2024 Playoffs- 4th Round: Boston Celtics - Dallas Mavericks

[DanSchwartzgan]

 
I think spreading the floor with Kleber will be a part of the series, but only as a means of making the choice to use Kleber as the DEFENSIVE center viable on the other end, not as a way to combat some sort of defensive dominance by Porzingis inside.  

This is wisdom.  Part of being able to impose our will with our bigs has been that the other teams have had people we could cheat off of (often a big).  That isn't the case here.  Everyone on the Celtics can make you pay from deep.  I felt pretty confident about the Minnesota series because I could see matchups that would allow our stars to thrive offensively and I could easily see how our D could stop their stars.  I'm confident in our ability to score against Boston, but they present the biggest challenge yet to our D.  There will be games where they are hitting shots that we just won't have an answer for (hopefully not four of those games).

I think the most interesting matchup is Lively vs. KP.  If we win this series it is probably because Lively really is a star and we just don't yet understand how good he really is.  If we lose this series it is probably because Gafford/Maxi weren't enough for KP/Horford.  I can see us winning the Lively minutes.  I'm a little worried about the non-Lively minutes.  Part of our formula so far has been to steal one of the first two games.  If we go down 0-2 we might have to blink and be the team that makes the first big adjustment (which would be much more Maxi at center and much less Gafford).  As you say, if this happens the issue will be at the defensive end for Dallas.