My Humble Advice For Luka

[HoosierDaddyKid]

I'm hearing all this about how Luka "just didn't have the conditioning" in the Finals. Or he "took too many possessions off on defense" in the Finals. Etc. etc. etc. The narrative was, "this is what Luka always does."

Horsepuckey. Luka was playing through significant injuries throughout the playoffs, and yet played more minutes than ever, playing far better defense in the first three series than he ever had in the past. He was in the games at the end, and we went 12-5 in those first three series. Cowherd et al. seem to pretend these events never happened. It's sports journalism calumny.

Clearly something was different in the Finals. Luka, aside from Game 4, stopped trying. Why?

I think it was simple math. The Mavs had to steal at least one game in Boston to win the series. It became pretty clear that Irving's uncanny Boston-as-kryptonite phenomenon, which we had already seen in the last regular season tilt against the Celtics in the midst of our dominating late-season run, was going to be the existential reality of these Finals. No help from Robin in the road games = the best Dallas could do was 3-4. So Luka gave up.

In spite of all of the locker room vibes and chemistry, I think it's pretty clear that their options to make a run for a title are 1) trade Kyrie, or 2) just pray and wish and hope that someone in the East beats Boston like someone in the West beat Denver this year. I suppose the third option would be to win more games in the regular season than Boston in order to have HCA throughout the playoffs, but we're talking we're in the West and they're in the East, so good luck with that even if the Mavs have a regular season for the ages next year.

You basically answered your own question in regards to the disparity of the conferences. Boston will probably represent the East again next year, though a healthy Knicks, Heat, Bucks, Pacers, Sixers may challenge them. While Dallas beat three 50 win teams on their way to the finals, those teams aren't going to just "run it back" They're all going to make tweaks, even without mentioning some teams that didn't have good seasons because of injuries or inexperience. Memphis, SA, Houston are building up their programs too. I think getting to the finals will be a major challenge for any team in the West next year. It's conceivable a different team can make the finals every year going forward.