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

[KillerLeft]

Celtics are the better team but the Mavs have the best player with a very good supporting cast. Usually, in that situation, the team with the better player wins. This was the situation MJ faced, for example, in all of his first three titles.

The bottom line for this game, the Mavs held Boston to 38% shooting from the three and 107 points. Thats a solid performance I’ll take every time against the number 1 offense. But the Mavs offense was infantile when it’s going to need to be great. It has been since Carlisle left. They were number 1 with Carlisle, have better players now, but haven’t touched those heights.  The scheme is too simple.  Kidd has done a great job with defense, development, and culture, but he needs to bring in an offensive coordinator in the off season. It’s their number 1 need, greater than any need on the roster.

I’m not ready to get into the what ifs of next year yet, but I agree with this assessment of game one. During the game, it felt like the Celtics were absolutely annihilating the Mavs defense, but the score wasn’t crazy in the end, and the percentages look about average. I think it was possibly a pretty decent effort, defensively, given the emotionality of game 1 on their home court. I’m not sure we can expect much better in the series, and in fact, I bet the Celtics have a couple of much more effective offensive games in them.

The real problem was the Dallas offense. I swear, if it weren’t for garbage time, I am not sure the Mavs would have broken 80. Luka got some Luka shots, and even missed some that he normally makes, and maligned as Kyrie was in the game thread, I thought he created a lot of good looks for himself. They just didn’t go in. However, none of the Mavs team offensive actions amounted to diddly squat in this game. It was complete dominance by the Celtics defense for about 38 of the 48 minutes. PJ Washington had some nice moments of exploiting mismatches and playing hard in the paint, but that was kind of part of the problem, because time and time again we saw the Mavs doing things they don’t normally do on the offensive side of the ball. That’s extremely concerning, because it tells me they were reacting instead of implementing a plan.

Gafford and Lively were both pretty bad, defensively, but most of us expected that. We all hope they can find a way for those guys to contribute to the series on defense, but that hope is based on how important they are to the Mavs offense. The thing is, in game one, they did not contribute on offense. The screens weren’t as effective. They were both abysmal on the offensive glass. They were a non-factor in the screen roll game, which was concerning. Dallas basically acquiesced to Boston’s desire to take that away without even testing it. That really, really needs to change in game two, at least for Lively. If neither of those guys are playing well on at least one side of the court, the Mavs’ rotation no longer makes any sense, whatsoever. And, if neither of them are rebounding, or freeing up anyone on screens (forget about scoring), what even is the point of TRYING to make it work with them on defense? Big yikes on that. Interested to see how things play out in game two.

I couldn’t believe my eyes with Porziņģis. I have been harder on him than most, but I will be damned if he didn’t affect the game on defense much more overtly than Gobert did at any point of the Minnesota series. I have to believe that this was just something Dallas was unprepared for, and that he will never seem that dominant again in the series. If I didn’t believe that, I might not be able to force myself to keep watching, because there are very few players in the NBA I dislike as much as Kristaps Porziņģis. I am fine with him getting all of those post touches, because I don’t care what the stats say about his season – that will end up not being a plus for Boston by the end of the series. In fact, I think Dallas found something in the second half by switching Luka onto him. But, if he really is going to affect the game on defense, that is going to be a particularly tough way for me to stomach the Mavs losing this series.

I said something like this in the game thread, but the really concerning thing was that Boston played exactly how they wanted to, exactly how they have been playing all season, on both ends of the court. It felt like Dallas was searching for their identity in this series for pretty much the entire first half. Boston is clearly going to isolate Luka in space far more than any other team has been able to do this postseason, and that’s scary, but the scariest thing is I kind of felt like the Dallas plan was for Luka to isolate Boston players in space, and it didn’t really seem like they found one he could be effective against, other than the Prichard minutes, which Luka dominated thoroughly. Pritchard will not play enough for that to be a significant part of their plan, so they have got to find something on offense against Boston’s top six that’s advantageous. So far, I’ve seen nothing that remotely qualifies.

Very sobering game one, but it is only one game. Time for Kidd to earn that extension they’ve already given him.

MAVS IN 6!