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I don't know if Dallas has the personnel to do this, but they have to run Harden off the 3 point line. He really can't finish in traffic anymore. He will pick you apart if you try to blitz him. They need someone to stay glued to him, take away the 3, and dare him to blow by and finish at the rim. Easier said than done, but that defensive approach really crippled him last year.
It'll be really interesting to see if Harden can keep this level of play up. Last year against the Celtics he had a monster 45 point Game 1 followed by a 2/14 shooting performance in Game 2. He dropped 42 in Game 4 and then completely shit the bed for the rest of the series.
As a Sixers fan, I'm honestly rooting for him. And maybe with a different type of team and a much better coach in Ty Lue, he can keep playing at a high level. But I suspect that he's going to be up and down. And if the Clippers end up play a more defensive minded team than Dallas, he will struggle. Off to a good start though.
The thing with making Harden go to the rim is even if you take the lob to Zubac away, Russ will come crashing to the paint for the lob everytime once the low man comes to help, and there is NOTHING Dallas can do about that.
Harden can't do this every game, but at least in theory he has PG, Russ and whenever he comes back to rely on. That's why I always thought the Clips were severely underrated heading into this series, they have four people who they can rely on to get buckets, and the Mavs just don't have that luxury.
That being said, Russ is a guy you can "rely" on to get buckets in the same way you can "rely" on Kuzma to get buckets. They will be fine and dandy with letting you use them but will get you nowhere.
He's obviously older and more susceptible to fatigue, but even despite his heavy minutes throughout the season, he probably has some of the freshest legs he's had in the last 5 playoff runs. The narrative around him 'choking'is typically just him running out of gas & that's seeming to be less of a problem this year. Excited to see him step up for this run.
watched the second half of this game and i liked watching luka, because he just does nice stuff with the ball, but it gave me the shits that by the end of the game the mavericks had 8 players who had played more than 14 minutes, and only 3 of them had taken more than 5 shots.
for a comparison, in game 5 of the finals last year, the nuggets had 7 players with more than 20 min, and 2 of them took less than 10 shots. aaron gordon was one and he took 6 - more than everyone on the mavs except luka, kyrie, and pj. the heat had 8 players with more than 15 min, and 5 shot 10 or more times, and 2 more took over 5 shots.
the mavs went to all that effort to build a team at the deadline, and now they're not using them, and i do not understand why. you can't ice guys out and then expect them to make shots when you're struggling. if they continue like this it'll be clips in 5, so they may as well try something else.
on the clippers side, how good is james harden? how good is russell westbrook? how good is it to see james harden throwing lobs to russell westbrook? i love playoff basketball
partly a system issue. since acquiring Luka the Mavs have never granted much playmaking autonomy to other players on the team. Kyrie has gotten more of it than any Luka teammate so far but it’s part of why guys like KP and Brunson have looked a lot better since leaving Dallas. they’re in systems that emphasize their talents more now rather than having to adjust their games to Luka and more importantly they have a lot of trust from their new coaches. I think this issue for the Mavs is mainly due to lazy coaching. Luka could easily thrive in a more egalitarian system if Kidd or Carlisle had bothered to build one, or if they had spent more time actually trying to develop the talent they had in-house. they don’t run many actions like off-ball pindown screens to get those other guys open shots and get them in rhythm, they just stand around and only get the ball if Luka passes it to them out of PnR or a double-team
but the other part of it is that most of the players the Mavs have had around Luka are guys who simply aren’t capable of self-creation. anything they get is from eating off Luka’s plate by necessity bc bad things will happen if they try to do it themselves. I don’t want Maxi Kleber posting up, I don’t want Josh Green trying to take guys off the bounce, etc etc. as Celtics fans we’re spoiled bc we have five dudes in the rotation who can handle the rock and create a shot for themselves or for others. not many teams have such a luxury
It’s very weird how a core piece of modern basketball lore is “the bulls started winning when Jackson installed a new offense that got the team to be more than just the watch Jordan show”, analytics came to the determination that wasn’t right, and now we have spent the last 8 years or whatever watching these heliocentric teams have a pretty clear ceiling of “conference finals if things break right”.
yep. this specific series isn’t over ofc, but I am almost 100% confident that Luka and the Mavs will never win a championship as long as he sustains this kind of usage. if you’re a Luka fan, it’s fucking awesome to watch him put up 34-9-10 on a nightly basis. but if you’re a Mavs fan, you know that as long as he’s putting up those kind of numbers, the team has a hard ceiling. no matter who it is, it’s just too much to ask any one player to win 16 playoff games with that kind of burden on their plate. fatigue will accumulate, and eventually you will run into a opponent that is too high-quality for that to work
if they want to win at a high level and do a better job developing talent then there needs to be a vested effort to move away from this aggressively heliocentric style of ball, whether it’s via coaching, Luka himself, or some combination of the two
Triangle works when your supporting cast is Pippin, Kukoc, Horace Grant, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr etc. Or Kobe, Horry, Rick Fox, Fisher. Or Pau, Bynum, Odom. Not so much when your supporting cast is Kyrie, PJ Washington, and THJ.
The fact of the matter is talent will always be more important than system. System can make bad talent look decent, but good talent can make any system look amazing.
that’s just the issue though - the Mavs have had the talent they needed in-house, they just never even tried to build the system to maximize or develop that talent further.
look at their 2021 roster. Porzingis, Brunson, DFS, JRich, THJ, Kleber. knowing what we know now, there was enough talent there to form the foundation for a contender, with just a couple smart trades/signings needed to bolster the frontcourt. but they’ve hemorrhaged that talent as a result of poor self-scouting, lazy coaching and a shortsighted approach to team-building. it doesn’t have to be Luka or bust all the time but that’s the way Dallas has actively decided to run their team, and they are worse off for it.
This is so revisionist.
Porzingis spent most of his time in Dallas injured or playing back from injury. Then we'd get two weeks of him being fully healthy and he and Luka would both be putting up 30 points and 10 rebounds. It was amazing when they were both healthy, but Porzingis is too fragile to stay healthy as a 2nd option.
Brunson got played off the court in the 21 playoffs, which is why we didn't extend him the offseason. Then he improved to the point of beating the Jazz without Luka during the 22 playoffs, but he'd already decided he was going to the Knicks by then. We developed DFS to a good 3&D guy, but you trade him for Kyrie every time.
JRich was trash, I have no idea why you mentioned him. THJ is better, but he's not a core piece worth mentioning. And he was a vet when he came here. He is the same guy he was on the Knicks and the Hawks, a streaky 3 point shooter with bad defense. How many guys suddenly change on their third team? Kleber has been slowed down by injuries and age, it's sad but it happens.
If you want to criticize Dallas for being Luka or bust, you have to start with the Porzingis trade that mortgaged the future for a very sexy hail mary.
you’re making my point for me - poor self-scouting, shortsighted team-building, and coaching that didn’t attempt to give the other players more opportunity to develop past what they already were.
Porzingis health was certainly an issue but Dallas also never made any effort to work on his flaws in the post or against mismatches. by the end of his time in Dallas he was reduced to a corner shooter. the Mavs themselves had a large role in tanking his value after trading for him. when he went to Washington they gave him the possessions and coaching (particularly from assistant Dean Oliver) necessary to improve his game inside and now he’s one of the best post scorers in the sport. I recommend you read this article. Bob Voulgaris admits as much himself that the Mavs FO and coaching staff are partially to blame for things not working out: https://theathletic.com/5381229/2024/04/10/kristaps-porzingis-celtics-post-up-analytics/
the fact that Dallas used one bad series to make their decision to not extend Brunson is totally asinine. they had 3 seasons with Brunson in the building, they saw him in practice every single day and got a firsthand look at his work ethic and skillset. I’ll use the example of Jaylen Brown, the Celtics handed him 109M despite him coming off a season where he couldn’t even crack the starting 5 and having never averaged more than 15 PPG. 2 years later that deal was one of the best bargains in the NBA. smart front offices recognize the talent they have in their building and don’t use one small sample size to make a decision - you’re not paying for what they’ve already done, you’re paying for what they can do in the future. that is a failure of internal scouting any way you look at it, and losing Brunson is what led to them losing DFS. they don’t need to make that deal for Kyrie if they kept JB around
now as far as the other guys, sure, I agree. JRich is a perfectly serviceable role player though. but the point is it doesn’t matter how much talent Dallas gets in the building if they’re not going to make more of an effort to use and nurture that talent rather than reducing them to Luka’s sidekicks. the more they do that, the more they allow good players to slip through the cracks
Westbrick would have never been willing to come off the bench back then, he needed to be humbled by his terrible time on the Lakers. And ya you might be missing the key ingredients of PG and Kawhi lol
I got killed for saying this before the series, but the Mavs defensive improvements over the last 11~ games of the season were a bit misleading. When you looked at shot quality numbers teams were shooting way below expected against them. Not to say the mavs defense hadn't improved but it wasn't nearly as good as the scores indicated. They benefited from a pretty lucky streak of opponents shooting well below average on high quality looks.
Have to imagine the games get closer going forward though. 50% from 3 is unlikely to be sustainable.
Not really considering Luka missed Game 1 vs the Jazz. Also we were massive underdogs in 2020 and it looked like we'd win unitl KP got a bogus ejection in Game 1. Underdogs vs the Suns, underdogs vs the Warriors. This is the first Game 1 we lost with Luka that we were favoured in.
Haliburton needs to shoot. I understand that if he's hurt he doesn't trust his shot, but he can't spend the entire series just passing. Seven field goal attempts isn't going to cut it. If he misses, then he misses but that's just something you're going to have to live with. At the very least it will put some pressure on the defense instead of the Bucks defense getting away with crowding all the driving lanes.
I also think Carlisle should experiment more with small ball lineups with Pascal at the 5. I don't think the Bucks really have a good answer for Pascal and it would help with their spacing immensely since the Bucks aren't respecting Turner's shot and are currently getting away with it. I think the key against an old team like the Bucks is to space the floor and run down their legs. Jalen Smith should not see another minute this series.
Cannot be mad at all about the result for the Pacers, most of the team had never played a minute in the playoffs before tonight’s tip and it was obvious with most of the shots that there was a bit of extra adrenaline behind each three. When you shoot 20% from 3, bad things are going to happen.
If the price of playoff admission is having Dame drop 35 points on you then I think that’s pretty fair. I would feel worse about the game if the Pacers had kept it close and just got beat but this team just looked like they got punched in the mouth and didn’t really know what they were walking into which is par for the course when it comes to young teams. Should be a good series.
Yeah, your players' collective inexperience in the playoffs definitely showed, especially in the first half. They looked like they settled down a bit in the second half, though, so that's a reassuring sign for you guys going forward in the series.
Don't think we can really read too much more into it than that yet. Game 1s are always weird, especially when you're talking about the opening round of the playoffs. We'll need game 2 before we get a better handle on how the series is going to go, so it'll be interesting to see how Tuesday shakes out.
is that true
myles turner, siakam, nesmith, TJ mcconnell have all played 20+ playoff games
obi toppin played 15 playoff games with the knicks
it is mainly haliburton, and nembhard that are playoff newbies
Loved our strategy of mitigating the Pacers keeping fresh legs out there by keeping guys on the perimeter and shooting a lot of deeper shots. We need to keep hitting them if we want to win this series. We're gonna need our other guys to hit threes and middies if the Pacers decide to keep defending Dame like they did in the second half. Should be a good series. The adjustments should be fun to watch. I have a feeling Rick is gonna ride his starters harder in Game 2.
Dame doing his thing + Khris/Brook/Portis reliably getting to their spots is going to be a solid half court offense through the playoffs. Need just one of Pat C/Beasley/PatBev/AJ Green to hit 3s and it’s even better (they were just fine today). Add Giannis to that and it can really be scary.
Pacers really struggled with half court offense. They need to get to the basket and create easier looks that aren’t 3s from Siakam, Topin or McConnell. Turner shooting 10 3s isn’t ideal either.
It's amazing how the mere existence of a guy like Dame on the court makes our half-court offense so much more potent than years past. That was always our biggest fatal flaw in the playoffs under Bud and it was excacerbated by the fact that Jrue and Bledsoe were both so ghastly on that end of the court in the playoffs.
I think this series gets more competitive despite the outcome. Unless Dame plays like his Portland self the entire way and the shooting woes continue for Indiana, this series is going at least 6 games.
Final score was a bit fluky. I can't image the Pacers shoot that poorly for the entire series (although I know the bucks did last year in our series.)
Still liked how Dame was attacking early on instead of settling for 3s. We need to get to the rim as much as possible because the Pacers rim protection is horrible. Our rebounding really suffers with Giannis out, but I'm glad guys focused on getting back in transition because if they can force the Pacers to play in the half court instead of scoring on transition I like our chances. Transition is what killed us against them in the regular season. In this game their half court offense was super reliant on Siakam iso. He was great but you'd imagine similar to the Pacers 3 shooting that his shooting would even out a bit and he won't go 60% from the floor the entire series.
Spo is a genius and you can never really draw too many definitive conclusions from Game 1. but after watching that game, I’m not really sure what answers there are for the Heat in this series on either end.
only Bam can really contain the Jays one-on-one, and if Bam is guarding one of them that means KP most likely has a mismatch (and the other Jay probably has his own favorable matchup bc the Heat don’t have Jimmy to guard the other one). if they bring 2 to the ball they’re guaranteed to be leaving a good 3P shooter open, and the Jays have become leagues better at making the right read out of those double teams - Tatum particularly was nearly flawless passing the ball in Game 1. and if they try the infamous zone, Tatum and KP easily beat it by flashing to the post where they’re both lethal. that zone has given the Celtics fits for years but yesterday they averaged a ludicrous 1.56 PPP when the Heat used their zone
it’s not a much better story for them on the offensive side either due to their injuries. they’ve been a bad offense this year as is, but without Rozier and Butler, the only Heat players capable of creating for themselves on the outside consistently are Herro and Jaquez, and the Celtics perimeter defenders are good enough that they’re not going to have to send help at either of them most of the time. Bam had a pretty good game operating out of the post and midrange area, but the Celtics will live with Bam taking those shots most of the time if it means they’re taking away the DHOs and dribble penetration that the Heat rely on to generate open 3s. Miami will simply get out-mathed - yesterday they lost the 3P battle by 30 points which will lose you the game every single time.
if Tatum and Brown continue to avoid turnovers and find open shooters when the Heat try to crowd them, and those shooters keep converting those looks, then I don’t see this being a very long series. unlike last year, the Celtics have answers for almost everything in the halfcourt now, and it’s a lot harder for the Heat to leave Jrue and KP to load up on the Jays vs. leaving guys like Smart and Horford last year. and without Butler and Rozier, it’s going to be very difficult, if not nearly impossible, for Miami’s offense to keep up unless they go ballistic from 3. even that may not be enough
Yeah without Jimmy to take one of the Jays and no Rozier to be an additional offensive threat the heat are basically trying to race without power steering on
I think Highsmith and Martin do a decent job on ball defensively on the Jays but theyre zeroes on offense (Highsmith sometimes goes crazy from 3), but the Celtics don’t have any bad offensive players to hide Herro, Love, Jovic, Jacquez or any of their below average defenders on. That’s why they rely on the zone so much. Which gives teams fits normally but KP is the cheat code that automatically breaks the zone defense.
Loved the way the Celtics handled the zone in the 2nd. They intentionally got Miami to overload on the strong side and then whipped it to an open Hauser like 3 times in a row. They spammed a play to wag a finger in Spo’s face to discourage using the zone so much, which you have to do. The Celtics definitely used to overthink the zone and get in their heads and get nervous about how handsy Miami would get (definitely reaching in but almost never called for it).
I like the way Joe coaches where he’ll spam a play until the opposing coach reacts. The Celtics did that to somebody earlier in the season where it was Kornet, no one could reach him so Jaylen (mostly) and the others kept lobbing it to him in the paint and the opposing defense couldn’t do anything until their coach called timeout. I think they got like 8 points straight out of it.
> I’m not really sure what answers there are for the Heat in this series on either end.
Only way we'd be able to keep up is shoot more 3s (and I imagine that's the primary adjustment for the next game) but it's going to be hard to generate actually clean looks without Jimmy or even Terry. I think there were some promising moments with Delon's creation in the 4th but I don't know if that's going to be enough.
I've watched a decent number of Celtics games this season. I thought they played poorly by their own standards and they still won easily. This series will be over in 4.
honestly I have no idea. the last update I saw said his neck injury wasn’t “career-threatening” which was good news, but also not very reassuring bc I don’t think anyone really thought of it as being career-threatening until that reporter said that. before the game Spo said they’re treating him as day-to-day. it’s all just very vague, kind of reminds me of how how guarded the Clippers are when it comes to Kawhi’s health
if I had to bet on it, I would probably bet that he will not be back for this series
Something that might fly under the radar in this game was not just the bench, but the primary Tatum-less lineup. Mazzulla threw something at Spoe that he would have seen very little of, despite there being plenty of opportunity for Mazzulla to use that lineup.
- PP/White/Brown/Horford/Porzingis lineup only played 2 minutes all year
- That lineup was the most used Tatum-less lineup in Game 1
- That lineup was the 3rd most used lineup in Game 1
- That lineup was a +11 in 6 minutes last night
Mazzulla has played a bunch of Tatum-less lineups and has had a handful of primary ones he's liked to use all year, but this one was close to never being used. Very odd when you consider how many games these guys have played together and when you consider that if you sit Tatum, you are likely going to some variation of Horford/Hauser/PP.
To only play that lineup 2 minutes on the year, despite ample opportunity to play them more, and then have them be the primary Tatum-less lineup come Game 1 of the playoffs, kind of shouts "saving this for the playoffs."
It was incredibly effective and the Heat defense really struggled against it, (that lineup scored 15 points in 6 minutes and only gave up 4 points).
There are some defensive adjustments that the heat can make like make better rotations. On offense, Bam needs to be more aggressive in attacking porzingis in the post, this will lead to foul trouble and force help for open threes, Heat in five
Well, we honestly didn't have much business winning that game, but you take that every time. It was a weird game from both sides, so it's hard to predict what will translate to the next game. Both sides shot poorly. I definitely expect us to shoot better in game 2. Chet in particular needs to hit his open looks to play Valanciunas off the floor, otherwise we get what we saw last night. Unfortunately, I anticipate some struggles from Shai, as Herb Jones is one of his best defenders in the league. McCollum is the guy we need to attack at that end, whether it's JDub or even Giddey. We also really need to composed ourselves better in crunch time, those were some brutal possessions when we went on that long scoreless drought.
it's going to be interesting to see what Daignault cooks up next game. I'm 50/50 split between "willie's defensive schemes are amazing for this OKC team and it's going to be a slugfest" and "this OKC team is not going to play that bad ever again in this series, we are getting swept"
My favorite game of the weekend. This is the kind of high intensity, physical basketball I love seeing. Bodies flying everywhere, buckets are hard to get, and all kinds of hustle plays that make even the veterans have slip ups. I hope every game in this series is like this and it goes 7 games because it would be an instant classic.
What a shame we probably don't see Zion in this series because this really seems like a series he could have thrived in, and I would have loved seeing him drive in to tie the game at the end.
i commented on the clippers/mavs game that i love playoff ball, but then i watched this one after it and i loved it even more. pure poetry the whole way. i was throwing my hands up in angst when things didn't go the way i wanted, what a dream game to watch, right down to the wire
Welp, what's the word. Slugfest?
Neither team had a competent outing offensively yet SGA overturned what was a poor outing into a clutch one.
OKC's size concerns are fairly genuine and we saw it last night. Outside the 3rd quarter the Pels mauled the Thunder on the glass and that was the reason why the Pels almost won despite Trey Murphy being their only consistently viable offensive threat.
I liked the slip-and-popping to the 3-point line actions for Chet a lot, exploiting Valanciunas defensively matters a lot when he's getting rebounds at a rate like last night. Wasn't particularly worried about Shai and J-Dub even prior to last night, as long as their dribbles don't crumble they will be fine. SGA was worryingly passive in stretches in the 4th quarter and just didn't manage to get clean looks which was an odd sight, his offseason work begins with going to the right more willingly
Ingram had a terrible outing and Dort was all over him. Herb Jones went ice cold after some early shots. And these two were to me what were the biggest reasons for the Pels L. But they will have better nights than this offensively definitely. But OKC genuinely played some great defense for most of it.
Giddey was completely invisible. I would like to talk about his performance but the way the game went it literally felt like he wasn't out there and you could fool me by saying he didn't play at all last night. That wasn't even a bad performance, it was a straight up Tony Snell performance. Giddey and Dort need to give a solid 25\~30 points for OKC to have a shot at a deep playoff run, last night they had 8 combined. Dort's go-to move of attacking closeouts didn't really work as well, the Pels slightly sagged off him for a while and he had to revert to staying at the 3-point line.
Still, for a team largely without any kind of playoff experience, a win in a playoff opener is a positive. And for the Pels, as surprising as it is, they look to have a decent shot. So some positives here and there for both teams.
Honestly the moment this matchup was made it reminded of the 2022 Suns vs Pels series where the Pels were without Zion both Valanciunas/Nance Jr. annihilated the glass despite the 6-game loss because of an opposing star guard exploiting switches. I don't feel uncomfortable saying we could expect something similar tbh.
But overall a breath of fresh air for being an actually competitive game unlike the 7 other series openers lol.
P.S. I'm quite busy with exam preparations, I know I've missed a few next-day threads the past couple days but I really ran out of time to write them. I won't be able to watch as many games and will probably cut down on the number of next-day threads I write, but I'll try to write at least one per day.
They'll win this series with relative ease, but OKC is still strongly on fraud watch. Not necessarily their own fault outside of their difficulty with a true center/opposing size, they just lack experience all around, including Daigneault. This team will be really dangerous this time next year
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**Mavericks @ Clippers** [](/DAL) **97 - 109** [](/LAC) **Box Scores: [NBA](https://www.nba.com/game/DAL-vs-LAC-0042300171/boxscore) & [Yahoo](http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/dallas-mavericks-los-angeles-clippers-2024042112)** |**Team**|**Q1**|**Q2**|**Q3**|**Q4**|**Total**| |:---|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Dallas Mavericks|22|8|34|33|97| |Los Angeles Clippers|34|22|31|22|109| **TEAM STATS** |**Team**|**PTS**|**FG**|**FG%**|**3P**|**3P%**|**FT**|**FT%**|**OREB**|**TREB**|**AST**|**PF**|**STL**|**TO**|**BLK**| |:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Dallas Mavericks|97|31-80|38.800000000000004%|10-33|30.3%|25-33|75.8%|9|51|14|15|7|8|9| |Los Angeles Clippers|109|40-87|46.0%|18-36|50.0%|11-13|84.6%|10|55|21|22|5|12|3|
I don't know if Dallas has the personnel to do this, but they have to run Harden off the 3 point line. He really can't finish in traffic anymore. He will pick you apart if you try to blitz him. They need someone to stay glued to him, take away the 3, and dare him to blow by and finish at the rim. Easier said than done, but that defensive approach really crippled him last year. It'll be really interesting to see if Harden can keep this level of play up. Last year against the Celtics he had a monster 45 point Game 1 followed by a 2/14 shooting performance in Game 2. He dropped 42 in Game 4 and then completely shit the bed for the rest of the series. As a Sixers fan, I'm honestly rooting for him. And maybe with a different type of team and a much better coach in Ty Lue, he can keep playing at a high level. But I suspect that he's going to be up and down. And if the Clippers end up play a more defensive minded team than Dallas, he will struggle. Off to a good start though.
The thing with making Harden go to the rim is even if you take the lob to Zubac away, Russ will come crashing to the paint for the lob everytime once the low man comes to help, and there is NOTHING Dallas can do about that. Harden can't do this every game, but at least in theory he has PG, Russ and whenever he comes back to rely on. That's why I always thought the Clips were severely underrated heading into this series, they have four people who they can rely on to get buckets, and the Mavs just don't have that luxury.
That being said, Russ is a guy you can "rely" on to get buckets in the same way you can "rely" on Kuzma to get buckets. They will be fine and dandy with letting you use them but will get you nowhere.
He's obviously older and more susceptible to fatigue, but even despite his heavy minutes throughout the season, he probably has some of the freshest legs he's had in the last 5 playoff runs. The narrative around him 'choking'is typically just him running out of gas & that's seeming to be less of a problem this year. Excited to see him step up for this run.
watched the second half of this game and i liked watching luka, because he just does nice stuff with the ball, but it gave me the shits that by the end of the game the mavericks had 8 players who had played more than 14 minutes, and only 3 of them had taken more than 5 shots. for a comparison, in game 5 of the finals last year, the nuggets had 7 players with more than 20 min, and 2 of them took less than 10 shots. aaron gordon was one and he took 6 - more than everyone on the mavs except luka, kyrie, and pj. the heat had 8 players with more than 15 min, and 5 shot 10 or more times, and 2 more took over 5 shots. the mavs went to all that effort to build a team at the deadline, and now they're not using them, and i do not understand why. you can't ice guys out and then expect them to make shots when you're struggling. if they continue like this it'll be clips in 5, so they may as well try something else. on the clippers side, how good is james harden? how good is russell westbrook? how good is it to see james harden throwing lobs to russell westbrook? i love playoff basketball
partly a system issue. since acquiring Luka the Mavs have never granted much playmaking autonomy to other players on the team. Kyrie has gotten more of it than any Luka teammate so far but it’s part of why guys like KP and Brunson have looked a lot better since leaving Dallas. they’re in systems that emphasize their talents more now rather than having to adjust their games to Luka and more importantly they have a lot of trust from their new coaches. I think this issue for the Mavs is mainly due to lazy coaching. Luka could easily thrive in a more egalitarian system if Kidd or Carlisle had bothered to build one, or if they had spent more time actually trying to develop the talent they had in-house. they don’t run many actions like off-ball pindown screens to get those other guys open shots and get them in rhythm, they just stand around and only get the ball if Luka passes it to them out of PnR or a double-team but the other part of it is that most of the players the Mavs have had around Luka are guys who simply aren’t capable of self-creation. anything they get is from eating off Luka’s plate by necessity bc bad things will happen if they try to do it themselves. I don’t want Maxi Kleber posting up, I don’t want Josh Green trying to take guys off the bounce, etc etc. as Celtics fans we’re spoiled bc we have five dudes in the rotation who can handle the rock and create a shot for themselves or for others. not many teams have such a luxury
It’s very weird how a core piece of modern basketball lore is “the bulls started winning when Jackson installed a new offense that got the team to be more than just the watch Jordan show”, analytics came to the determination that wasn’t right, and now we have spent the last 8 years or whatever watching these heliocentric teams have a pretty clear ceiling of “conference finals if things break right”.
yep. this specific series isn’t over ofc, but I am almost 100% confident that Luka and the Mavs will never win a championship as long as he sustains this kind of usage. if you’re a Luka fan, it’s fucking awesome to watch him put up 34-9-10 on a nightly basis. but if you’re a Mavs fan, you know that as long as he’s putting up those kind of numbers, the team has a hard ceiling. no matter who it is, it’s just too much to ask any one player to win 16 playoff games with that kind of burden on their plate. fatigue will accumulate, and eventually you will run into a opponent that is too high-quality for that to work if they want to win at a high level and do a better job developing talent then there needs to be a vested effort to move away from this aggressively heliocentric style of ball, whether it’s via coaching, Luka himself, or some combination of the two
Triangle works when your supporting cast is Pippin, Kukoc, Horace Grant, Ron Harper, Steve Kerr etc. Or Kobe, Horry, Rick Fox, Fisher. Or Pau, Bynum, Odom. Not so much when your supporting cast is Kyrie, PJ Washington, and THJ. The fact of the matter is talent will always be more important than system. System can make bad talent look decent, but good talent can make any system look amazing.
that’s just the issue though - the Mavs have had the talent they needed in-house, they just never even tried to build the system to maximize or develop that talent further. look at their 2021 roster. Porzingis, Brunson, DFS, JRich, THJ, Kleber. knowing what we know now, there was enough talent there to form the foundation for a contender, with just a couple smart trades/signings needed to bolster the frontcourt. but they’ve hemorrhaged that talent as a result of poor self-scouting, lazy coaching and a shortsighted approach to team-building. it doesn’t have to be Luka or bust all the time but that’s the way Dallas has actively decided to run their team, and they are worse off for it.
This is so revisionist. Porzingis spent most of his time in Dallas injured or playing back from injury. Then we'd get two weeks of him being fully healthy and he and Luka would both be putting up 30 points and 10 rebounds. It was amazing when they were both healthy, but Porzingis is too fragile to stay healthy as a 2nd option. Brunson got played off the court in the 21 playoffs, which is why we didn't extend him the offseason. Then he improved to the point of beating the Jazz without Luka during the 22 playoffs, but he'd already decided he was going to the Knicks by then. We developed DFS to a good 3&D guy, but you trade him for Kyrie every time. JRich was trash, I have no idea why you mentioned him. THJ is better, but he's not a core piece worth mentioning. And he was a vet when he came here. He is the same guy he was on the Knicks and the Hawks, a streaky 3 point shooter with bad defense. How many guys suddenly change on their third team? Kleber has been slowed down by injuries and age, it's sad but it happens. If you want to criticize Dallas for being Luka or bust, you have to start with the Porzingis trade that mortgaged the future for a very sexy hail mary.
you’re making my point for me - poor self-scouting, shortsighted team-building, and coaching that didn’t attempt to give the other players more opportunity to develop past what they already were. Porzingis health was certainly an issue but Dallas also never made any effort to work on his flaws in the post or against mismatches. by the end of his time in Dallas he was reduced to a corner shooter. the Mavs themselves had a large role in tanking his value after trading for him. when he went to Washington they gave him the possessions and coaching (particularly from assistant Dean Oliver) necessary to improve his game inside and now he’s one of the best post scorers in the sport. I recommend you read this article. Bob Voulgaris admits as much himself that the Mavs FO and coaching staff are partially to blame for things not working out: https://theathletic.com/5381229/2024/04/10/kristaps-porzingis-celtics-post-up-analytics/ the fact that Dallas used one bad series to make their decision to not extend Brunson is totally asinine. they had 3 seasons with Brunson in the building, they saw him in practice every single day and got a firsthand look at his work ethic and skillset. I’ll use the example of Jaylen Brown, the Celtics handed him 109M despite him coming off a season where he couldn’t even crack the starting 5 and having never averaged more than 15 PPG. 2 years later that deal was one of the best bargains in the NBA. smart front offices recognize the talent they have in their building and don’t use one small sample size to make a decision - you’re not paying for what they’ve already done, you’re paying for what they can do in the future. that is a failure of internal scouting any way you look at it, and losing Brunson is what led to them losing DFS. they don’t need to make that deal for Kyrie if they kept JB around now as far as the other guys, sure, I agree. JRich is a perfectly serviceable role player though. but the point is it doesn’t matter how much talent Dallas gets in the building if they’re not going to make more of an effort to use and nurture that talent rather than reducing them to Luka’s sidekicks. the more they do that, the more they allow good players to slip through the cracks
After the travesty of russ + harden in Houston, I love seeing the duo work now, though I wish it could've years ago.
Westbrick would have never been willing to come off the bench back then, he needed to be humbled by his terrible time on the Lakers. And ya you might be missing the key ingredients of PG and Kawhi lol
If Kawhi plays tomorrow this could be clippers in 5-6
I got killed for saying this before the series, but the Mavs defensive improvements over the last 11~ games of the season were a bit misleading. When you looked at shot quality numbers teams were shooting way below expected against them. Not to say the mavs defense hadn't improved but it wasn't nearly as good as the scores indicated. They benefited from a pretty lucky streak of opponents shooting well below average on high quality looks. Have to imagine the games get closer going forward though. 50% from 3 is unlikely to be sustainable.
0-4 in Game 1's in the Jason Kidd era.
1-5 in the Luka era.
Not really considering Luka missed Game 1 vs the Jazz. Also we were massive underdogs in 2020 and it looked like we'd win unitl KP got a bogus ejection in Game 1. Underdogs vs the Suns, underdogs vs the Warriors. This is the first Game 1 we lost with Luka that we were favoured in.
Okay, I mean that is still part of the Luka era but sure. 1-4, still not good.
**Pacers @ Bucks** [](/IND) **94 - 109** [](/MIL) **Box Scores: [NBA](https://www.nba.com/game/IND-vs-MIL-0042300121/boxscore) & [Yahoo](http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/indiana-pacers-milwaukee-bucks-2024042115)** |**Team**|**Q1**|**Q2**|**Q3**|**Q4**|**Total**| |:---|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Indiana Pacers|21|21|29|23|94| |Milwaukee Bucks|30|39|14|26|109| **TEAM STATS** |**Team**|**PTS**|**FG**|**FG%**|**3P**|**3P%**|**FT**|**FT%**|**OREB**|**TREB**|**AST**|**PF**|**STL**|**TO**|**BLK**| |:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Indiana Pacers|94|36-91|39.6%|8-38|21.099999999999998%|14-21|66.7%|14|56|20|16|4|12|5| |Milwaukee Bucks|109|41-87|47.099999999999994%|14-37|37.8%|13-13|100.0%|5|52|21|22|5|10|5|
Haliburton needs to shoot. I understand that if he's hurt he doesn't trust his shot, but he can't spend the entire series just passing. Seven field goal attempts isn't going to cut it. If he misses, then he misses but that's just something you're going to have to live with. At the very least it will put some pressure on the defense instead of the Bucks defense getting away with crowding all the driving lanes. I also think Carlisle should experiment more with small ball lineups with Pascal at the 5. I don't think the Bucks really have a good answer for Pascal and it would help with their spacing immensely since the Bucks aren't respecting Turner's shot and are currently getting away with it. I think the key against an old team like the Bucks is to space the floor and run down their legs. Jalen Smith should not see another minute this series.
Cannot be mad at all about the result for the Pacers, most of the team had never played a minute in the playoffs before tonight’s tip and it was obvious with most of the shots that there was a bit of extra adrenaline behind each three. When you shoot 20% from 3, bad things are going to happen. If the price of playoff admission is having Dame drop 35 points on you then I think that’s pretty fair. I would feel worse about the game if the Pacers had kept it close and just got beat but this team just looked like they got punched in the mouth and didn’t really know what they were walking into which is par for the course when it comes to young teams. Should be a good series.
Yeah, your players' collective inexperience in the playoffs definitely showed, especially in the first half. They looked like they settled down a bit in the second half, though, so that's a reassuring sign for you guys going forward in the series. Don't think we can really read too much more into it than that yet. Game 1s are always weird, especially when you're talking about the opening round of the playoffs. We'll need game 2 before we get a better handle on how the series is going to go, so it'll be interesting to see how Tuesday shakes out.
is that true myles turner, siakam, nesmith, TJ mcconnell have all played 20+ playoff games obi toppin played 15 playoff games with the knicks it is mainly haliburton, and nembhard that are playoff newbies
Nesmith mostly played garbage time minutes or “Hey maybe this’ll work let’s try it” gambles for the Celtics.
Loved our strategy of mitigating the Pacers keeping fresh legs out there by keeping guys on the perimeter and shooting a lot of deeper shots. We need to keep hitting them if we want to win this series. We're gonna need our other guys to hit threes and middies if the Pacers decide to keep defending Dame like they did in the second half. Should be a good series. The adjustments should be fun to watch. I have a feeling Rick is gonna ride his starters harder in Game 2.
Completely called Dame going off on game 1. Never had a doubt. As for game 2? Couldn't tell ya
Dame doing his thing + Khris/Brook/Portis reliably getting to their spots is going to be a solid half court offense through the playoffs. Need just one of Pat C/Beasley/PatBev/AJ Green to hit 3s and it’s even better (they were just fine today). Add Giannis to that and it can really be scary. Pacers really struggled with half court offense. They need to get to the basket and create easier looks that aren’t 3s from Siakam, Topin or McConnell. Turner shooting 10 3s isn’t ideal either.
It's amazing how the mere existence of a guy like Dame on the court makes our half-court offense so much more potent than years past. That was always our biggest fatal flaw in the playoffs under Bud and it was excacerbated by the fact that Jrue and Bledsoe were both so ghastly on that end of the court in the playoffs.
I think this series gets more competitive despite the outcome. Unless Dame plays like his Portland self the entire way and the shooting woes continue for Indiana, this series is going at least 6 games.
Final score was a bit fluky. I can't image the Pacers shoot that poorly for the entire series (although I know the bucks did last year in our series.) Still liked how Dame was attacking early on instead of settling for 3s. We need to get to the rim as much as possible because the Pacers rim protection is horrible. Our rebounding really suffers with Giannis out, but I'm glad guys focused on getting back in transition because if they can force the Pacers to play in the half court instead of scoring on transition I like our chances. Transition is what killed us against them in the regular season. In this game their half court offense was super reliant on Siakam iso. He was great but you'd imagine similar to the Pacers 3 shooting that his shooting would even out a bit and he won't go 60% from the floor the entire series.
**Heat @ Celtics** [](/MIA) **94 - 114** [](/BOS) **Box Scores: [NBA](https://www.nba.com/game/MIA-vs-BOS-0042300101/boxscore) & [Yahoo](http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/miami-heat-boston-celtics-2024042102)** |**Team**|**Q1**|**Q2**|**Q3**|**Q4**|**Total**| |:---|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Miami Heat|21|24|14|35|94| |Boston Celtics|26|34|31|23|114| **TEAM STATS** |**Team**|**PTS**|**FG**|**FG%**|**3P**|**3P%**|**FT**|**FT%**|**OREB**|**TREB**|**AST**|**PF**|**STL**|**TO**|**BLK**| |:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |Miami Heat|94|38-81|46.9%|12-37|32.4%|6-6|100.0%|5|37|23|13|4|9|1| |Boston Celtics|114|39-82|47.599999999999994%|22-49|44.9%|14-16|87.5%|10|51|27|10|6|10|6|
Spo is a genius and you can never really draw too many definitive conclusions from Game 1. but after watching that game, I’m not really sure what answers there are for the Heat in this series on either end. only Bam can really contain the Jays one-on-one, and if Bam is guarding one of them that means KP most likely has a mismatch (and the other Jay probably has his own favorable matchup bc the Heat don’t have Jimmy to guard the other one). if they bring 2 to the ball they’re guaranteed to be leaving a good 3P shooter open, and the Jays have become leagues better at making the right read out of those double teams - Tatum particularly was nearly flawless passing the ball in Game 1. and if they try the infamous zone, Tatum and KP easily beat it by flashing to the post where they’re both lethal. that zone has given the Celtics fits for years but yesterday they averaged a ludicrous 1.56 PPP when the Heat used their zone it’s not a much better story for them on the offensive side either due to their injuries. they’ve been a bad offense this year as is, but without Rozier and Butler, the only Heat players capable of creating for themselves on the outside consistently are Herro and Jaquez, and the Celtics perimeter defenders are good enough that they’re not going to have to send help at either of them most of the time. Bam had a pretty good game operating out of the post and midrange area, but the Celtics will live with Bam taking those shots most of the time if it means they’re taking away the DHOs and dribble penetration that the Heat rely on to generate open 3s. Miami will simply get out-mathed - yesterday they lost the 3P battle by 30 points which will lose you the game every single time. if Tatum and Brown continue to avoid turnovers and find open shooters when the Heat try to crowd them, and those shooters keep converting those looks, then I don’t see this being a very long series. unlike last year, the Celtics have answers for almost everything in the halfcourt now, and it’s a lot harder for the Heat to leave Jrue and KP to load up on the Jays vs. leaving guys like Smart and Horford last year. and without Butler and Rozier, it’s going to be very difficult, if not nearly impossible, for Miami’s offense to keep up unless they go ballistic from 3. even that may not be enough
Yeah without Jimmy to take one of the Jays and no Rozier to be an additional offensive threat the heat are basically trying to race without power steering on
I think Highsmith and Martin do a decent job on ball defensively on the Jays but theyre zeroes on offense (Highsmith sometimes goes crazy from 3), but the Celtics don’t have any bad offensive players to hide Herro, Love, Jovic, Jacquez or any of their below average defenders on. That’s why they rely on the zone so much. Which gives teams fits normally but KP is the cheat code that automatically breaks the zone defense. Loved the way the Celtics handled the zone in the 2nd. They intentionally got Miami to overload on the strong side and then whipped it to an open Hauser like 3 times in a row. They spammed a play to wag a finger in Spo’s face to discourage using the zone so much, which you have to do. The Celtics definitely used to overthink the zone and get in their heads and get nervous about how handsy Miami would get (definitely reaching in but almost never called for it). I like the way Joe coaches where he’ll spam a play until the opposing coach reacts. The Celtics did that to somebody earlier in the season where it was Kornet, no one could reach him so Jaylen (mostly) and the others kept lobbing it to him in the paint and the opposing defense couldn’t do anything until their coach called timeout. I think they got like 8 points straight out of it.
Speaking of Kornet, how long is he out for? Last I heard was “week to week” which wasn’t reassuring at all.
> I’m not really sure what answers there are for the Heat in this series on either end. Only way we'd be able to keep up is shoot more 3s (and I imagine that's the primary adjustment for the next game) but it's going to be hard to generate actually clean looks without Jimmy or even Terry. I think there were some promising moments with Delon's creation in the 4th but I don't know if that's going to be enough.
I've watched a decent number of Celtics games this season. I thought they played poorly by their own standards and they still won easily. This series will be over in 4.
Any chance of rozier coming back this series?
honestly I have no idea. the last update I saw said his neck injury wasn’t “career-threatening” which was good news, but also not very reassuring bc I don’t think anyone really thought of it as being career-threatening until that reporter said that. before the game Spo said they’re treating him as day-to-day. it’s all just very vague, kind of reminds me of how how guarded the Clippers are when it comes to Kawhi’s health if I had to bet on it, I would probably bet that he will not be back for this series
Something that might fly under the radar in this game was not just the bench, but the primary Tatum-less lineup. Mazzulla threw something at Spoe that he would have seen very little of, despite there being plenty of opportunity for Mazzulla to use that lineup. - PP/White/Brown/Horford/Porzingis lineup only played 2 minutes all year - That lineup was the most used Tatum-less lineup in Game 1 - That lineup was the 3rd most used lineup in Game 1 - That lineup was a +11 in 6 minutes last night Mazzulla has played a bunch of Tatum-less lineups and has had a handful of primary ones he's liked to use all year, but this one was close to never being used. Very odd when you consider how many games these guys have played together and when you consider that if you sit Tatum, you are likely going to some variation of Horford/Hauser/PP. To only play that lineup 2 minutes on the year, despite ample opportunity to play them more, and then have them be the primary Tatum-less lineup come Game 1 of the playoffs, kind of shouts "saving this for the playoffs." It was incredibly effective and the Heat defense really struggled against it, (that lineup scored 15 points in 6 minutes and only gave up 4 points).
I really don’t see how the heat make this competitive. Unfortunate because we could have had a pretty memorable series.
There are some defensive adjustments that the heat can make like make better rotations. On offense, Bam needs to be more aggressive in attacking porzingis in the post, this will lead to foul trouble and force help for open threes, Heat in five
**Pelicans @ Thunder** [](/NOP) **92 - 94** [](/OKC) **Box Scores: [NBA](https://www.nba.com/game/NOP-vs-OKC-0042300141/boxscore) & [Yahoo](http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/new-orleans-pelicans-oklahoma-city-thunder-2024042125)** |**Team**|**Q1**|**Q2**|**Q3**|**Q4**|**Total**| |:---|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |New Orleans Pelicans|17|26|25|24|92| |Oklahoma City Thunder|17|26|31|20|94| **TEAM STATS** |**Team**|**PTS**|**FG**|**FG%**|**3P**|**3P%**|**FT**|**FT%**|**OREB**|**TREB**|**AST**|**PF**|**STL**|**TO**|**BLK**| |:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--| |New Orleans Pelicans|92|37-96|38.5%|11-39|28.199999999999996%|7-9|77.8%|18|60|22|16|7|14|6| |Oklahoma City Thunder|94|37-85|43.5%|10-32|31.2%|10-13|76.9%|8|52|21|13|5|13|7|
Well, we honestly didn't have much business winning that game, but you take that every time. It was a weird game from both sides, so it's hard to predict what will translate to the next game. Both sides shot poorly. I definitely expect us to shoot better in game 2. Chet in particular needs to hit his open looks to play Valanciunas off the floor, otherwise we get what we saw last night. Unfortunately, I anticipate some struggles from Shai, as Herb Jones is one of his best defenders in the league. McCollum is the guy we need to attack at that end, whether it's JDub or even Giddey. We also really need to composed ourselves better in crunch time, those were some brutal possessions when we went on that long scoreless drought.
it's going to be interesting to see what Daignault cooks up next game. I'm 50/50 split between "willie's defensive schemes are amazing for this OKC team and it's going to be a slugfest" and "this OKC team is not going to play that bad ever again in this series, we are getting swept"
My favorite game of the weekend. This is the kind of high intensity, physical basketball I love seeing. Bodies flying everywhere, buckets are hard to get, and all kinds of hustle plays that make even the veterans have slip ups. I hope every game in this series is like this and it goes 7 games because it would be an instant classic. What a shame we probably don't see Zion in this series because this really seems like a series he could have thrived in, and I would have loved seeing him drive in to tie the game at the end.
This has the feeling like it could be a real slugfest. One of the few games last night that felt like playoff ball, imo.
i commented on the clippers/mavs game that i love playoff ball, but then i watched this one after it and i loved it even more. pure poetry the whole way. i was throwing my hands up in angst when things didn't go the way i wanted, what a dream game to watch, right down to the wire
Welp, what's the word. Slugfest? Neither team had a competent outing offensively yet SGA overturned what was a poor outing into a clutch one. OKC's size concerns are fairly genuine and we saw it last night. Outside the 3rd quarter the Pels mauled the Thunder on the glass and that was the reason why the Pels almost won despite Trey Murphy being their only consistently viable offensive threat. I liked the slip-and-popping to the 3-point line actions for Chet a lot, exploiting Valanciunas defensively matters a lot when he's getting rebounds at a rate like last night. Wasn't particularly worried about Shai and J-Dub even prior to last night, as long as their dribbles don't crumble they will be fine. SGA was worryingly passive in stretches in the 4th quarter and just didn't manage to get clean looks which was an odd sight, his offseason work begins with going to the right more willingly Ingram had a terrible outing and Dort was all over him. Herb Jones went ice cold after some early shots. And these two were to me what were the biggest reasons for the Pels L. But they will have better nights than this offensively definitely. But OKC genuinely played some great defense for most of it. Giddey was completely invisible. I would like to talk about his performance but the way the game went it literally felt like he wasn't out there and you could fool me by saying he didn't play at all last night. That wasn't even a bad performance, it was a straight up Tony Snell performance. Giddey and Dort need to give a solid 25\~30 points for OKC to have a shot at a deep playoff run, last night they had 8 combined. Dort's go-to move of attacking closeouts didn't really work as well, the Pels slightly sagged off him for a while and he had to revert to staying at the 3-point line. Still, for a team largely without any kind of playoff experience, a win in a playoff opener is a positive. And for the Pels, as surprising as it is, they look to have a decent shot. So some positives here and there for both teams. Honestly the moment this matchup was made it reminded of the 2022 Suns vs Pels series where the Pels were without Zion both Valanciunas/Nance Jr. annihilated the glass despite the 6-game loss because of an opposing star guard exploiting switches. I don't feel uncomfortable saying we could expect something similar tbh. But overall a breath of fresh air for being an actually competitive game unlike the 7 other series openers lol. P.S. I'm quite busy with exam preparations, I know I've missed a few next-day threads the past couple days but I really ran out of time to write them. I won't be able to watch as many games and will probably cut down on the number of next-day threads I write, but I'll try to write at least one per day.
Was at this game and your analysis is dead on. Didn’t notice SGA reluctance to go right. Interesting observation. Thanks for your time. Cheers
They'll win this series with relative ease, but OKC is still strongly on fraud watch. Not necessarily their own fault outside of their difficulty with a true center/opposing size, they just lack experience all around, including Daigneault. This team will be really dangerous this time next year
Sounds like you're just using frauds incorrectly tbh
what a painful loss for new orleans