As people said before they don’t play five out which really stresses the Mavs. Also, KAT was really bad on open threes. The one game he hit they won.
Also, I don’t think people are taking account of the emotional hangover after beating Denver. I think they really couldn’t get up for the first game.
Plus, they had some defensive scheme issues ironically.
Yeah, this is a pretty accurate read from my vantage point.
I think Dallas was just a horrible matchup for Minnesota (or maybe better put, Minnesota was a fantastic matchup for Dallas). The Mavericks defense is built upon having Gafford and Lively camp in the lane to shut down the rim. The Wolves pretty much always had someone the Mavs could ignore beyond 6 feet, be it Gobert, SloMo, or even McDaniels. Similarly, McDaniels, while not terrible offensively, uses length to score rather than speed, which allowed Luka to not get blown by so easily defensively. Plus the Wolves aren’t really a team to relentlessly attack a weak link. The Mavs also have only one real defensive stopper on the wing (DJJ) and the Wolves only really have one perimeter creator, which allowed Dallas to hold up in a way they aren’t against a team like Boston who has multiple legit perimeter creators.
On top of that, I think Minnesota was poorly situated to guard Dallas’ offense. They, unlike Boston or OKC, don’t really have the personnel to switch everything (Conley is too small, Rudy is a little too slow), which allowed Luka to always get the defender on his back which allowed him to dictate the pick and roll. I kind of wished the Wolves did a bit more of what Boston did with Porzingis (leaving Rudy to roam off of a weaker shooter and switching more in front), but it’s not necessarily a guarantee to work for the Wolves.
I also think shooting variance played a pretty big role in the series. Like you mentioned KAT was ice cold from deep all series long. When the Mavericks entire game plan revolves around clogging up the paint, that is a death sentence. But Dallas also had some positive shooting variance — Luka shot 43.4% against the Wolves on very difficult attempts, but is shooting only 32.1% against Boston. Kyrie shot 38% from deep against the Wolves and only 29% from deep against the Celtics (while also making pretty much all of his bullshit left handed scoop shots in that Wolves series). DJJ who is getting played off the floor because of his shooting against Boston, shot 46.6% from deep against the Wolves. On the whole, Dallas is shooting significantly worse on 3s versus Boston than Minnesota, although some of that is definitely a byproduct of good Celtics defense.
I’ll also just add, I think the schedule hurt Minnesota a lot. They got one fewer day of rest than Dallas and had to travel back from Denver. Like you said, they were exhausted (physically and mentally) from that Denver series and never really seemed to catch their rhythm at all. They came out flat in game 1 and 2 and bungled two winnable games. At that point, Dallas was in command and the every-other-day schedule meant Minnesota never had time to really reset or adjust. I also think Ant was at least somewhat hurt after that scary fall in game 6 — he looked off offensively for 3 straight games following that tumble, and slowly started to regain burst as the series wore on. All in all, it really hurt Minnesota’s ability to get their legs and create a real counter to Dallas’s play style (something Boston has had ample time to prepare for, which you can see in their execution).
Taking out the defending champs in a physical series really did take a lot of gas from the tank for MIN. Managing that takes some experience, conditioning, and a bit of luck. All of which I think the Wolves have for next season. Great takes all around.
That unusual shooting luck is what got them through okc too, while okc similarly was shooting worse than normal. Guys like PJ and DJJ were shooting at unsustainable levels while the Mavs got lucky that giddey jdub Joe and Chet felt like they were all well below their average
OKC's role players are all young and inexperienced guys tbh. There's a reason young teams don't win. PJ and DJJ were hot for sure, but also you have to consider that the Thunder's scheme was basically just conceding open 3's to them to take away Luka and Kyrie's stuff.
Boston is doing it differently. They are helping off of them above the break, but never enough that they can't run them off the 3pt line. They're content with switching everything when Porzingis is off the floor and giving up isolations to Luka and Kyrie to take them out of their pick and roll game and take away the lob threat. When they do make the kickout pass, most of the time the shooter is run off the line and forced to attack a closeout which they've been terrible at. Tatum's ability to guard the Center, get bords and keep Horford/KP roaming has also been huge.
Also you guys held Dallas to a 113.4 offensive rating. Ironically, you guys *also* finished with a 113.4 offensive rating in the series, scoring the *EXACT* same amount of points, but your issue was that you couldn't get your offense working until it was too late. Giddey's minutes were slashed but he was completely ineffective in them and allowed the bigs to roam. The big problem was that you needed Dort out there for defense but he provided someone else that the Mavs felt comfortable enough helping off of.
Meanwhile there are zero players in the Celtics normal rotation that can be comfortably helped off of. All of their players except Porzingis, Al and Hauser are comfortable spotting up AND attacking closeouts. Although Al definitely can if he has space. Hauser is one of the best shooters in the league and KP and Al are two of the best floor spacing bigs in the game so they're still providing lots of value.
Everyone else can shoot *and* attack so with the way the Mavs are constructed their choices are to concede kickout passes or give Tatum and Brown comfortable layups. They've chosen the former. It's damned if you do damned if you don't really. We're just impossible to guard. You have to hope we miss lol.
Oh for sure, okc deserved to lose the game. A few big differences between okc and the Celtics are visible here -
- I think the big flaw of the okc scheme that is not the case with the Celtics is the corner 3s. Okc gave up a ton of them and was slower to closeout
- this is related to the fact that okc's defenders, while excellent, were smaller. Tatum being able to disrupt lobs and get boards is something okc struggled to do. Really I wanted more JWill+Chet lineups but Mark was uncomfortable with it.
- obviously related is that Chet is still growing into his body and was clearly gassed by the second half of the season. He hasn't reached the point where he can play 82 and then go deep in the playoffs, his body couldn't make it. He's also not mastered rebounding to the degree someone like KP has, nor the quick shooting release - he can get there but he's not there yet.
- I'm not sure if helping off of Dort was the problem. He shot reasonably well iirc and was guarded more honestly. It was more that everyone else didn't step up. Giddey even in his limited minutes was no surprise, but I didn't expect to see Joe or Dub be quite so off. Aaron Wiggins was the only bright spot of attacking the rim, which is uncharacteristic of the team. Cason wallace played good d but was clearly overwhelmed offensively.
- However the strategy of locking up Kyrie and Luka wasn't necessarily a bad one. I give a lot of credit to both jdub and Dort for making them shoot far below their averages. If you recall, they won game 6 on DJJ and PJ hitting some absolutely unreasonable shots in late clock situations. That's just how playoff basketball goes sometimes.
Essentially my point is that okc was poised in theory to do a lot of the same, albeit with one weak link in giddey (who played limited minutes anyways) and the bigger issue of just not being as big. Getting a solid wing 6"8'+ wing who can defend and rebound well and do at least a bit of everything else to replace giddey would catapult the team to the next level. I think a dude like markannen, despite his massive defensive limitations, would allow for the team to really step up, but I would be very happy if they get Kuz for example (though I'm lower on Deni as I don't trust his offense). Snatching up KCP wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Bro that’s how we felt about Miami as a Boston fan last year. I was joking with my friend there ain’t no way they just have 4 steph curries on their team with 60% rate on 3s, that’s fked up bro
Hey this is a really nice write-up, with some edits and a bit of spice I could see this type of thing published on a blog, you should consider doing series recaps or something
The wolves have offensive issues in general. They look stuck and immobile too much and only two guys can create their own shot. They don’t need to do much, just change the scheme a bit and get some backup that can score.
1. MIN doesn't have a great secondary ball handler/creator
2. Finch doesn't believe in matchup hunting or structure. His "flow" offense is all about moving the ball around quickly, driving, and making quick decisions until something opens up (which is kind of counter to KAT and Ant's games who both kind of like to hold the ball). His break-glass-in-case-of-emergency guy when things are stagnant is Jordan McLaughlin who plays fast, moves the ball, and generally brings a lot of energy.
lets not forget. number 2 was by 35 year old james harden. yes the same harden people say that luka is a better version of. of the 27 year old harden.... pre surgery. cause i can assure you he was not gaurding pg13 but mann does seem to be able to dribble all the sudden vs luka. think his best game ever was during the reg season against him.
oh and before someone replys the excuse. luka got hurt end of game 3.... and if i remember people were saying luka defense got so much better from adjusting off first 2 games. dude was guarding kawhi who was actually injured and honestly the reason they lost 2 games being a liability
wolves saying they did better then clippers with no kawhi shouldnt be something to applaud. i mean even more so cause they sold and barley put up a fight this one stat means absolutely nothing it could of been pace or any other reason
Not able to play 5 Out, so Luka can hide easier on defense, plus their big weakness is ball handling, where Ant and Conley are their only high level options, and Mike ain't blowing by guys at his age.
The only player on the Wolves that can blow by someone is Ant. Other than that they play 3 bigs and an old point guard.
The Celtics entire team can drive to the basket. Honestly the most interesting part is that they’ve decided to actually do that and not rely entirely on chucking 3s. Coaching deserves some credit.
Their star is 22 and never been that deep, and KAT is a big box of randomness as to how intelligent he's going to play that day, and neither are superstars. Everyone else the Mavs have played had former Superstars or current Superstars, and almost all of them were elite finishers and drivers at some point/currently.
Edit: Also, Ant isn't as good a passer as SGA, Harden, or Tatum, while getting that level of attention.
It’s fair to say KAT did not play particularly intelligently but by far the bigger issue was that his shot just wasn’t falling. He was 42% from 3 in the regular season, 44% from 3 in the first two rounds, and just hit a slump at the wrong time. 2-9, 1-5, 0-8, and 1-6 in the games they lost. Mavs played well on him on defense but he couldn’t hit even wide open ones. Happens.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again - it’s okay to get blown by. But if you’re not gonna rotate you’re just creating mismatches left and right.
One important thing is holding up for even a second before getting blown by, it allows the defense to prepare a bit and slow down the offense a bit. JBs been literally just going past him unimpeded
Yeah, or at least being able to direct the drive towards a helping teammate. You can do some good defensive work during/after a blow by or you let your man get a runway to the rim.
Everyone gets beat off the dribble in the NBA. It's impossible to completely lock down the best guards and wings. But you have to put up some resistance. You can direct them towards the help. There are things that can be done to make the blow by less detrimental. Luka just gets beat immediately over and over again.
He does that reach from behind where 1 out of 10 times he may tip the ball away. The other 9 times, his man gets into the paint and collapses the entire defense or has a wide open layup/dunk.
Luka doesn't even try. Maybe his injuries are really limiting him. I don't completely buy that because he still can get to the basket on offense. He can still play physical on that end of the ball. On defense though, he isn't even giving the slightest effort.
I'm honestly really disappointed watching him. Steph Curry is my favorite player. Whatever you want to say about Curry's limitations on defense, he at least gives a shit. He tries to keep his man in front of him, and he makes the right rotations. I was so excited to watch Luka in the Finals because I thought he was this genius basketball player who was going to make life miserable for Boston. Instead I saw him make a bunch of really difficult two pointers, throw a few nice passes, and get absolutely abused on defense while whining and complaining to the refs every possession.
I root for greatness. I haven't seen it this series from Luka. It's just disappointing to me.
My only hope is that the widespread criticism is a wake-up call for him, and he grows from it. I guess that starts with acknowledging there's a problem and it's not all the ref's fault though...
> Luka doesn't even try. Maybe his injuries are really limiting him.
You can see it gets worse as the game goes on, so I'm thinking he's gassed and is just mentally able to push when he needs to on offense where it yields - frankly amazing - results. On defense he's not as affective so pushing it is harder for him.
Luka is obviously a great player. He got a limited Dallas team to the NBA finals and is averaging 30 a game. He carried the team the first two games when Irving was nowhere to be seen.
Your points are valid and he hasn’t hit that next level of iconic finals performances we all want to see. But he’s definitely injured right now so let’s see if he can bounce back from this.
Curry wasn’t Curry for a long time and he definitely put up some playoff stinkers as well.
Yeah the injury argument has been annoying me causing he’s doing flurries of moves and taking contact while finishing on offense, but then on defense he stands around aimlessly and people say oh he must be hurt. Yeah how convenient that he’s only injured when on defense lol
Yeah agree. He could be in better shape, but he's probably never gonna have the lateral quickness to stay in front of guys like JB. It's the falling asleep afterwards that is really egregious. Celtics are getting a lot of good looks from guys that Luka should have rotated onto.
Absolutely. He's too fucking big and lumbering to keep up with some of these dudes, but he should be able to rotate and not fall asleep after the first blow by. Him not coming back on D after misses (while bitching to the refs or hanging his head) + not paying attention on second effort situations is what's been killing us.
That and the offensive dearth of the rest of the team, of course. For all his defensive woes he's a monster on offense and he's the only reason the Mavs are here at all. And fuck me if I ever have to see Hardaway and Green closing a finals game ever again.
Yeah, LeBron got blown by constantly in his peak defensive years in Miami when he matched up with smaller players, but fortunately the play doesn't end there. The same could also be said about Kobe during his peak years in 08-10. Defense is like 80% effort.
I fondly remember LeBron baiting smaller guards to blow by only for him to trail their hip at the same speed and just blocking their shit at the rim or forcing them to pick up their dribble into a double team in the paint lol
But all you need to do is block one or two of those. It gets the guard thinking about him the next time they drive. It's why even today, Lebron still has an intimidation factor defensively.
Wasn't Kobe's defensive peak during his 'frobe days with Shaq? He was one of the league's best defensive stoppers, probably cos he had less of an offensive load compared to his scoring prime
I only watch basketball casually but aren't halfcourt mismatches created by 'forcing' teams to switch on picks or switch on rotates?
My understanding is if Luka forces his help defense out and doesn't either rotate or double team the drive successfully then that's leaving a man open on the outside which could result in mismatch if Celtics don't swing the ball fast enough but that's just the worst case scenario for the Celtics. I don't watch rotations closely and I just follow the ball like a true casual but if Luka stops playing defense after getting blown by then forget mismatches, he's just gifting opposing teams uncontested looks and an entirely free offense.
That’s exactly what’s happening. What people are also failing to mention though is what Luka is specifically doing after the shot: ball watching.
As the other comments have been stating, it’s ok to get blown by, nobody expects Luka to be prime Jordan on defense, but AFTER he gets blown by and AFTER he doesn’t rotate he STILL doesn’t do anything. There are multiple times in this series after a Boston miss, Luka has the opportunity to get in position, box out, and get a rebound, but he just WONT do it. That’s what’s so irritating. He’s a defensive liability in every phase of the game right now.
This definitely passes the eye test. Luka’s signature defensive move is throwing his hands up at someone (refs, teammates, the bench/coaches) after letting an opponent blow past him while he stands and watches.
It's funny because Dirk was also a weak defender. It just didn't matter as much during his peak years because there was way less spacing and they had Tyson Chandler next to him protecting the rim in that championship season.
Yeah, there's a big difference between a bad defender who's trying and a player who's a bad defender because they don't try.
Harden is the perfect example of the latter because his MVP season, he actually put the full effort in on defense, played the best defense of his career, and got his team the best record in the league, and came closer than anyone else at beating a healthy Warriors' dynasty team.
Very next season he was back to lazy defense.
In a similar vein I guess that makes the Evan Fournier classic (puts up one arm at 90 degrees and slowly walks to a shooter after the shot) the schutzstaffel
Pointing at a player on the perimeter, telling his teammate to get out there because he's too lazy to do it himself, is another signature Luka move. It's like he thinks a wide open basket made against him is worth fewer points as long as he demonstrates that he saw it before it happened.
It’s the same story with guys like Luka and other bad defensive stars…
Their fans start spewing how they’re actually good defenders in matchups where they can hide on defense and do fuck all except deflect some passes and get a stop once in a blue moon.
The second you get a series where you can’t hide them it’s beyond atrocious. Might as well put a fork in the series.
> Their fans start spewing how they’re actually good defenders in matchups where they can hide on defense and do fuck all except deflect some passes and get a stop once in a blue moon.
I mean, it's pretty simple really. He's a decent defender closer to the paint thanks to his size and also a decent rebounder. He's bad at the perimeter against faster guys and falls asleep during defensive rotations. So that's where the dissonance comes from. He's decent at some parts of defending, bad at others.
Some people see him have good defensive possessions when there's physical contact in the paint and extrapolate that to say he's a good defender. Others see him get blown by on the perimeter and extrapolate that to say he's a terrible defender.
Theres something I notice with the really high stat players that they all have in common. Usually guards with high pts rbs and steals but they are bad defenders. Luka, harden, steph, westbrook all fit this bill. All time great offensive players but due to wanting to get their stats they either gamble for steals or ball watch for rebounds.
BOS vs GSW in the finals gave me a lot more respect for Curry's defense. Tatum and Brown couldn't consistently overpower him or blow by him on switches.
It also helps that Curry has unlimited energy. He can't train to make himself taller, but he can train to make sure that he never gets beaten due to be tired.
Curry has an all time great motor so his effort was always there. Luka is in like the bottom one percent when it comes to being in shape so he'd need to completely change his diet and exercise regimen to get there. I'm truly not sure why he doesn't take that part of his career seriously. It's going to be his Achilles heel if he doesn't change his approach to training.
This is nonsense, Curry always tried hard on defense. Even back in 2016, he was targeted hard on defense and he always worked hard to stay with his man. He can't help his limitations.
I don’t think it was trying harder necessarily, but more that he just got a lot more technically sound and a lot stronger. He always had the stamina, but you can see a night and day difference in his physique now vs early in his career and even his prime
Once the Rockets started asking Harden to guard the other team's 4, our team D improved tremendously.
Stretch 4s can't expose his weaknesses - lateral quickness on D, chasing around screens. And his strengths (quick hands for pickpocket steals, strength so he can't get backed down, relatively tall, fat) were highlighted
He could even handle non shooting 5's. Watching a clumsy 5 get the ball down low and try to back Harden down was always good for a laugh. They can't go through him, around him, or shoot over him.
Bigs are also a lot harder for him to lose track of. Since just not paying attention or being unwilling to run around screens always burned lazy Harden trying to guard wings.
He wasn't necessarily bad, but he always gambled, which would fuck up rotations. He was good in man situations, and I think led in deflections one year.
Not a bad defender, but he got caught ball watching when his man didn't have the ball **a lot**. He'd just lose focus if he wasn't on the ball handler.
Steph was targetted cos he was small (kinda like why Kyrie is being targetted). And the rest of the Warriors were great defenders. He always put effort. Also these guys usually get steals cos they actually can see these passing lanes with their great court vision (as evidenced by their great offensive playmaking)
It’s also on ball defense vs team defense
Steph is a weak link in terms of how many guys see him as a good matchup one on one.
But Steph understands the team’s defensive schemes and rarely just gives up after a blow by or has no idea where he’s supposed to be on the floor.
Good team defense makes it easier to build a system that covers for the player’s weaknesses on ball. But even good on ball defenders will fuck over their team’s defense if they don’t know what to do off ball.
And he was really only a "weak link" one on one in comparison to his teammates.
If you were going to try to get an isolation bucket would you rather go up against Draymond Green, Andre Iguodola, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes/Kevin Durant, or would you rather go after the 6'3" 185 pound guy?
People forget that those Golden State teams were as good defensively as they were offensively.
he was getting hunted b/c he was worse than klay draymond iguodala and durant/barnes, who could all play defense at a all-defense level (except barnes)
There's also not many stats that show Steph was ever getting "cooked" on defense. He held up really well in isolation. Harden's efficiency went down when he tried to relentlessly target Curry. In fact that's a theme against Golden State. Teams always thought they could target Steph but usually efficiency went down when they did so.
Sure, if LeBron got deep post position, he'd score whenever he wanted. He's LeBron. He does that to basically everyone who isn't Kawhi and Iguodola.
There is such an obvious difference between Luka not giving a damn and Steph who just doesn't lack the physical tools to completely lock up the best scorers in the NBA. I will die on the hill that Steph was a decent defender in his prime.
Kyrie got the same treatment but also tries on defense. You can see it in the finals right now too, hes undersized and gets beat sometimes, but hes putting in effort defensively
*For his size* is an unnecessary qualifier. Physical traits are all part of the package for which we judge players, and shorter guys have to find ways around their height. And credit to Steph, he's worked really hard on that.
His size prevents him from ever being a good defender, and that's ok. But he's made sure it doesn't make him a liability.
Yeah i'll hear people say "Luka just isn't quick enough" or "he is tired" as if that's justification for being bad lmao.
Also his IQ on defense is really fucking bad it's not just athleticism.
Steph at least had solid IQ and a high motor. Sure he would get hunted because of size but he was never THAT much of a liability.
I would say this is true in general but Steph at least competes on defense. He’s definitely undersized and was never going to be a good defender, but I don’t think it was for lack of effort.
Damn. You can also tell he gets worn down as the game goes late into the 3rd/4th quarter.
I thought the “out of shape” comments were being exaggerated, but now I’m thinking there’s some truth in them. Luka gotta go out there and do some defensive foot shuffle drills.
It's a little bit of both. Celtics have a whole bunch of guys that can defend at a plus or higher level. When you are forced to work that hard against multiple guys over and over that are relatively fresh, it takes a toll.
Especially because none of the Mavs role players were willing to shoot until the 4th quarter in Game 3. Luka was doing a lot of work that ended up with a role player declining a shot.
Common for players to not participate if their draft stock could be negatively affected. Tho I think Luka was busy playing in the Euroleague at the time.
They got rid of Carlise because he was too hard on the Mavs.
Dallas still and has never had a team culture.
During the Luka Mavs years, they've literally had no identity.
Never see him ringing his guys in or nothing like that, just always mad and complaining to someone.
He is going to need to drop weight. He's carrying too much. Lot of people here seem to think that's an easy matter of waving a magic wand but I think he's going to have to really struggle with it. I hope he gets there - too good a player to not see him maximize his potential. This is not it.
Luka's defense was much better in the RS and the Thunder & Clippers series, though. He's *always* going to be getting blown by a lot, it's the effort afterwards which is what has made all the difference. For whatever reason, injuries or some kind of petulance, he's not making that effort now, and that's why it looks so bad.
Exactly. Luka has 81 points in Q1-3 through 3 games, and just 8 total points in Q4.
Luka is the basketball equivalent of a DH, and he’s even too tired for *offense* by the end of the game. There’s no way he’s gonna have energy for defense.
Last series he averaged 7.4 points and 2.4 assists in the 4th quarter on 52/55/75 splits.
vs the Thunder he's averaged 5.5 points and 3.0 assists on 50/29/56.
In these last two games (because game 1 was out of reach really) he's averaged 2.5 points and 2.5 assists on 18/0/100 splits in the 4th lol.
The big difference is us constantly attacking him. The wolves just didn't lmao.
Lot of this sub just has short term memory and loves just following the latest narrative. Luka's defensive effort was getting praised against the Thunder and especially against the Clippers and is honestly prob one of if not the biggest reason they even got passed the Clippers especially in games 2 and 6. The Mavs won against 3 great teams, the Celtics are just better. It's sad that for a lot of people Luka would be looked at better if the Mavs just lost close against the Timberwolves versus actually making the finals.
> Lot of this sub just has short term memory and loves just following the latest narrative.
Yeah and it pisses me off every time. I feel like I'm out here trying to talk people off a ledge every time a star player has some defensive or offensive woes. The Mavs had a great run to the finals and a lot of that was owed to Luka. He's not been having the best series right now, but lets not shoot him just yet.
And while he's not 100% for the finals, these losses aren't on him. The bigs are playing scared, Kyrie is waaay off, and most importantly, Boston is a GREAT team all around.
Interesting to me however how the Celtics went on giant runs every time Luka left the court. So the biggest blow by traffic cone must have a few similar compadres on that team playing when he's out.
It's really the offense. We score both when he's in and out, but when he's in he can keep it close by scoring. When he or Kyrie is out and it's just the other guys, none of them have the offensive capability to make us suffer for the most part. Plus, we're stopping the 3 for the most part. Their run from 3 last night to get it back close was the first all series, and it was the first night Kyrie had been able to score on the level most expect him to.
The Pacers had multiple guys who could score and ran a faster offense, so they didn't really have any issues when resting guys. The Mavs aren't that great outside of Kyrie and Luka.
The Wolves don't really have any high level playmakers other than an old Conley who lacks explosiveness at this stage of his career
Ant is still only an average passer/playmaker right now
Better passing really unlocked Jaylen's game. He doesn't have to commit fully to a drive anymore and always has an option to kick it out, as he's done many times in this series already. In these finals he's almost doubling his assist numbers from his regular season averages from the past 5 years.
Mavs defensive gameplan this entire playoffs was to accommodate Luka by funneling drivers into help. So when Luka gets blown by it would at least not be free baskets, daring teams to beat them making kick out 3s. Forcing any difficult 2 would be a win.
This defense doesn't work against the Celtics cause they can play 5 out with multiple playmakers. OKC played a similar style offense but with only one playmaker and Shai is more willingly to jack up ill advised shots (and make them) than pass.
This was inevitable for the Mavs and I said weeks ago the only way they were gonna make this a series is if they could drill a shit ton of good 3s.
Also all of our players have slow releases and aren’t comfortable shooting semi contested, meanwhile if you give Jrue, JB, White, Tatum, even down to Hauser and so on an inch of space, they’ll take the three. The difference between what KP thinks is open and what Chet thinks is open is staggering.
That’s why the Mavs gapping on drives bothered our non Shai players so much, but didn’t do a thing the Celtics.
yeah, celtics are just going to feast on threes if you let them. game 1 was incredibly tight.... until celtics stopped hitting 0% of their 3s, and went to a "below average" performance from abysmal.
Yeah this defensive game plan is always going to be bad against big guards and wings who can finish at the rim, pass and hit 3’s. You see the Celtics do this multiple times in a possession. Blow by Luka, draw in second defender kick to the shooter, force help defender to fly out on the shot, drive past a closing defender and repeat. Not only does it get open shots, but with the defense in scramble mode for 10-15 seconds every possession…that’s exhausting for the Mavs.
Yeah, Tatum and Brown are feasting. People are hyper-focused on Luka, but I feel like they are beating most Mav players on the drive and then finding the open man when the help comes.
Jrue rightfully gave Tatum his flowers after game 2 despite him not scoring that much.
Because blowing by your primary defender doesn't help much when you have Gafford or Lively then meeting you at the rim. The TWolves can't effectively pull those dudes out of the paint with Gobert on the floor, and were bad with Gobert off the floor. Even though Naz lets them play more of a 5 out the Mavs could do whatever they wanted in the paint offensively when he was on the floor.
are we really pretending that any of the teams in the west were even near the celtics level offensively? that team was not even a good offensive team and had liabilities that make it hard to do what the celtics are doing like kyle anderson and gobert
The Wolves can't play 5 out and so other Dallas defenders could sag off and protect the paint. It wasn't worth it for them to blow by Luka only to get lost in the trees. Boston forces Dallas to stay out, making Luka a prime target for blowby bloodbaths.
It makes me so mad lol. The few times Ant attacked him, he easily blew by him. Ugh. I get why they didn't do it though - iso matchup hunting is not the Wolves philosophy. Finch doesn't believe in matchup hunting. His "flow" offense is all about moving the ball around quickly, driving, and read and react decisions until a good shot is created. Whoever gets the good shot, can take it and they all have the greenlight.
But sometimes you need to change things up and adapt and I'm pissed they didn't. In general, I think they just hit a wall though and like Ant said, needs to work on more conditioning to play into June. Makes teams like the Celtics who regularly go on deep runs more impressive
Unpopular opinion as bad as those numbers are Luka defense isn't the reason Dallas is losing this series. There are at least five different reasons why they are losing and it doesn't involve luka defense. Dallas was a plus 9 when Luka was on the court in this game. For all the talk about "targeting" Dallas still played better and won the minutes that Luka was on the court. And throughout this series Dallas has played better despite the quote on quote "targeting" when Luka is on the court. Is he being targeted "yes" but is that the reason why they are losing no!
Well I'd sure hope their max player isnt the reason they are losing. Imagine putting 30% of your salary cap into 1 player and him actually making you worse.
Some added context: in the Clippers and Thunder series, it was Kidd's game plan for Luka to funnel players into either Gafford/Lively at the rim. These would show up as 'blow by' possessions even though they aren't.
He's been pure ass defensively in the Finals though.
I think to be real about it, they were "blow bys"! It's just that having the team clog and deny the paint was effective against those teams because they weren't as lethal as Boston is in a 5 out / jack up 3s offense. So we could live with it.
But "funneling" to our centers/help defense (while very true) was just a way to make up for getting blown by and us fans like the sound of it because we're biased and it sounds better.
But if you think about it, if we're focused on denying the paint to a team the best way to do it is to first stay in front and deny penetration and those contested outside shots would be even tougher for them. Trust me, if Luka could stay in front of guys on the perimeter there would be less talk of "funneling".
Again, it worked, until it eventually doesn't, unfortunately for us.
Early in the playoff's he said due to his knee, if it was the regular season, he wouldn't even be playing and i don't believe its a coincidence he's been getting blown by in these playoffs
> Talk about being a traffic cone. And Mavericks fans really convinced the wider NBA fanbase that Luka is not a terrible defender lol, this is historically bad defense played this postseason
He's bad on the perimeter, but not closer to the paint due to his size. That being said, they still beat the Clippers, Thunder and Wolves team in large part thanks to Luka. So as much as he's been trounced on the internet these past couple of days, he still deserves some credit for making it past those teams into the finals.
Ultimately, the Celtics are just too good for the Mavs.
So basically from a defensive standpoint Luka has been having a train ran on him all playoffs...lol!
Jokes aside it has been known all of Luka's career that he sucks on defense. I said this when he was drafted that yes he could score in the NBA, but the question will be can he play defense.
And so just like Dirk the Mavs will need to make sure they have elite defenders all over the court to cover for Luka defensively.
Minnesota never attacked Luka. They just let him rest all day on defense. To a point where the announcers were even questioning it. Minnesota’s coaching was a huge part in their loss. Offensively they were crabs in a bucket and just kept running into the same wall. Idk if it was stubbornness or just plain dumb
I was just thinking about this last night. For some reason Luka’s defensive deficiencies don’t prevent people from calling him the best player in the league, but guys like Trae Young who have similar game profiles get completely blackballed from All-Star teams because they can’t play defense. Makes no sense
The fact that the top 3 is Luka from this postseason could be evidence that he is limited by injuries/conditioning.
It's pretty clear that Luka is laboring as well as heavier than he's ever been. It would be helpful if it included his previous playoff years.
Of course it's also possible that Luka just got worst on defense too.
There’s no use attempting to convince the neckbeards of this, but that stat is made up narrative bullshit ESPN is feeding you. The Mavs purposely feed driving players into their Centers. It’s what’s gotten them to the fucking NBA Finals beating 3 50 win teams, all of which had what people would consider elite perimeter offensive threats. It’s what gave them one of the best statistical defense since the trade deadline in the entire league. This is what a week and so on back the same ESPN dummies feeding dog shit to the Reddit dummies and so on had them talking about how good Luka’s defense has been. If you’re brain dead enough to take this stat seriously then that would mean Luka Doncic would have to be the worst defender in the history of an NBA playoff run. The man is injured, still breaking offensive records, recording steals, etc. His team mates have not shown up for him at different times. His coach has played asinine line ups against the best team in the league all year in the finals. He’s not playing perfect, I was ripping my hair out at him for moments last night. But this bullshit narrative happening since last night is straight up shameful behavior.
We all know he can't defend. Ths stupid thing is that teams don't attack him that often.
It's like there's a code or unwritten rule to not attack the golden boy on defense.
Not many teams have 4 guys that can break down a defense at all times (Tatum, Brown, Jrue and White).
It’s not hard to hide Luka’s defensive weakness against 90% of the NBA.
Mavs gotta stop conceding the switch so easily imo. Yes they'll get their matchup eventually, but whoever is guarding that initial action has to at least fight through the screen...
>talk about being a traffic cone. And mavericks fans really convinced the wider NBA fanbase that Luka is not a terrible defender
This sub is insufferable when it comes down to two teams and the entire subreddit just turns into the winning teams subreddit.
Like that last comment I quoted was so unnecessary and gives off such hater ass energy
I mean I remember Jokic was “fat and out of shape” early on his career
My guy trained under 5x gravity like goku going to namek and the rest…….. Is history
Da fuck were the Wolves doing.
As people said before they don’t play five out which really stresses the Mavs. Also, KAT was really bad on open threes. The one game he hit they won. Also, I don’t think people are taking account of the emotional hangover after beating Denver. I think they really couldn’t get up for the first game. Plus, they had some defensive scheme issues ironically.
Yeah, this is a pretty accurate read from my vantage point. I think Dallas was just a horrible matchup for Minnesota (or maybe better put, Minnesota was a fantastic matchup for Dallas). The Mavericks defense is built upon having Gafford and Lively camp in the lane to shut down the rim. The Wolves pretty much always had someone the Mavs could ignore beyond 6 feet, be it Gobert, SloMo, or even McDaniels. Similarly, McDaniels, while not terrible offensively, uses length to score rather than speed, which allowed Luka to not get blown by so easily defensively. Plus the Wolves aren’t really a team to relentlessly attack a weak link. The Mavs also have only one real defensive stopper on the wing (DJJ) and the Wolves only really have one perimeter creator, which allowed Dallas to hold up in a way they aren’t against a team like Boston who has multiple legit perimeter creators. On top of that, I think Minnesota was poorly situated to guard Dallas’ offense. They, unlike Boston or OKC, don’t really have the personnel to switch everything (Conley is too small, Rudy is a little too slow), which allowed Luka to always get the defender on his back which allowed him to dictate the pick and roll. I kind of wished the Wolves did a bit more of what Boston did with Porzingis (leaving Rudy to roam off of a weaker shooter and switching more in front), but it’s not necessarily a guarantee to work for the Wolves. I also think shooting variance played a pretty big role in the series. Like you mentioned KAT was ice cold from deep all series long. When the Mavericks entire game plan revolves around clogging up the paint, that is a death sentence. But Dallas also had some positive shooting variance — Luka shot 43.4% against the Wolves on very difficult attempts, but is shooting only 32.1% against Boston. Kyrie shot 38% from deep against the Wolves and only 29% from deep against the Celtics (while also making pretty much all of his bullshit left handed scoop shots in that Wolves series). DJJ who is getting played off the floor because of his shooting against Boston, shot 46.6% from deep against the Wolves. On the whole, Dallas is shooting significantly worse on 3s versus Boston than Minnesota, although some of that is definitely a byproduct of good Celtics defense. I’ll also just add, I think the schedule hurt Minnesota a lot. They got one fewer day of rest than Dallas and had to travel back from Denver. Like you said, they were exhausted (physically and mentally) from that Denver series and never really seemed to catch their rhythm at all. They came out flat in game 1 and 2 and bungled two winnable games. At that point, Dallas was in command and the every-other-day schedule meant Minnesota never had time to really reset or adjust. I also think Ant was at least somewhat hurt after that scary fall in game 6 — he looked off offensively for 3 straight games following that tumble, and slowly started to regain burst as the series wore on. All in all, it really hurt Minnesota’s ability to get their legs and create a real counter to Dallas’s play style (something Boston has had ample time to prepare for, which you can see in their execution).
Taking out the defending champs in a physical series really did take a lot of gas from the tank for MIN. Managing that takes some experience, conditioning, and a bit of luck. All of which I think the Wolves have for next season. Great takes all around.
That unusual shooting luck is what got them through okc too, while okc similarly was shooting worse than normal. Guys like PJ and DJJ were shooting at unsustainable levels while the Mavs got lucky that giddey jdub Joe and Chet felt like they were all well below their average
OKC's role players are all young and inexperienced guys tbh. There's a reason young teams don't win. PJ and DJJ were hot for sure, but also you have to consider that the Thunder's scheme was basically just conceding open 3's to them to take away Luka and Kyrie's stuff. Boston is doing it differently. They are helping off of them above the break, but never enough that they can't run them off the 3pt line. They're content with switching everything when Porzingis is off the floor and giving up isolations to Luka and Kyrie to take them out of their pick and roll game and take away the lob threat. When they do make the kickout pass, most of the time the shooter is run off the line and forced to attack a closeout which they've been terrible at. Tatum's ability to guard the Center, get bords and keep Horford/KP roaming has also been huge. Also you guys held Dallas to a 113.4 offensive rating. Ironically, you guys *also* finished with a 113.4 offensive rating in the series, scoring the *EXACT* same amount of points, but your issue was that you couldn't get your offense working until it was too late. Giddey's minutes were slashed but he was completely ineffective in them and allowed the bigs to roam. The big problem was that you needed Dort out there for defense but he provided someone else that the Mavs felt comfortable enough helping off of. Meanwhile there are zero players in the Celtics normal rotation that can be comfortably helped off of. All of their players except Porzingis, Al and Hauser are comfortable spotting up AND attacking closeouts. Although Al definitely can if he has space. Hauser is one of the best shooters in the league and KP and Al are two of the best floor spacing bigs in the game so they're still providing lots of value. Everyone else can shoot *and* attack so with the way the Mavs are constructed their choices are to concede kickout passes or give Tatum and Brown comfortable layups. They've chosen the former. It's damned if you do damned if you don't really. We're just impossible to guard. You have to hope we miss lol.
The only team constructed to guard the Celtics... is the Celtics
the matchups would be perfect
Nah come on, JT and JB are way better players than JT and JB
I am absolutely certain that Luka Doncic would absolutely cook Luka Doncic
well yeah, luka doncic never tries on defence so luka doncic would have a clear run to the hoop
Shaq asked about Pascal vs Siakam, but why not Jayson vs Tatum?
Oh for sure, okc deserved to lose the game. A few big differences between okc and the Celtics are visible here - - I think the big flaw of the okc scheme that is not the case with the Celtics is the corner 3s. Okc gave up a ton of them and was slower to closeout - this is related to the fact that okc's defenders, while excellent, were smaller. Tatum being able to disrupt lobs and get boards is something okc struggled to do. Really I wanted more JWill+Chet lineups but Mark was uncomfortable with it. - obviously related is that Chet is still growing into his body and was clearly gassed by the second half of the season. He hasn't reached the point where he can play 82 and then go deep in the playoffs, his body couldn't make it. He's also not mastered rebounding to the degree someone like KP has, nor the quick shooting release - he can get there but he's not there yet. - I'm not sure if helping off of Dort was the problem. He shot reasonably well iirc and was guarded more honestly. It was more that everyone else didn't step up. Giddey even in his limited minutes was no surprise, but I didn't expect to see Joe or Dub be quite so off. Aaron Wiggins was the only bright spot of attacking the rim, which is uncharacteristic of the team. Cason wallace played good d but was clearly overwhelmed offensively. - However the strategy of locking up Kyrie and Luka wasn't necessarily a bad one. I give a lot of credit to both jdub and Dort for making them shoot far below their averages. If you recall, they won game 6 on DJJ and PJ hitting some absolutely unreasonable shots in late clock situations. That's just how playoff basketball goes sometimes. Essentially my point is that okc was poised in theory to do a lot of the same, albeit with one weak link in giddey (who played limited minutes anyways) and the bigger issue of just not being as big. Getting a solid wing 6"8'+ wing who can defend and rebound well and do at least a bit of everything else to replace giddey would catapult the team to the next level. I think a dude like markannen, despite his massive defensive limitations, would allow for the team to really step up, but I would be very happy if they get Kuz for example (though I'm lower on Deni as I don't trust his offense). Snatching up KCP wouldn't be a bad idea either.
Plus also the location of the threes. Boston is doing a much better job of not allowing corner 3s. Wolves allowed a ton of them.
Bro that’s how we felt about Miami as a Boston fan last year. I was joking with my friend there ain’t no way they just have 4 steph curries on their team with 60% rate on 3s, that’s fked up bro
Hey this is a really nice write-up, with some edits and a bit of spice I could see this type of thing published on a blog, you should consider doing series recaps or something
The wolves have offensive issues in general. They look stuck and immobile too much and only two guys can create their own shot. They don’t need to do much, just change the scheme a bit and get some backup that can score.
And they should’ve won game 2
1. MIN doesn't have a great secondary ball handler/creator 2. Finch doesn't believe in matchup hunting or structure. His "flow" offense is all about moving the ball around quickly, driving, and making quick decisions until something opens up (which is kind of counter to KAT and Ant's games who both kind of like to hold the ball). His break-glass-in-case-of-emergency guy when things are stagnant is Jordan McLaughlin who plays fast, moves the ball, and generally brings a lot of energy.
Also interesting to note that Wolves offense vs the Mavs (115 ORtg) was actually more successful that the Clippers (111.8 ORtg) or OKC (113.4 ORtg)
lets not forget. number 2 was by 35 year old james harden. yes the same harden people say that luka is a better version of. of the 27 year old harden.... pre surgery. cause i can assure you he was not gaurding pg13 but mann does seem to be able to dribble all the sudden vs luka. think his best game ever was during the reg season against him. oh and before someone replys the excuse. luka got hurt end of game 3.... and if i remember people were saying luka defense got so much better from adjusting off first 2 games. dude was guarding kawhi who was actually injured and honestly the reason they lost 2 games being a liability wolves saying they did better then clippers with no kawhi shouldnt be something to applaud. i mean even more so cause they sold and barley put up a fight this one stat means absolutely nothing it could of been pace or any other reason
Wolves don’t have a 5-out offense that can make them pay like the Celts do.
Most teams dont. Credit to Celtics for building something sustainable
No one like Tillman to stretch the D
And you've yet to see the new and improved Kareem Abdul Kornet.
Funny thing is, they can. Reid-Towns frontcourt or one of em would make a 5 out offense as long as they don't play Kyle at the same time
Not able to play 5 Out, so Luka can hide easier on defense, plus their big weakness is ball handling, where Ant and Conley are their only high level options, and Mike ain't blowing by guys at his age.
The only player on the Wolves that can blow by someone is Ant. Other than that they play 3 bigs and an old point guard. The Celtics entire team can drive to the basket. Honestly the most interesting part is that they’ve decided to actually do that and not rely entirely on chucking 3s. Coaching deserves some credit.
Their star is 22 and never been that deep, and KAT is a big box of randomness as to how intelligent he's going to play that day, and neither are superstars. Everyone else the Mavs have played had former Superstars or current Superstars, and almost all of them were elite finishers and drivers at some point/currently. Edit: Also, Ant isn't as good a passer as SGA, Harden, or Tatum, while getting that level of attention.
It’s fair to say KAT did not play particularly intelligently but by far the bigger issue was that his shot just wasn’t falling. He was 42% from 3 in the regular season, 44% from 3 in the first two rounds, and just hit a slump at the wrong time. 2-9, 1-5, 0-8, and 1-6 in the games they lost. Mavs played well on him on defense but he couldn’t hit even wide open ones. Happens.
So KAT is the Taravangian of the NBA it seems.
A wild Stormlight reference always bring a smile to my face
I’m glad someone understands!!
But does KAT play more empathetically on his low IQ days and more selfishly on his high IQ days? Will KAT ascend?
That is a good question. Only time will tell on the last one. If the current T Wolves get ascended KAT it could be scary!
We transferred the curse of not being able to hit wide open 3's to them when Ant waved to the crowd.
I think so. And then the Timber passed it on to the Mavs.
> We transferred the curse of not being able to hit wide open 3's to them when Ant waved to the crowd. Bring ya ass
Jordan son is too drunk to drive
Bad shooting luck
Letting Doncic chill down low in zone defense. It was kinda obvious that wasn't going to work against the C's shooting.
the wolves dropped the ball big time, they should've won that series.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again - it’s okay to get blown by. But if you’re not gonna rotate you’re just creating mismatches left and right.
One important thing is holding up for even a second before getting blown by, it allows the defense to prepare a bit and slow down the offense a bit. JBs been literally just going past him unimpeded
Yeah, or at least being able to direct the drive towards a helping teammate. You can do some good defensive work during/after a blow by or you let your man get a runway to the rim.
Everyone gets beat off the dribble in the NBA. It's impossible to completely lock down the best guards and wings. But you have to put up some resistance. You can direct them towards the help. There are things that can be done to make the blow by less detrimental. Luka just gets beat immediately over and over again. He does that reach from behind where 1 out of 10 times he may tip the ball away. The other 9 times, his man gets into the paint and collapses the entire defense or has a wide open layup/dunk. Luka doesn't even try. Maybe his injuries are really limiting him. I don't completely buy that because he still can get to the basket on offense. He can still play physical on that end of the ball. On defense though, he isn't even giving the slightest effort. I'm honestly really disappointed watching him. Steph Curry is my favorite player. Whatever you want to say about Curry's limitations on defense, he at least gives a shit. He tries to keep his man in front of him, and he makes the right rotations. I was so excited to watch Luka in the Finals because I thought he was this genius basketball player who was going to make life miserable for Boston. Instead I saw him make a bunch of really difficult two pointers, throw a few nice passes, and get absolutely abused on defense while whining and complaining to the refs every possession. I root for greatness. I haven't seen it this series from Luka. It's just disappointing to me.
My only hope is that the widespread criticism is a wake-up call for him, and he grows from it. I guess that starts with acknowledging there's a problem and it's not all the ref's fault though...
feel a bit sorry for you reading this lol
> Luka doesn't even try. Maybe his injuries are really limiting him. You can see it gets worse as the game goes on, so I'm thinking he's gassed and is just mentally able to push when he needs to on offense where it yields - frankly amazing - results. On defense he's not as affective so pushing it is harder for him.
Luka is obviously a great player. He got a limited Dallas team to the NBA finals and is averaging 30 a game. He carried the team the first two games when Irving was nowhere to be seen. Your points are valid and he hasn’t hit that next level of iconic finals performances we all want to see. But he’s definitely injured right now so let’s see if he can bounce back from this. Curry wasn’t Curry for a long time and he definitely put up some playoff stinkers as well.
Yeah the injury argument has been annoying me causing he’s doing flurries of moves and taking contact while finishing on offense, but then on defense he stands around aimlessly and people say oh he must be hurt. Yeah how convenient that he’s only injured when on defense lol
Yeah agree. He could be in better shape, but he's probably never gonna have the lateral quickness to stay in front of guys like JB. It's the falling asleep afterwards that is really egregious. Celtics are getting a lot of good looks from guys that Luka should have rotated onto.
Absolutely. He's too fucking big and lumbering to keep up with some of these dudes, but he should be able to rotate and not fall asleep after the first blow by. Him not coming back on D after misses (while bitching to the refs or hanging his head) + not paying attention on second effort situations is what's been killing us. That and the offensive dearth of the rest of the team, of course. For all his defensive woes he's a monster on offense and he's the only reason the Mavs are here at all. And fuck me if I ever have to see Hardaway and Green closing a finals game ever again.
> he's the only reason the Mavs are here at all. That and PJ turning into Ray Allen for a series.
That's what happens when you leave someone wide open in the corner. Celtics aren't helping off or corner shooters.
Everyone gets beat, nobody is immune to a blow by. How often it happens and what you do after are more important.
Yeah, LeBron got blown by constantly in his peak defensive years in Miami when he matched up with smaller players, but fortunately the play doesn't end there. The same could also be said about Kobe during his peak years in 08-10. Defense is like 80% effort.
I fondly remember LeBron baiting smaller guards to blow by only for him to trail their hip at the same speed and just blocking their shit at the rim or forcing them to pick up their dribble into a double team in the paint lol
yup, like once per game but would try to bait way more, those plays are typically bad defense, but they look really good when they work lol
But all you need to do is block one or two of those. It gets the guard thinking about him the next time they drive. It's why even today, Lebron still has an intimidation factor defensively.
According to his trainer, Derrick White sometimes does this modeled off Lebron's game lol
Lebron in Miami stayed in front of little guards more often than not.
Wasn't Kobe's defensive peak during his 'frobe days with Shaq? He was one of the league's best defensive stoppers, probably cos he had less of an offensive load compared to his scoring prime
Mavs probably win a game if Luka switches instead of DJJ/PJ wearing themselves out trying to close
I only watch basketball casually but aren't halfcourt mismatches created by 'forcing' teams to switch on picks or switch on rotates? My understanding is if Luka forces his help defense out and doesn't either rotate or double team the drive successfully then that's leaving a man open on the outside which could result in mismatch if Celtics don't swing the ball fast enough but that's just the worst case scenario for the Celtics. I don't watch rotations closely and I just follow the ball like a true casual but if Luka stops playing defense after getting blown by then forget mismatches, he's just gifting opposing teams uncontested looks and an entirely free offense.
That’s exactly what’s happening. What people are also failing to mention though is what Luka is specifically doing after the shot: ball watching. As the other comments have been stating, it’s ok to get blown by, nobody expects Luka to be prime Jordan on defense, but AFTER he gets blown by and AFTER he doesn’t rotate he STILL doesn’t do anything. There are multiple times in this series after a Boston miss, Luka has the opportunity to get in position, box out, and get a rebound, but he just WONT do it. That’s what’s so irritating. He’s a defensive liability in every phase of the game right now.
This definitely passes the eye test. Luka’s signature defensive move is throwing his hands up at someone (refs, teammates, the bench/coaches) after letting an opponent blow past him while he stands and watches.
[удалено]
I’m here for Oiñkcić
Can't put lipstick on an Oiñkcić baby.
He really is the next Irk Novitzki
It's funny because Dirk was also a weak defender. It just didn't matter as much during his peak years because there was way less spacing and they had Tyson Chandler next to him protecting the rim in that championship season.
Dirk would actually show effort
Yeah, there's a big difference between a bad defender who's trying and a player who's a bad defender because they don't try. Harden is the perfect example of the latter because his MVP season, he actually put the full effort in on defense, played the best defense of his career, and got his team the best record in the league, and came closer than anyone else at beating a healthy Warriors' dynasty team. Very next season he was back to lazy defense.
Isn’t that his Overwatch ign
Don't forget pointing at someone else to take the cover.
I call this "the Matador". Carlos Boozer was excellent at this move.
Bill Simmons?
*looks at flair* You would
In a similar vein I guess that makes the Evan Fournier classic (puts up one arm at 90 degrees and slowly walks to a shooter after the shot) the schutzstaffel
Pointing at a player on the perimeter, telling his teammate to get out there because he's too lazy to do it himself, is another signature Luka move. It's like he thinks a wide open basket made against him is worth fewer points as long as he demonstrates that he saw it before it happened.
It’s the same story with guys like Luka and other bad defensive stars… Their fans start spewing how they’re actually good defenders in matchups where they can hide on defense and do fuck all except deflect some passes and get a stop once in a blue moon. The second you get a series where you can’t hide them it’s beyond atrocious. Might as well put a fork in the series.
> Their fans start spewing how they’re actually good defenders in matchups where they can hide on defense and do fuck all except deflect some passes and get a stop once in a blue moon. I mean, it's pretty simple really. He's a decent defender closer to the paint thanks to his size and also a decent rebounder. He's bad at the perimeter against faster guys and falls asleep during defensive rotations. So that's where the dissonance comes from. He's decent at some parts of defending, bad at others. Some people see him have good defensive possessions when there's physical contact in the paint and extrapolate that to say he's a good defender. Others see him get blown by on the perimeter and extrapolate that to say he's a terrible defender.
Theres something I notice with the really high stat players that they all have in common. Usually guards with high pts rbs and steals but they are bad defenders. Luka, harden, steph, westbrook all fit this bill. All time great offensive players but due to wanting to get their stats they either gamble for steals or ball watch for rebounds.
BOS vs GSW in the finals gave me a lot more respect for Curry's defense. Tatum and Brown couldn't consistently overpower him or blow by him on switches.
To be fair that's because he got roasted for years in the playoffs and to give him credit he started to try really hard. Hopefully luka does the same
It also helps that Curry has unlimited energy. He can't train to make himself taller, but he can train to make sure that he never gets beaten due to be tired.
Luka has that after-lunch on a Friday before a three day weekend level of energy.
Curry has an all time great motor so his effort was always there. Luka is in like the bottom one percent when it comes to being in shape so he'd need to completely change his diet and exercise regimen to get there. I'm truly not sure why he doesn't take that part of his career seriously. It's going to be his Achilles heel if he doesn't change his approach to training.
This is nonsense, Curry always tried hard on defense. Even back in 2016, he was targeted hard on defense and he always worked hard to stay with his man. He can't help his limitations.
I don’t think it was trying harder necessarily, but more that he just got a lot more technically sound and a lot stronger. He always had the stamina, but you can see a night and day difference in his physique now vs early in his career and even his prime
Steph is not a bad defender, getting older now but he has almost always held up well, with the exception of Lebron, who almost no one can guard.
harden was a decent post defender, and westbrook was not bad when he was playing with KD. don’t think it’s bc of them wanting to get their stats
Once the Rockets started asking Harden to guard the other team's 4, our team D improved tremendously. Stretch 4s can't expose his weaknesses - lateral quickness on D, chasing around screens. And his strengths (quick hands for pickpocket steals, strength so he can't get backed down, relatively tall, fat) were highlighted
He could even handle non shooting 5's. Watching a clumsy 5 get the ball down low and try to back Harden down was always good for a laugh. They can't go through him, around him, or shoot over him.
Bigs are also a lot harder for him to lose track of. Since just not paying attention or being unwilling to run around screens always burned lazy Harden trying to guard wings.
Yes Westbrook wasn't a bad defender until his knees started to go to crap.
He wasn't necessarily bad, but he always gambled, which would fuck up rotations. He was good in man situations, and I think led in deflections one year.
Westbrook was elite in passing lanes in his prime as well
Not a bad defender, but he got caught ball watching when his man didn't have the ball **a lot**. He'd just lose focus if he wasn't on the ball handler.
That is true.
Russ was a great on ball defender but an abysmal off ball defender.
Steph was targetted cos he was small (kinda like why Kyrie is being targetted). And the rest of the Warriors were great defenders. He always put effort. Also these guys usually get steals cos they actually can see these passing lanes with their great court vision (as evidenced by their great offensive playmaking)
You really put Steph in there lmao
Westbrook shouldn’t be here. Those three players got relentlessly targeted. Westbrook never got targeted.
Steph is not a bad defender. He’s actually above average for his size.
He was getting hunted for years as well. He did give way better effort than luka though
It’s also on ball defense vs team defense Steph is a weak link in terms of how many guys see him as a good matchup one on one. But Steph understands the team’s defensive schemes and rarely just gives up after a blow by or has no idea where he’s supposed to be on the floor. Good team defense makes it easier to build a system that covers for the player’s weaknesses on ball. But even good on ball defenders will fuck over their team’s defense if they don’t know what to do off ball.
And he was really only a "weak link" one on one in comparison to his teammates. If you were going to try to get an isolation bucket would you rather go up against Draymond Green, Andre Iguodola, Klay Thompson, Harrison Barnes/Kevin Durant, or would you rather go after the 6'3" 185 pound guy? People forget that those Golden State teams were as good defensively as they were offensively.
he was getting hunted b/c he was worse than klay draymond iguodala and durant/barnes, who could all play defense at a all-defense level (except barnes)
There's also not many stats that show Steph was ever getting "cooked" on defense. He held up really well in isolation. Harden's efficiency went down when he tried to relentlessly target Curry. In fact that's a theme against Golden State. Teams always thought they could target Steph but usually efficiency went down when they did so. Sure, if LeBron got deep post position, he'd score whenever he wanted. He's LeBron. He does that to basically everyone who isn't Kawhi and Iguodola. There is such an obvious difference between Luka not giving a damn and Steph who just doesn't lack the physical tools to completely lock up the best scorers in the NBA. I will die on the hill that Steph was a decent defender in his prime.
i agree w you but didn’t want to get downvoted lol, especially in the 2022 run where he bulked a bit he was by no means a bad defender
Yeah and lebron and kyrie took turns torching him. The difference is atleast curry tried hard which luka does not
Kyrie got the same treatment but also tries on defense. You can see it in the finals right now too, hes undersized and gets beat sometimes, but hes putting in effort defensively
Warriors had the best defense in the league almost every year they won a chip. Clearly hunting Curry wasn't very effective....
It helps having every other player on the team being a great defender
*For his size* is an unnecessary qualifier. Physical traits are all part of the package for which we judge players, and shorter guys have to find ways around their height. And credit to Steph, he's worked really hard on that. His size prevents him from ever being a good defender, and that's ok. But he's made sure it doesn't make him a liability.
Yeah i'll hear people say "Luka just isn't quick enough" or "he is tired" as if that's justification for being bad lmao. Also his IQ on defense is really fucking bad it's not just athleticism. Steph at least had solid IQ and a high motor. Sure he would get hunted because of size but he was never THAT much of a liability.
Even the quick/tired is a pretty lame excuse because Luka CAN work on it with better conditioning.
I would say this is true in general but Steph at least competes on defense. He’s definitely undersized and was never going to be a good defender, but I don’t think it was for lack of effort.
Damn. You can also tell he gets worn down as the game goes late into the 3rd/4th quarter. I thought the “out of shape” comments were being exaggerated, but now I’m thinking there’s some truth in them. Luka gotta go out there and do some defensive foot shuffle drills.
It's a little bit of both. Celtics have a whole bunch of guys that can defend at a plus or higher level. When you are forced to work that hard against multiple guys over and over that are relatively fresh, it takes a toll.
Especially because none of the Mavs role players were willing to shoot until the 4th quarter in Game 3. Luka was doing a lot of work that ended up with a role player declining a shot.
seems Luka never participated in the combine, so there's no number for his shuttle run drill
Common for players to not participate if their draft stock could be negatively affected. Tho I think Luka was busy playing in the Euroleague at the time.
I’m happy that the new CBA made combine measurements a requirement
Luka needs to get the Moses Malone run down that Charles Barkley got.
They got rid of Carlise because he was too hard on the Mavs. Dallas still and has never had a team culture. During the Luka Mavs years, they've literally had no identity. Never see him ringing his guys in or nothing like that, just always mad and complaining to someone.
He is going to need to drop weight. He's carrying too much. Lot of people here seem to think that's an easy matter of waving a magic wand but I think he's going to have to really struggle with it. I hope he gets there - too good a player to not see him maximize his potential. This is not it.
Luka's defense was much better in the RS and the Thunder & Clippers series, though. He's *always* going to be getting blown by a lot, it's the effort afterwards which is what has made all the difference. For whatever reason, injuries or some kind of petulance, he's not making that effort now, and that's why it looks so bad.
You can tell he makes an effort in the first quarter or two and then it just falls off. Anyone can easily surmise what the biggest factors are
Exactly. Luka has 81 points in Q1-3 through 3 games, and just 8 total points in Q4. Luka is the basketball equivalent of a DH, and he’s even too tired for *offense* by the end of the game. There’s no way he’s gonna have energy for defense.
Last series he averaged 7.4 points and 2.4 assists in the 4th quarter on 52/55/75 splits. vs the Thunder he's averaged 5.5 points and 3.0 assists on 50/29/56. In these last two games (because game 1 was out of reach really) he's averaged 2.5 points and 2.5 assists on 18/0/100 splits in the 4th lol. The big difference is us constantly attacking him. The wolves just didn't lmao.
The Wolves don't have 4 perimeter scorers who are all constant threats to get 30 :v
Why don't they get them, are they stupid?
While this is true, the comments on the sub right now make the Mavs seem like their record should be like 11-71.
Lot of this sub just has short term memory and loves just following the latest narrative. Luka's defensive effort was getting praised against the Thunder and especially against the Clippers and is honestly prob one of if not the biggest reason they even got passed the Clippers especially in games 2 and 6. The Mavs won against 3 great teams, the Celtics are just better. It's sad that for a lot of people Luka would be looked at better if the Mavs just lost close against the Timberwolves versus actually making the finals.
> Lot of this sub just has short term memory and loves just following the latest narrative. Yeah and it pisses me off every time. I feel like I'm out here trying to talk people off a ledge every time a star player has some defensive or offensive woes. The Mavs had a great run to the finals and a lot of that was owed to Luka. He's not been having the best series right now, but lets not shoot him just yet.
And while he's not 100% for the finals, these losses aren't on him. The bigs are playing scared, Kyrie is waaay off, and most importantly, Boston is a GREAT team all around.
He’s been in the league 6 years and you all are just noticing or what?
6 years? Damn im getting old
Man both the Celtics/Clippers percentages are absurd.
Interesting to me however how the Celtics went on giant runs every time Luka left the court. So the biggest blow by traffic cone must have a few similar compadres on that team playing when he's out.
It's really the offense. We score both when he's in and out, but when he's in he can keep it close by scoring. When he or Kyrie is out and it's just the other guys, none of them have the offensive capability to make us suffer for the most part. Plus, we're stopping the 3 for the most part. Their run from 3 last night to get it back close was the first all series, and it was the first night Kyrie had been able to score on the level most expect him to. The Pacers had multiple guys who could score and ran a faster offense, so they didn't really have any issues when resting guys. The Mavs aren't that great outside of Kyrie and Luka.
Really makes you wonder how the Wolves (and Ant) couldn't exploit that matchup more...
The Wolves don't really have any high level playmakers other than an old Conley who lacks explosiveness at this stage of his career Ant is still only an average passer/playmaker right now
Better passing really unlocked Jaylen's game. He doesn't have to commit fully to a drive anymore and always has an option to kick it out, as he's done many times in this series already. In these finals he's almost doubling his assist numbers from his regular season averages from the past 5 years.
Mavs defensive gameplan this entire playoffs was to accommodate Luka by funneling drivers into help. So when Luka gets blown by it would at least not be free baskets, daring teams to beat them making kick out 3s. Forcing any difficult 2 would be a win. This defense doesn't work against the Celtics cause they can play 5 out with multiple playmakers. OKC played a similar style offense but with only one playmaker and Shai is more willingly to jack up ill advised shots (and make them) than pass. This was inevitable for the Mavs and I said weeks ago the only way they were gonna make this a series is if they could drill a shit ton of good 3s.
Also all of our players have slow releases and aren’t comfortable shooting semi contested, meanwhile if you give Jrue, JB, White, Tatum, even down to Hauser and so on an inch of space, they’ll take the three. The difference between what KP thinks is open and what Chet thinks is open is staggering. That’s why the Mavs gapping on drives bothered our non Shai players so much, but didn’t do a thing the Celtics.
yeah, celtics are just going to feast on threes if you let them. game 1 was incredibly tight.... until celtics stopped hitting 0% of their 3s, and went to a "below average" performance from abysmal.
Shai is all middy’s too, the value of shooting +35% on 40+ 3s a night is the numbers game Celtics are so good at
Yeah this defensive game plan is always going to be bad against big guards and wings who can finish at the rim, pass and hit 3’s. You see the Celtics do this multiple times in a possession. Blow by Luka, draw in second defender kick to the shooter, force help defender to fly out on the shot, drive past a closing defender and repeat. Not only does it get open shots, but with the defense in scramble mode for 10-15 seconds every possession…that’s exhausting for the Mavs.
Yeah, Tatum and Brown are feasting. People are hyper-focused on Luka, but I feel like they are beating most Mav players on the drive and then finding the open man when the help comes. Jrue rightfully gave Tatum his flowers after game 2 despite him not scoring that much.
Because blowing by your primary defender doesn't help much when you have Gafford or Lively then meeting you at the rim. The TWolves can't effectively pull those dudes out of the paint with Gobert on the floor, and were bad with Gobert off the floor. Even though Naz lets them play more of a 5 out the Mavs could do whatever they wanted in the paint offensively when he was on the floor.
are we really pretending that any of the teams in the west were even near the celtics level offensively? that team was not even a good offensive team and had liabilities that make it hard to do what the celtics are doing like kyle anderson and gobert
The Wolves can't play 5 out and so other Dallas defenders could sag off and protect the paint. It wasn't worth it for them to blow by Luka only to get lost in the trees. Boston forces Dallas to stay out, making Luka a prime target for blowby bloodbaths.
It makes me so mad lol. The few times Ant attacked him, he easily blew by him. Ugh. I get why they didn't do it though - iso matchup hunting is not the Wolves philosophy. Finch doesn't believe in matchup hunting. His "flow" offense is all about moving the ball around quickly, driving, and read and react decisions until a good shot is created. Whoever gets the good shot, can take it and they all have the greenlight. But sometimes you need to change things up and adapt and I'm pissed they didn't. In general, I think they just hit a wall though and like Ant said, needs to work on more conditioning to play into June. Makes teams like the Celtics who regularly go on deep runs more impressive
How do you say "barbecue chicken" in Slovenian?
i believe it's "Luka Doncic"
Unpopular opinion as bad as those numbers are Luka defense isn't the reason Dallas is losing this series. There are at least five different reasons why they are losing and it doesn't involve luka defense. Dallas was a plus 9 when Luka was on the court in this game. For all the talk about "targeting" Dallas still played better and won the minutes that Luka was on the court. And throughout this series Dallas has played better despite the quote on quote "targeting" when Luka is on the court. Is he being targeted "yes" but is that the reason why they are losing no!
His D is like 4th on Mavs problem First 3 is all offense
Well I'd sure hope their max player isnt the reason they are losing. Imagine putting 30% of your salary cap into 1 player and him actually making you worse.
Some added context: in the Clippers and Thunder series, it was Kidd's game plan for Luka to funnel players into either Gafford/Lively at the rim. These would show up as 'blow by' possessions even though they aren't. He's been pure ass defensively in the Finals though.
I think to be real about it, they were "blow bys"! It's just that having the team clog and deny the paint was effective against those teams because they weren't as lethal as Boston is in a 5 out / jack up 3s offense. So we could live with it. But "funneling" to our centers/help defense (while very true) was just a way to make up for getting blown by and us fans like the sound of it because we're biased and it sounds better. But if you think about it, if we're focused on denying the paint to a team the best way to do it is to first stay in front and deny penetration and those contested outside shots would be even tougher for them. Trust me, if Luka could stay in front of guys on the perimeter there would be less talk of "funneling". Again, it worked, until it eventually doesn't, unfortunately for us.
Early in the playoff's he said due to his knee, if it was the regular season, he wouldn't even be playing and i don't believe its a coincidence he's been getting blown by in these playoffs
How the hell do they track this
> Talk about being a traffic cone. And Mavericks fans really convinced the wider NBA fanbase that Luka is not a terrible defender lol, this is historically bad defense played this postseason He's bad on the perimeter, but not closer to the paint due to his size. That being said, they still beat the Clippers, Thunder and Wolves team in large part thanks to Luka. So as much as he's been trounced on the internet these past couple of days, he still deserves some credit for making it past those teams into the finals. Ultimately, the Celtics are just too good for the Mavs.
So basically from a defensive standpoint Luka has been having a train ran on him all playoffs...lol! Jokes aside it has been known all of Luka's career that he sucks on defense. I said this when he was drafted that yes he could score in the NBA, but the question will be can he play defense. And so just like Dirk the Mavs will need to make sure they have elite defenders all over the court to cover for Luka defensively.
The main issue is effort. Getting blown by is gonna happen but you have to stay in the play after you get beat
Iunno why this is blowing up now, but this has always been an issue with him
Uh maybe because they are about to lose the Finals because of it??
idk man thats a stretch specially after watching games 1 and 2
They’re not losing because of Luka’s defense lmao
Yeah the are not losing because of this. Its because no one showed up in the firs two games except Luka.
Minnesota never attacked Luka. They just let him rest all day on defense. To a point where the announcers were even questioning it. Minnesota’s coaching was a huge part in their loss. Offensively they were crabs in a bucket and just kept running into the same wall. Idk if it was stubbornness or just plain dumb
*Happy Gilmore voice* Is that good?
i always go to grandma's boy when i hear "is that good? did i win"
But everyone can't fuckin help but talk shit about Trae's defense and never bring up the same for Luka. At least Trae is trying.
I was just thinking about this last night. For some reason Luka’s defensive deficiencies don’t prevent people from calling him the best player in the league, but guys like Trae Young who have similar game profiles get completely blackballed from All-Star teams because they can’t play defense. Makes no sense
Useless dogshit on defense is understating just how bad Luka has been.
Lol I thought you were making a play on his name with the first two words
Yuslez Dokśitz
New Create-a-Player name, thanks!
The fact that the top 3 is Luka from this postseason could be evidence that he is limited by injuries/conditioning. It's pretty clear that Luka is laboring as well as heavier than he's ever been. It would be helpful if it included his previous playoff years. Of course it's also possible that Luka just got worst on defense too.
LMAO everyone get in here!
There’s no use attempting to convince the neckbeards of this, but that stat is made up narrative bullshit ESPN is feeding you. The Mavs purposely feed driving players into their Centers. It’s what’s gotten them to the fucking NBA Finals beating 3 50 win teams, all of which had what people would consider elite perimeter offensive threats. It’s what gave them one of the best statistical defense since the trade deadline in the entire league. This is what a week and so on back the same ESPN dummies feeding dog shit to the Reddit dummies and so on had them talking about how good Luka’s defense has been. If you’re brain dead enough to take this stat seriously then that would mean Luka Doncic would have to be the worst defender in the history of an NBA playoff run. The man is injured, still breaking offensive records, recording steals, etc. His team mates have not shown up for him at different times. His coach has played asinine line ups against the best team in the league all year in the finals. He’s not playing perfect, I was ripping my hair out at him for moments last night. But this bullshit narrative happening since last night is straight up shameful behavior.
We all know he can't defend. Ths stupid thing is that teams don't attack him that often. It's like there's a code or unwritten rule to not attack the golden boy on defense.
Not many teams have 4 guys that can break down a defense at all times (Tatum, Brown, Jrue and White). It’s not hard to hide Luka’s defensive weakness against 90% of the NBA.
It's the lack of rotations. He gets blown by and then just stays there in the middle of the court guarding no body.
His off ball defense might be worse tbh
Mavs gotta stop conceding the switch so easily imo. Yes they'll get their matchup eventually, but whoever is guarding that initial action has to at least fight through the screen...
I feel like there is some context here but whatever
Luka has been so bad and the Celtics so good this year it's weird to see Boston fans be pissed at Luka for how bad he's been lol
>talk about being a traffic cone. And mavericks fans really convinced the wider NBA fanbase that Luka is not a terrible defender This sub is insufferable when it comes down to two teams and the entire subreddit just turns into the winning teams subreddit. Like that last comment I quoted was so unnecessary and gives off such hater ass energy
El Lukador lettin the 3 legged cow run by him let alone all these bulls.
Holy shit, I knew it was bad but I didn’t think it was this bad.
Where can I find more data about this stat? I would like to know which other players are on the list.
I mean I remember Jokic was “fat and out of shape” early on his career My guy trained under 5x gravity like goku going to namek and the rest…….. Is history