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

[Jmaciscool]

The Hardaway thing is...interesting.

On one hand, 75% of the people here will think the sky is falling the second he checks in, and I can't really fault them at this point. He has been truly awful lately.

On the other hand, Dallas is trying to do something that has literally never been done before - not once, in 156 attempts, has a team come back from being down 0-3 to win any series, let alone the NBA finals. Something tells me, personally, doing this might require some type of game-changing adjustment or uptick from some player.

In game 4, those changes came via Luka playing with significantly more pace, manifesting in much better games from Lively, Kleber and Green. I'm going to pencil that in as a given to continue, because he has to understand how that happened, I hope, and because if they don't get that kind of effort four times in a row this conversation is all academic.

But, the OTHER significant change was that Dante Exum looked like regular season Dante Exum again. This is troubling to me, because we haven't seen it for so, so long. Was it a fluke? Is he going to continue to look at the rim? If he can do it again, that's absolutely the way to go, because, again, it will help with PACE. But, and this won't be popular, but has crossed my mind, if you subtract all of the baggage our fan base brought into this season with Hardaway and actually look at their careers, I'm not sure that in the larger sample size he's not the better bet to be ready for this moment. That's in no way something I'm confident about, but when I try to put myself in Kidd's shoes it's a nagging thought in the back of my mind I can't totally dismiss. It's going to be truly fascinating to see which way he goes. A good Hardaway game (if there's any realistic chance of getting that, at this point) is something that could literally win a game for the Mavs. Obviously, a bad one could be a season ender.

One thing I'm sure of: while I'm ready to commit to a regular rotation role for Hardy next year (if he's on the roster) to get the ball rolling on his career, I'd be done with him in this series.

I think these are good points.  I think you HAVE to have either the same Exum or the same Hardaway from Game 4 show up to win Game 5.  Personally I would give the nod to Exum because I think his pace/defense (if playing well) is sorely needed and seemed to be part of the key to the Mavs' only win in this series, but if he struggles like he has before Game 4 I would put Hardaway in to see if he can continue the shooting from the last game.  If Hardaway struggles then go back to Exum and stay there.