As many Celtics fans predicted, the Celtics would allow Luka to get his while working to limit others. As I wrote
here, the challenge would be in the Celtics' ability to limit the lob, which was such an effective weapon for Dallas these playoffs, especially against MIN.
Where I was wrong was that I thought the Celtics would do this primarily by how they defended the Luka PnR. They did do some pre-switching, primarily when Porzingis was at the 5. But when Horford was there, they primarily just switched, and Horford often came up on the screen and didn't drop as much as, say, Gobert was doing in the last series. Their other strategy was in putting Tatum on the center. Tatum did a great job with this, basically boxing out Lively/Gafford and preventing them from getting close enough for the lob. Tatum was elite on the boards in Game 1 - he led everyone with 11 rebounds and outrebounded Lively+Gafford+Kleber+Powell
combined. Considering how often he was matched up with centers on defense, that was awesome.
If Dallas is intent on getting those lob chances, they could counter that by using, say, PJ as the initial screener on the PnR, and then have PJ roll quickly to an off-ball screen on Tatum. That might get Lively/Gafford free for a lob, though space would be tight.
Tatum needs to fix his turnovers, and his shooting efficiency was bad. Otherwise, he had a really good game. The only starter+KP who allowed fewer points as the primary defender was Horford. He was also the best playmaker on the floor. Not only did he have the most assists tied with Jrue and White, he had the most potential assists. This is significant considering how Dallas was focused mostly on Tatum on defense, often doubling and tripling him if he got into the paint. Tatum made great reads and some great passes.
Luka did get his - 30 points is no joke. But it was also on pretty poor efficiency at 53.2% TS. Luka did not have a single game in the WCF where his TS was that low. Overall these playoffs, Luka's TS is 56.2%; it was 51.5% vs. LAC, 56.6% vs. OKC, and a whopping 62.7% vs. MIN. So the Celtics really did their job in Game 1. Luka got his points but it was on poor efficiency.
Most importantly, they kept him to that poor efficiency even though they played him straight up for the most part. There wasn't much doubling at all. I'm not sure if they blitzed him on even one PnR. Their strategy was to stay home on the other players and make Luka beat them. As a result, Luka only had 1 assist. More importantly, he only had 7 potential assists (his teammates were really bad in Game 1). His averages for potential assists per game in previous rounds were 16.3 vs. LAC, 15 vs. OKC, and 13.6 vs. MIN.
For the Celtics, the only person who I felt had a rough game from their core was White. He missed a few very wide open 3s, and allowed PJ and Luka to bully him at the other end. As for who had the best game on the Celtics, I think a good argument could be made for Brown, KP or even Horford.
Horford was incredible on defense, switching onto Luka and giving him very little. Luka went 1/8 with Horford as primary defender. I don't expect that to be the case every game, at all. But what a game by Big Al.
Meanwhile, JB and KP were both elite as **** at both ends. They were both flying all over the place. JB with the rim protection, plus picking Luka's pocket, and then scoring with high efficiency and bullying his way into the paint on several occasions. KP was incredible as well - shooting a ridiculous percentage from midrange with defenders draped all over him, draining a long 3 in Luka's face, and then just some incredible rim protection at the other end.
This series is far from over, but as a Celtics fan I could not be more encouraged by Game 1. They were able to do pretty much everything they wanted to do, at both ends. It will be interesting to see how Dallas counters, but honestly I think it comes down to the ability of Luka, Kyrie and other non-Doncic players being able to make their shots. PJ+DJJ going 7 for 20 is not going to get it done.
Well damn, this is a long ass post, isn't it. Haha.
