ajones9219 wrote:Bob8 wrote:ajones9219 wrote:
You answered your own question. Because Boston plays 5 out with elite shooters on one end while the Mavs entire defense is built to pack the paint and allow 3's. What you're missing is Boston has both elite perimeter defenders to throw at Luka/Kyrie, and one of the most elite rim protectors in KP to protect the paint/break up the lobs.
Who are those elite shooters?
Elite shooting team were Warriors with prime Steph, Klay and KD. Celtics are shooting worse than Mavs in playoffs and Pacers were not exactly elite perimeter defensive team. OKC was playing 5 out offense too, but was kept alive only by insane midrange shooting by Shai. Celtics might win a game or 2 with hot shooting, but that's far away from dominating series. Mavs with Luka are more than capable of hot shooting nights too. They were 3rd in 3s made in RS.
Kp is good help defender but far from elite rim protector. Don't forget that we have been watching him for few years in Dallas and nobody was upset about him being traded. His total inability to protect the rim was the reason for Mavs playing Boban alongside him in Clippers series. He might be more motivated now, but I doubt that anyone is afraid of him.
KP averages near the same amount of block as Gafford and is top 10 in the league....Along with that, it's a well established fact that KP is one of the very best at deterring shots over the past few years due to his length. There is literally no comparing KP on the Mavs to him now. He went from one of the worst post players in the league to statistically the best since last season. You're being delusional.
Also Boston isn't an elite shooting team? They took and made the most 3s in the league this year and #2 in percentage (while taking 8 more 3's a game vs #1). They are literally the best 3 point shooting team in the league. Also the Pacers have defended the 3 better than the Mavs over the regular season and been basically dead even in the playoffs, with the Mavs playing worse shooting teams. Again you're just being delusional brother. Boston not having had a crazy heater series yet from 3 is bad news if anything for the Mavs because odds say they will go hot at some point for an extended stretch.
Holiday: 42.9%
White: 39.6%
Porzingis: 37.5%
Tatum: 37.6%
Brown: 35.4%
Horford: 41.9%
Hauser: 42.4%
Pritchard: 38.5%
I hope KP plays because he will get cooked by Luka in PnR, and off ball screens. The Mavs already faced a superior version of KP who's a straight up better rim protector in Chet, and the Mavs made him a liability. Also the Thunder have a similarly strong perimeter defense, there was almost nothing between the Thunder and Celtics in defensive metrics during the season apart from the Celtics had more frequent easier eastern conference matchups.
There are only two elite half court offensive initiators in this series, and both play for Dallas. Tatum and Brown are the second and third best players in the series, but neither are remotely in the elite bracket as half court offensive initiators. Boston certainly have 4 good ones, but no one truly elite.
Every round since the OKC series, the opposing teams fans have made noise about how their perimeter defenders have the capacity to slow Luka down in single coverage. Literally the only thing that slows Luka down is his health. If a healthy Kawhi and PG can do absolutely zero to slow down a 21 year old less experienced version of Luka, the quality of your individual defenders doesn't matter. If he's fully healthy, you single cover him and he absolutely cooks you, or you bring aggressive blitzes and double teams and compromise the solidity of your defense. We'll see if I'm proven wrong, but I don't see any scenario where Dallas will ever require sustained aggressive blitzes or doubles against anyone on the Celtics, because they don't have anyone that can manipulate any and every single type of defensive coverage in the half court to an elite level.
Bottom line is a healthy Luka has repeatedly cooked every single type of defensive coverage and playoff teams headlined by a younger and healthy version of Kawhi and PG, of which there is no one on Boston at that level defensively.
The Celtics can certainly win the series via simply shooting the lights out which they are certainly capable of doing. But they aren't getting any easy paint points to supplement their scoring, and they aren't stopping a Luka free of any serious health issues in any type of single coverage no matter who they wanna switch onto him. I don't doubt how good the Celtics offense can be, but lots of people are grossly overrating what Boston's defense is gonna be able to do vs Luka now that he looks fully healthy IMO.
