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

[HoosierDaddyKidd]

https://www.nba.com/news/2024-nba-finals...vlvatgxtb9&cid=


The so-called experts picks.

[SleepingHero]

I feel ya if you're superstitious.  But we're beyond the playoffs now. This is for all the marbles!  But you're an administrator, do as you wish...

Just to clarify this "admin" title makes me no different from anyone else. Just means I delete bot accounts every day and do forum stuff like pin/un-pin threads. 

And if someone does something where everyone is like "ban that fool", then I can ban them. But that really doesn't happen :)

[SleepingHero]

Can we have this court pretty please?

[Jmaciscool]

Can we have this court pretty please?

Whoah, is that the actual design or someone's mock-up?

[SleepingHero]

https://twitter.com/NBA/status/1796940429553815897

@NBA
From being a 2024 NBA Rising Star interviewing a 2024 NBA All-Star and fellow Duke Blue Devil asking for advice…

To preparing to compete against him on the biggest stage in the 2024 NBA Finals!


DLive was getting in Tatum's head months ago. What an absolute gamer!

[The Jom]

Has a team ever won the Larry the year after missing the playoffs entirely? Was gonna ask the same thing about a first-year head coach, but I guess Mazzulla is technically in his second year.

[SleepingHero]

Whoah, is that the actual design or someone's mock-up?

Someone's mockup.

But it looks so damn good.

[The Jom]

Just to clarify this "admin" title makes me no different from anyone else. Just means I delete bot accounts every day and do forum stuff like pin/un-pin threads. 

And if someone does something where everyone is like "ban that fool", then I can ban them. But that really doesn't happen

I thought it was short for “modified,” like with hot rods.

[Winter]

Jason Timpf's mailbag on the finals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r8f4Ey7bkw

[Jym]

the more I read Celtic posts on realgm, the more I hope Luka and company can pull this off
the butthurt will be at unimageable levels
they're already whining that the general board is against them

[Branduil]

Has a team ever won the Larry the year after missing the playoffs entirely? Was gonna ask the same thing about a first-year head coach, but I guess Mazzulla is technically in his second year.

I was going to say the Spurs, but it actually took them until their second season after the Duncan tank.

The actual answer is Boston, who won 24 games in the season before they traded for the Big 3.

[SleepingHero]

Has a team ever won the Larry the year after missing the playoffs entirely? Was gonna ask the same thing about a first-year head coach, but I guess Mazzulla is technically in his second year.

Most recent one I remember is the 2020 Lakers. 

2019 was the first year with Lebron with the youngins and they barely missed the playoffs. That summer they traded Lonzo, Ingram, and others for AD. And the next season they won the bubble chip.

Celtics also had the greatest season turnaround when they won in 08 with the Big 3 after being in the lottery the year before.

[OBX Maverick]

Was following the same trend as the first 3 rounds. 

No jinxing here!

I feel ya baby!!  Leave it!

[Dundalis]

I think this last sentence has a good deal of truth to it. Boston has five 2-way players that have to be guarded. Of the ten best players in the two team starting lineups, DJJ and PJ would likely be 9th and 10th. Those two are very good players, but there's a good case that the entire starting cast of Boston has better overall players. The Mavs won't be able to load up defensively on specific Boston players like we did with Minnesota. There are no Andersons we can ignore, or Gorbets we can manipulate.

Personally, I think Boston should win based on the personnel and I understand why Vegas sees it that way. What is more difficult to predict is Luka's uncanny ability to manage the half-court game, and the team chemistry this team has created. The chemistry (the huddles, talks of trust, practice vibes) is frankly more noticeable with the Mavs and is probably not measurable. The Mavs are capable of bringing more energy, and Luka is far and away the best player on either team. Tatum has had stretches where he's disappeared, and the team play has been lackadaisical.

The other thing is that there is an inordinate amount of pressure on Boston to win it all. The fan base has been expecting it and the Eastern Conference could really change next year if NY is healthy, and Indiana has another year to mature. By contrast, I doubt the Mavs fan base would feel the same level of defeat since no one really expected them here during mid-season, and almost all of our players are young and under contract for awhile. Boston will be feeling a lot more pressure.

Dallas players are young and not going anywhere, but neither are Boston's guys, and they already have the best roster in the league. Unless you lost in devastating fashion to where it became psychological, you'd feel very comfortable running it back and getting back to the Finals pretty comfortably again.

Dallas still has a clear overall talent deficit just within the west alone, and will have a way way tougher time getting back to the Finals moving forward than the Celtics will. I know there's huge expectation for the Celtics to win a title, but it's a way easier road for them to get more chances if they don't win it than it is for the Mavs. If the Mavs do lose, I'm not looking at the West and the improvements other teams will definitely make and feeling particularly comfortable about our ability to get back here, especially if we aren't making improvements also and end up sitting on our hands a bit.

[Branduil]

Dallas players are young and not going anywhere, but neither are Boston's guys, and they already have the best roster in the league. Unless you lost in devastating fashion to where it became psychological, you'd feel very comfortable running it back and getting back to the Finals pretty comfortably again.

Dallas still has a clear overall talent deficit just within the west alone, and will have a way way tougher time getting back to the Finals moving forward than the Celtics will. I know there's huge expectation for the Celtics to win a title, but it's a way easier road for them to get more chances if they don't win it than it is for the Mavs. If the Mavs do lose, I'm not looking at the West and the improvements other teams will definitely make and feeling particularly comfortable about our ability to get back here, especially if we aren't making improvements also and end up sitting on our hands a bit.

I think the only thing limiting the Celtics future is the financial costs of keeping the team together. Tatum is gonna get his supermax soon, and in 2025 Derrick White will also deserve a big pay increase. At that point you're talking about $200 million per year for their starting 5 alone.

[Winter]

Dallas players are young and not going anywhere, but neither are Boston's guys, and they already have the best roster in the league. Unless you lost in devastating fashion to where it became psychological, you'd feel very comfortable running it back and getting back to the Finals pretty comfortably again.

Dallas still has a clear overall talent deficit just within the west alone, and will have a way way tougher time getting back to the Finals moving forward than the Celtics will. I know there's huge expectation for the Celtics to win a title, but it's a way easier road for them to get more chances if they don't win it than it is for the Mavs. If the Mavs do lose, I'm not looking at the West and the improvements other teams will definitely make and feeling particularly comfortable about our ability to get back here, especially if we aren't making improvements also and end up sitting on our hands a bit.

I agree with most of that. Although I don't think Boston can just bank on getting back to the finals. I do agree though that Dallas in the West is a bigger problem with the competition.

On another track, looking at the regular season games against Boston is not terribly helpful in this upcoming series.

The first game in Dallas, Josh Green started. He was fine in that game, but the players coming off the bench (Hardaway, G. Williams, and Kleber) were logging big minutes and we were experimenting with small lineups. Lively was still a work in progress and there was no Gafford or PJ Washington. G. Williams was lousy going 1-5 and scoring only 2 points. Porzingas didn't play, but Horford picked up the slack going 3-6 from the perimeter.

The second game was in Boston after the trade deadline. Josh Green again started. Dallas was coming to Boston in the middle of that terrible losing streak (losing five-out-of-six). Josh Green was bad (2 points), Hardaway was bad, Kleber was bad, Exum was bad, and Dereck Jones Jr came off the bench but only played 7 minutes! Kyrie Irving wasn't very good either for that matter. Doncic was OK, but had a terrible +/-. We truly sucked in this blowout. And to top it off, Porzingas lit us up from the perimeter. Dallas shot 26% from perimeter while Boston shot an ungodly 48% from the 3-point line. Hardy was an afterthought in both games and only logged 4 minutes in each.

It's safe to say, Dallas is different team than the one playing Boston in mid-season even if you account for the trades. Our rotations were entirely different.

[Chicagojk]

Just feels like this is going to be a real difficult Gafford series. If Celtics can’t make the mavs pay for playing Gafford, they are in trouble imo. I think Dallas will want to stay big but this series will prevent challenges. They did ok against Kat and Reid but they were able to attack those lineups on defense.

[SleepingHero]

[HoosierDaddyKid]

This guy is ungodly. But he's going to need some of his compadres to join him every game of the series.

[mvossman]

Dallas players are young and not going anywhere, but neither are Boston's guys, and they already have the best roster in the league. Unless you lost in devastating fashion to where it became psychological, you'd feel very comfortable running it back and getting back to the Finals pretty comfortably again.

Dallas still has a clear overall talent deficit just within the west alone, and will have a way way tougher time getting back to the Finals moving forward than the Celtics will. I know there's huge expectation for the Celtics to win a title, but it's a way easier road for them to get more chances if they don't win it than it is for the Mavs. If the Mavs do lose, I'm not looking at the West and the improvements other teams will definitely make and feeling particularly comfortable about our ability to get back here, especially if we aren't making improvements also and end up sitting on our hands a bit.

Does Dallas have that big of a talent deficit?  Luka is not just better than Tatum, he is significantly better.  Best player on the team is the most important comparison for the NBA playoffs.  I would also say Kyrie is better than Jrue and I like our center rotation better than theirs when you take into account age and health.  Brown and White are clearly better than PJ and DJJ but our bench is probably deeper.  

As for long term, Jrue is 2 years older than Kyrie, Horford is about to turn 38 and KP is a constant injury risk.  Meanwhile Lively is 20.  I would argue without significant changes we are likely to improve next season and Boston will have some concerns, especially at the center rotation.