The match ups favor Celtics heavily because they got two point guard stoppers in White and Holiday.

[JJtheBricklayer]

The matchups do favour the Celtics heavily, but it's on the other end of the floor, Celtics aren't anything special defensively compared to the Wolves or the Thunder.
On paper, Celtics should win because they have historically unstoppable offense that Mavs defense, while good against most matchups, doesn't match up well against.

The Wolves had a better defense. The Celtics did have the second best defense this year. Moreover, their two best defensive players are guards. Luka probably gets guarded by a win, Jaylen Brown or Tatum, both of whom are very very good defenders.

In the regular season Tatum and Brown definitely do kill themselves on defense full time, but for a seven game series after a rest, look for them to work against Luka. Luka is still going to score, but the goal will be contain him as a playmaker.

We'll see, it's not a 1 player task to stop Luka, but team task, and 3 coaches with excellent defensive tools failed to do it, 2 of them even had the fortune of having him injured for the series or part of it, maybe the Celtics are somehow better and smarter, we'll soon find out.

or do what the Cs did, put 1 guy on Luka and just completely shut down the rest of the team.

guess the Cs are better and smarter through 1 game

[durden_tyler]

The versatility (on both ends) is just hard to match. The Celtics did a good job getting these low maintenance players who are just effective in any kind of situation you put them in. This is a masterclass in GMing.

[Devilanche]

Now here is another prediction. This series will not go 7. Celtics will finish it in 4 5 or 6.

Shouldn’t the prophet be more specific and choose one instead of hedging by choosing 3 ?

[SpreeS]

Luka and Kyrie will make them look like incompetent, regardless they are all nba defensive players

Really?

[meatball sub]

Please don't pretend picking the super team to beat the Mavs is an accomplishment.

Celtics stars don't even have to play well to win.

Team is absolutely loaded and there's no competitive dignity here.

this is the new "the celtics haven't played anyone yet." congratulations on creating a new bs excuse.

[Mavrelous]

The Wolves had a better defense. The Celtics did have the second best defense this year. Moreover, their two best defensive players are guards. Luka probably gets guarded by a win, Jaylen Brown or Tatum, both of whom are very very good defenders.

In the regular season Tatum and Brown definitely do kill themselves on defense full time, but for a seven game series after a rest, look for them to work against Luka. Luka is still going to score, but the goal will be contain him as a playmaker.

We'll see, it's not a 1 player task to stop Luka, but team task, and 3 coaches with excellent defensive tools failed to do it, 2 of them even had the fortune of having him injured for the series or part of it, maybe the Celtics are somehow better and smarter, we'll soon find out.

or do what the Cs did, put 1 guy on Luka and just completely shut down the rest of the team.

guess the Cs are better and smarter through 1 game

Luka got his, though he didn't go superman mode, which is needed to beat such mismatch, Kyrie missed wide open shots and was very bad, was it mostly Jrue? Maybe, he did look puzzled and under pressure, but many shots were open, the biggest shot of the game the 3 that would've made it 5 point game was WIDE open, and TO in the same stretch was really unforced, he traveled on a pretty normal play for him.
Game one was lost on offense (from Mavs POV), Celtics had 115 ORTG, 2-3 points higher than what Mavs would hope, but not much higher, Mavs OTOH couldn't score.
For the Mavs to overcome the talent gap and mismatch, I expect both team to score around the 110 PPP, and Mavs out execute in the 4th, Celtics outscored that, and Mavs offense totally broke down when it mattered (last 4 minutes of the 3rd quarter).
Mavs role players except PJ were totally shook, scared to shoot and driving into congested lanes to be blocked/miss.
We'll see how it goes later.

[jayjaysee]

Yeah, Dallas got lost and stopped running an offense really early in the first.

Maybe it’s just being so outmatched and it will happen again. Maybe Luka won’t allow it to. Maybe Kyrie won’t miss open shots. Maybe Kidd will call a timeout between leading, down 10, down 20+.. There were probably 10 plays that Rick would have seen and screamed over. Got a tech, call a time out, sub in more size, something. I know I did from my couch..

Kyrie normally would have pulled everyone together 8-10 minutes into the game and ran the offense without needing a coach, really. Instead we saw whoever gets the ball call their own number.

Don’t think this win was due to White/Jrue. The shots Luka/Kyrie got when they actually had a screen set and actually moved the ball, weren’t tough shots. They just missed and didn’t gather themselves..

When Al Horford can dribble down from the three and dunk on you, it’s going to be a bad night…

Just think Boston is the better team and better coached team.

[GrandTheftRondo]

Please don't pretend picking the super team to beat the Mavs is an accomplishment.

Celtics stars don't even have to play well to win.

Team is absolutely loaded and there's no competitive dignity here.

What?

The goal of NBA teams is to build the best team possible.

WTF are you actually talking about