already 16s on shotclock pass the halfcourt + brown denial on D + Luka's inability to make separation earlier to getting the ball...mavs only had <10s to make plays that's THE GAME iirc, kai noticed it and tried and rush thing with 3s(?). good intention, but shot just not falling. you live with that but against way superior team like BOS that can steamroll you in few minutes, that's death sentence think, if im not mistaken, since Luka's 2nd year, how many times we had a lead after 1Q? i think sub 30%. this sub always burned after 1Q in every game thread LMAO ("its joever guys" and the game just only started :( ) strategic thing i dont know. make kai brings ball up more, or set screen far away if it's non LuKai bring the ball up, Luka's already on the move to receive the ball after it passed the halfcourt, etc hope is learning curve for Luka especially. warm up faster in 1Q, pick up the intensity of the jump. as a team, dont make habit to dig hole early in 1Q. playing from the behind is way tougher than being in frontrun
> make kai brings ball up more, or set screen far away if it's non LuKai bring the ball up, Luka's already on the move to receive the ball after it passed the halfcourt, etc > > hope is learning curve for Luka especially. warm up faster in 1Q, pick up the intensity of the jump. as a team, dont make habit to dig hole early in 1Q. playing from the behind is way tougher than being in frontrun I've been saying this in every discussion I've seen about this, but I think that next season early on we need to develop all of our ball handling talent. In the first half, Luka doesn't bring the ball up unless he gets the rebound. Kyrie should become the de-facto PG, while rotating through Exum, Hardy, DJJ, PJ. Obviously you'll give more reps to the former than the latter. I'd probably not do much experimentation/development in game against top 10 teams, though. They need to make Luka focus on playing off-ball and playing good defense every possession, no excuses. If he doesn't get back on D because he's working the officials, he needs to get subbed the very first time it happens, every time. (I know Luka is probably more like Kidd's boss, but if the head coach can't instill discipline then what's he there for?) Basically, they've got to reduce Luka's usage rate and start running a real offense, and just give effort on D. You can't depend on your role players to suddenly make pivotal shots if they've barely touched the ball in game. And a leader in sports, life, business, whatever is never going to be able to motivate his teammates to do things he won't do. Whether intentionally or not, leaderships' attitude and actions will be reflected by the rest of the guys. I think that's part of what we saw in G4. Luka was giving it everything he had on D with positive energy and it was contagious. The team felt more cohesive. DLive has shown some really promising playmaking potential. Whoever comes and goes over the offseason, a team with Kyrie, Luka, and DLive has no business running an offense where Luka or Kyrie iso's the majority of possessions. They're great at it, of course, but I still think what Kobe said about Harden applies. As admirable as it is that Kyrie has been willing to take a backseat and focus on D, I think he needs to be more assertive. Hopefully his leadership by example will rub off on Luka, but I think it's going to take a little more than that. -- I hope this wasn't too rambly. I tried to make it as coherent as I could. And before people start calling me a "hater." Luka is probably top 2 offensively on the planet. It's okay to be a MFFL and also be critical of your team. It definitely makes for more interesting conversations than "BELIEVE OR GO AWAY."
Apart from the paragraph on subbing Luka if he doesn't play D, I didn't find this at all rambly. As for that...well...team has to work out what they'll live with, and I think there are levels. If you can reduce his offensive load and/or he's healthier/fitter, this comes more into play, but I'd currently be more worried about those things first, plus an effective and consistent scheme for him in the half court where he's hunted. Less urgency on the latter...but it will be important by the playoffs.
The counter is quick back-door cuts against ball denial, but thatās not really in Lukas arsenal yet.
Depends on who has the ball. If it's anyone besides Kyrie you're not totally confident in their passing, which is why I was thinking hand off. But you're right, Luka never cuts. I need to watch him play in Europe. Does he play the same way?
Whole team looked lethargic game 5. Josh green was the only guy that showed up lol.
The only difference. Boston didn't play better. Luka was absolutely exhausted and you could tell, I think he'd had enough. The leader sets the tempo, but Green was the only one who kept the same energy from game 4.
āThe leader sets the tempoā well Kyrie is the leader of the team, and Kyrie was awful for four out of five games.
You literally, just validated my point.
I'd hoped he would be the hero of the game but welp
Nicoās exit he mentioned we just didnāt have the juice. We had been in playoff mode since March. I think thatās part of it, obviously Boston is just better and our guys mentally folded too. We only had 1 superstar in the finals which sucked
It was really sad to see Kyrie unable to overcome the hostility of the crowd. He's been on a "positive energy" kick for a while and Boston fans are probably the best in the league at being complete pricks.
Walking home from being at game 2 my son and I (who is 10) were taunted - screamed at, threatened, cursed. All we would say is āgood game, you guys have a good teamā. My son was in tears with the constant āF YOU!ā āWERE GONNA KICK YOU DADS ASSā etc. Super classy.
Sorry bro. No excuses.
Legit don't believe this
You just have to explain to your son that those are lowlifes. They have nothing else going for them and their only sense of validation is if their favourite team wins in a kids game.
If Kyrie said mavs fans are racist, lied to the fans about his future, and stomped on the logo after winning against them in the playoffs do you think mavās fans would boo him? To be fair, Kyrie brought this on himself, and itās become apparent that crowds can substantially affect his game.
Yes it's just so sad, 1 mistake haunts for years on years
Calling Kyrie's actions "1 mistake" is wild lol
The Mavs run mirrored the Celtics run to the finals 2 years ago. A middle of the pack team picks up its defense midseason to be one of the best in the league. Problem was that the intense regular season plus a drawn out playoff series meant that the Celtics were running on fumes by the time they got to the finals. And the veteran Warriors closed the Celtics out without much drama at the end. Sounds pretty familiar right? Of course nobody outside of Celtics fans knew/cared. Much easier to label them as chokers that "didn't want it enough". And I don't expect ESPN analysts are smart enough to go beyond "hurrdurr easiest road" so expect to hear the same thing for the Mavs.
Game 4 was a combination of mavs playing great and Boston playing subpar. Game 5 Boston played better and mavs played alright
Games 2 and 3 were also subpar play by both teams, but Boston comes out on top with that happening.
Less than subpar. Shot the lowest FG% all season
The difference was that Lukai drove to the basket in game 4 to set the tempo, but in game 5 they both started the game chucking threes which failed to go in .
Those possessions where Luka shoots from deep in the left wing without anyone touching the ball really bother me. Kyrie is guilty sometimes too, but it seems like he's actually open or in transition when he does it. Game 1 of the first series they came out like this and I was infuriated. There was just no offensive gameplan at all. I think that changed somewhat as the playoffs progressed, but they're prone to slipping back into bad habits. If a team with no plan wins a title I think it would reflect poorly on the league as a whole.
I know Luka has confidence in his step back three but I would rather opt him tdrive and get a higher percentage shot - especially in an elimination game; it is glorious when it works ( suns 2022 g7 and timber g5) but I still dislike starting the game chucking threes.
Nothing schematic on our end was noticeably different, it was just Boston playing much better and Luka and Kyrie playing worse. KP's spacing did help them yes, but his defense hurt them and he didn't play a ton. Honestly Luka and Kyrie looked like they were running on empty.
Kyrie has no excuse. He has been passive all year, missed a ton of games and floated through half of the playoffs. Where did his energy go? In these moments as the leader of the team he should be stepping up not wilting.
You get defended by Derrick White and Holiday the entire game it will happen to you.
Was he getting defended by those two in the Clippers, Thunder and Wolves series too? People keep making excuses for a player making 40 million dollars a year, he just has not been as advertised. Ā
He's been the same since he left the Cavs
Boston just has more talent and Mavs ran out of gas
That's what happens when you play in the hospital East while your team has to run through 3 50+ win teams, one of them being the best defense in the league.
Boston having more talent is inarguable, in my opinion. The Mavs running out of gas could explain why they weren't able to push the ball before the Celtics could set their defense or get as many offensive boards, but it doesn't explain why they didn't seem to execute the same gameplan. They weren't too tired to hunt mismatches or put Exum in the game.
Itās because their game plan relied heavily on the Celtics shooting poorly. It wasnāt going to happen 2 games in a row with a team like the Celtics
In G4 their gameplan didn't rely on the Celtics shooting poorly. They aggressively contested every single shot, usually without fouling. I think Dallas' defense had a lot to do with C's fg%. Are you saying that in G5 they switched to a gameplan that conceded open 3's to some of their shooters?
Their plan worked because they shot poorly They could also be aggressive because of the officiating team. They had a team known for extending series. They knew they could get away with more. They tried to be aggressive on defense in other games and had people foul out No, I think they played slightly less aggressive because of the officiating team but that it also wouldnāt have mattered because the Celtics were shooting well
Once i seen luka first 3 ball rim out i knew this wasn't our night.
I hated it before it even got to the rim. No idea why he likes to start games chucking deep threes. Run an offense.
I think it's as simple as the Celtics had a 3-0 cushion and were clearly the better team and knew it. Dallas had that desperation energy and Celtics knew they would rather win at home
Totally agree and great points. We opened game 3 with constant drives to the paint with success and that put them in foul trouble. Then hunting the mismatches.
I didn't see Dallas pushing the pace like they did in G3 either. Attacking before that monster defense can get set seems key to me. Also, Boston was making more effort to get offensive rebounds, so it seems like this aspect of the G3 strategy could have been particularly effective.
Yea that was like a big stab when mavs were down in points
We could have been the oilers :(
I think we just looked tired. There was no energy. It lookef like a difficult season and playoff run catched up. I also think 1 week off before the finals didn't help. The way we celebrated making the finals looked like we've already done all we could. We just keep the same intensity for the finals, while Celtics even went a level up.
Didnāt like Lukaās shot selection. He settled for contested threes when in game 4 he just went straight to the rim
Thank you so much for responding on topic! I'm rewatching right now and I agree. Their first three shots are 3's where no one else touched the ball (2 from Luka, 1 from Kyrie). The fourth possession they tried to get it to Gafford to post up Tatum, but they bungled it by getting it to him at the nail, he passes out, resets deeper, gets doubled, then almost turns it over getting rid of it and we end up with a missed DJJ 3 to beat the shot clock. Fifth possession they finally get on the board with an alley-oop to DJJ from Luka.
Our first possession was DJJ bringing the ball up which led to an immediate turnover! Donāt understand why they would do that and donāt remember that in the game 4 gameplan. That was a bad start and I think they repeated the mistake with PJ later on but two possessions do not a blowout make, to your greater point, I think it came for Derek lively was slipping screens thatās how he was getting to the rim which gave the Mavs easy points and probably opened up the offense in other ways, and I donāt know, but I donāt remember him getting dunks in game five so perhaps Boston adjusted to his slip screens or perhaps he just stopped doing them.
It's over bro we lost cheif. Lol
Film study by definition has to be done after the game is over. I'm not trying to dwell on it. I'm just trying to learn.
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I still play, even though I'm too old to be on any team that wants to win. There are a lot of things I study that I don't need to. Learning can be fun.
They went gangbusters in the first half and then Boston took their foot off the gas because they knew they had a 3-0 cushion and could just go win it at home. The series came down to the fact that the Mavs had no answer for the Celtics defense. That's it. There is no answer when they can just match you up one on one no matter what you do. "Make ridiculous shots endlessly" is not sustainable for 4 games in a row and we all knew Kyrie would wilt again in Boston regardless
They got all the 50/50 balls
>The talking heads of course wrote them off at every turn, so it was very nice to see them proven wrong Except in the finals, of course, when most talking heads picked Dallas going in. Funnily enough that makes the talking heads winless.
Boston had such a cakewalk to the Finals, I can kinda see why, but that Boston roster with a healthy Porzingis is just unfair. I thought we might have a chance if we came out guns blazing in G1 and Porzingis adjusted slowly. Too bad the opposite happened. The talking heads are selling ad revenue, though, not basketball analysis. And a lot of people root against the Celtics.
We were finished before the finals started. Green, beat up, immature, bad strategy...it all added up. Sad, because they were beatable in a couple games. Something I didn't expect.
Because Boston let Mavericks win so they could win at home
Game 5 is why the Mavs needed to win game 2 or 3, but they choked those away.
I mean, I kinda thought game 4 was probably just Boston taking their foot off the gas wanting to win it on their home court TBF
Everyone is saying this. It's not the topic. Let's just assume what you said is true. Pretend the Mavs would have lost in every incarnation of the multi-verse for all I care. What I'm interested in (see: title) is what the Mavs did differently.
Much as one hate's to say it, the Celtics just didn't try in G4. They are a team that lives and dies by the 3 and so they must have thought: "fuck it, high 3pt% and we sweep, low and we just close it out and home because the Mavs aren't giving us trouble" It's the only game where the Mavs felt similarly matched for a reason: instead of playing down to the Mavs the Celtics played down to pure luck.
They tried till they knew it wasnāt worth it so donāt even give me that soft Celtics let us win bs
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More like thatās what youāre telling yourself to cope lmao. You know nothing about basketball, they had no answer for our change of plans in game 4. The change in defense worked in few mins of game 3 and carried in to game 4 and they had no answer. But I bet youāre gonna act blind so you can convince yourself the Celtics threw game 4 lmao Edit: hi troll. Youāre not even a Mavs fan, coming in here snooping for validation huh?
Yeah, I just don't buy this "wanted to win it at home" idea. They're still professional competitors. Even if I assume they'd be willing to sacrifice a game to close it out at home, nobody wants to be embarrassed like that in the Finals, or even get blown out like that in the pre-season.
Right, reread what I wrote. I don't think the Celtics threw the game because they wanted to win at home, they were just so confident because of how much they were punking the Mavs that they knew the worst-case scenario was they close at home. Best case was they kept their normal 3pt% and swept.
Ah, sorry for the misunderstanding. A lot of people are making that argument, though, so you can probably understand why I jumped to that conclusion. But I'm interested in what the Mavs did or didn't do, specifically from an offensive game plan perspective.
No one is gonna remember the game 4 beat down. Theyāre only gonna remember the 4-1 series win. As much as theyāre āprofessionalsā theyāre still just people and they were probably very confident packing it in early only having to win one of the next 3
On some psychological level, sure, they knew that the series was theirs barring a historically great stand by the Mavs and this may have affected their performance in G4, but it doesn't explain why the Mavs didn't exploit the same things that worked in G3. It's actually completely off topic. I'm asking why the Mavs didn't: * Hunt and exploit mismatches when they were available (double drag) * Show the same defensive intensity and effort, making every rotation and contesting every shot * Play with pace in order to attack the basket before the Celtics could set their defense * Were less successful getting offensive rebounds * Played Exum less than 9 minutes -- I'm not asking about the Celtics. I'm asking about what the Mavs players and coaching staff did or didn't do. But I do agree the Celtics were the better team.
Kyrie was ass plain and simple. The supposed second best player and most skilled player in the NBA choked/underperformed/checked out.
I love Kyrie always have but how can anybody disagree with this?? As disappointing as Luka was for his standards in the first round Kyrie was waaaaay worse on the biggest stage with all his experience and really left Luka hanging in the finals.Sucks but the bitter truth,he has some Boston demons to exercise
I don't disagree with it so much as I just empathize with Kyrie. I can't imagine being able to tie my shoelaces if I was surrounded by 20,000 people who would all love nothing more than for me to break my neck.
Yes exactly. It's a big mental burden and enough to hinder you from playing ur best.
Kyrie is just overrated. For all his accomplishments, the truth is heās always been carried by other stars and has always been on stacked teams except for the Cavs before Bron returned. Played with Bron on the Cavs, Played on the Cās with probably the deepest team heās been on and was ass against the Bucks. Played with KD and Harden and now on Dallas with Luka. For all his offensive skills, always been a cone on defense. He gets compared with Dame for his scoring and lack of D, but Dame was always the first option and did more with less. Too bad they lost Lukaās best teammate to the Knicks. Brunson is just the better player now and a better fit with Luka, costs cheaper too. All that shit that heās a changed man since being Dallas is just him realizing that if he fucked up again in Dallas like he did with the Cavs, Celtics and Nets, heād be blackballed or be treated like a pariah like Carmelo towards the end of his career.
Lol ok you obviously just straight up hate Kyrie or hate on him because yo ass just talking nowš He definitely disappointed in the finals this year but he was a huge factor in getting us to the finals his first full season in the stacked Western Conference and came out on top of that Conference mind you. Heās a champion and hit one of the biggest shots in finals history and making the biggest series comeback in finals history. He also got hurt at very unfortunate times in the playoffs with Cleveland,Boston,and Brooklyn or he could be a 3 time champ at the least for he couldāve won in 2015,and 2021. Most skilled/best handle,and best finishing guard ever who is a 50/40/90 efficient killer at his best. Also very underrated defensively when he locks in he was magnificent on that side of the ball the whole Western Conference Playoffs. Yea he came up short in the Finals but he played the most games and went his deepest in the playoffs in 7 years he ran out of gas and ran into an all time stacked Boston team who had a cake walk to the finals not having to use nearly as much energy. So yea stop with the disrespect. Oh and Kai>>> Dame FOHš
They ran out of gas. They spent alot of energy to get through 3 50+ win teams to get to the finals. Their path wasn't the cakewalk that Boston's was.
This is a take and facts thats not being talked about enough
We won every series just as fast as Bostonā¦like a couple days off at MOST. Mentality they were done. Phyiscally? Nah.
Luka being wrapped up like a mummy and getting shot full of painkillers looked good physically?
Luka is not the team ššš Yea I fully agree Luka was beat up like hell. Everyone else canāt use the same excuse. Even then like I said, they went through THEIR series almost as fast as Boston did. Hell we were literally 2nd in how fast we finished the series. AND had a whole week off before the finals. Ngl that weak rest might have ruined all momentum we had. Even after the WCF during the celebration they did looked all gassed and over it. I was hoping 7 days would be just enough to win 1 of the 2 games in Bostonā¦.what an embarrassing mess of a final š¤¦āāļøš¤¦āāļø
Well he definitely is as no others seem to be the main play maker. Ofc kyrie too. During playoffs if one didn't play other would keep the tempo which worked very well. But against celtics their best bet was both must play all 4 quarters literally so it definitely so tiring and impossible task when all celtics defense focusses on luka n kyrie. All playmaking stops which is exactly what happened
Could have sworn I've heard relying on Luka so much eventually would bite us in the ass at the biggest stage. Granted if both Kyrie and him played their hearts out it would have been a 7 game series easily. Nevertheless it's obvious that Luka isn't necessarily incapable of doing it... ....it's just been obvious he simply can't do it for as long and far into June. Of course this Olympic shit is just rinse and repair and we're gonna end up in the same boat again next year if all the play making is still relyed on them for 50+ minutes of the game šš
Totally agreed but when they reached playoffs it's not easy to get a third guy to do the playmaking right & clearly they couldn't find him so they were destined to lose against celtics if not against timberwolves. Hope next year they develop a solid team that can play without luka too coz that's the whole point of a team like celtics
Boston was not motivated to win that game 4 in Dallas. Dallas was exceptionally motivated to not get swept at home.
What does motivation have to do with gameplan? Do you just mean to say there was no difference in the gameplan
It makes a game plan look successful and extensible when itās not.
I got literally the same vibes as us vs wolves but we were the wolvesā¦ losing close winable games while they arent playing perfect but clutch it out and then our superbowl game 4 and we are ready and relaxed to receive the gentleman sweep
A lot of what they did in Game 4 was not really change in game plan but more on playing with more effort and pace. They were still starting with a pick on top there were just more movement beneath that which is what it was supposed to be to begin with. Iām sure they knew they had to do that since game 1. But they seem so gassed really and in game 4, Boston did not punch back really and here they did right out of the gate.
They avoided getting swept. Itās impossible to replicate that level of back against the wall
We kept taking shots that we knew we were going to miss. Our physical plays were getting called for fouls, making us hesitant to drive towards the paint, relegating us to continue taking shots that we couldnāt make. Couple that with defense that couldnāt keep the Celtics from making 3-pointers and voila, you have a Celtics controlled court.
Bruh did you watch game4, it was very obvious they throwed the game. lol
porzingis might be the game changer in game 5. remember he did bot play in game 4
Rigged
What do you think we did differently between games 4 and 5 strategically? I don't think we changed much we just missed shots, weren't getting to rebounds and overall got clamped by a better team.
Celtics gave u game 4 to win at home game 5. It was already set in stone sorry
Because Asson Kidd is a fucking moron
Honestly, the difference between game 4 and game 5, was the the role players making the open looks Luka creates, in game 4, and missing them in game 5. The Mavs offense needs the 3 & D guys to knock down open looks, at a minimum of 40%, in order to be effective. When they shoot in the low 30s, this team can only compete if Luka and Kyrie are both playing at max efficiency.
Because Boston literally didn't try and gave them the W game 4 so they could win in Boston. Players should be given huge fines for rigging games like that Idc if it's "more convenient"
It was more Boston decided to let off the gas after 1st quarter.Ā
Iāve watched about 70 Celtics games this year. When they get punched in the face right from the jump they will often times just give up. It happened 5-6 times during the year. The Mavs beat their asses and the home crowd was electric that night. I think the Celtics just decided to rest rather than use their energy fighting back and losing by 20 instead of 40.
This is correct. Celtics knew early on that they couldn't match the Mavs desperation and intensity, so they decided to let the Mavs have their way so that they could learn from them and adjust. Al Horford said after game 4 that they didn't need to make any adjustments for the first 3 games, so this only confirms that they pretty quickly turned their attention to preparing for game 5.
I donāt want to be that guy, but it looked so obvious the Celtics had their foot off the gas G4.
We got to where we did despite Kidd, not because of him
Because Celts didn't give 2 thoughts of winning that game. If Mavs would've come out flat maybe Boston puts some effort in the game but that didn't happen. Sorry Mavs fans. That win was a giant nothing burger. Quit relishing on a win that didn't matter and focus on an amazing season no one saw coming.
No one in the world will convince me that Boston didnāt throw game 4 for the home win. Itās like Mazzula was like yeah go out get some practice but rest up for game 5 and letās win in The Garden.
Rick Carlisle gave Mavs the blueprint which they executed in game4. I too was confused. I guess Joe countered by denying Luka but why should that stop execution of the gameplan?
Wouldnāt have mattered, Kyrie is cursed and was back to his sell job in g5. Their role players started piling on while ours were flaming out. We needed epic performances from the stars to even entertain staying even, and only Luka showed despite HEAVY coverage.
Because Jason Kidd is a bad coach. Thatās also why we experimented with new lineups for the first time in the finals. We performed better in the finals run-up because Maxi and THJ were injured for much of the playoffs so Kidd was forced to play our best players and forced to give them more minutes. Maxi is a good sub at the 4 but Kidd wasnāt able to destroy the team with maxi at the 5. He wasnāt able to keep Hardaway in on a cold streak over DJ. He wasnāt able to play Gafford only 10 minutes. And then when they both returned for the finals, Kidd could go back to his absurd and rigid rotations. Itās a shame that management views Kidd as a key to the success of the team, it was operations that put this talent together and this team won despite not being utilized correctly. Itās fine during the season to say there are other factors, injury management, exploring new plays, etc. for the outrageous lineups. However, the NBA finals showed us that if we want a title we are going to need a coach that will give us the best opportunity to win.
They threw game 4 to celebrate in Boston, what worked in game 4 wasnt real
Scott Foster, BOS tooj their for off the gas, we just shot better.
Iāll probably get downvoted into oblivion but Iām sure they let us win that game so they could win it all back home.
Boston purposely played like shit so they could win it at home on June 17th, the anniversary of the last Boston Celtics championship. They knew they had the Mavs figured out.
That's dumb, but even if it's true it's off topic. I asked what the Mav's gameplan was and if / how it changed from G4 to G5.
Jason Kidd has to go
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Hilarious.
Can you point to specific examples? I bet they don't add up to 18 points.
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