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Picking a Finals MVP for this series was a real head scratcher because of the variance from game to game of the Top 3 players and factoring their level of defense and the impact of their other activities. I knew Holiday could get overlooked with his defense on Kyrie, but didn't realize the effect reduced scoring in some of the games versus rebounding and assisting could have on Tatum.

An Alternative view:

Pts. + Rebounds + (0.5xAssists) + Steals + (0.5xBlocks) - Missed Field Goals - (0.5xMissed Free Throws) - Turnovers - (0.5xFouls)

5 game Average Against Dallas by The Main Players

+18.4 Jayson Tatum 40.2 minutes
+16.6 Jrue Holiday 37.8 minutes
+16.1 Jaylen Brown 38.6 minutes

+12.7 Derrick White 36.8 minutes
+12.35 Kristaps Porzingis 20 minutes (only played in 3 games)
+12.0 Al Horford 30 minutes
+8.4 Sam Hauser 15.6 minutes WOW

+0.4 Payton Pritchard 12.4 minutes

Of course it was. After all the crap JB has taken, I’m glad he got it.

Tatum will get the rest.

There was certainly a great contribution by all of them to get the wins, but watching the games, especially the close parts, Brown stepped in and delivered more in those tight moments than the others. Tatum and Holliday certainly deserved their own recognition as well, but after Game 3 Brown moved into the front and played well enough to hold it.

Tatum led the team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs. And while Brown played better individual, man to man defense, I feel like Tatum plays better team defense.

IMO Tatum should have taken it because he sets guys up better than Brown does, and he is more of a floor general who makes other players better. Also, in the clinching game Tatum brought it on all levels.

SeizeCoup wrote:Tatum led the team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs. And while Brown played better individual, man to man defense, I feel like Tatum plays better team defense.

IMO Tatum should have taken it because he sets guys up better than Brown does, and he is more of a floor general who makes other players better. Also, in the clinching game Tatum brought it on all levels.

Great Points. For some reason I am inclined to vote Jrue Holiday (who plays great without the ball, rebounds, and bottled up Kryie). But it's pretty clear that Tatum was the best player on offense, over the 5 game series. His assist totals were amazing. He has really grown as a player over the past few seasons. Luv that he drives more.

Jammer wrote:

SeizeCoup wrote:Tatum led the team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs. And while Brown played better individual, man to man defense, I feel like Tatum plays better team defense.

IMO Tatum should have taken it because he sets guys up better than Brown does, and he is more of a floor general who makes other players better. Also, in the clinching game Tatum brought it on all levels.

Great Points. For some reason I am inclined to vote Jrue Holiday (who plays great without the ball, rebounds, and bottled up Kryie). But it's pretty clear that Tatum was the best player on offense, over the 5 game series. His assist totals were amazing. He has really grown as a player over the past few seasons. Luv that he drives more.

Jrue was my finals mvp as well, he made so many key momentum plays it was ridiculous while being the most consistent guy on both ends of the floor. Can't argue with any of the 3 though as picks, it really was close and it was a joy to watch. Imagine if KP was healthy, the way he came out in fire early in the series it could have been a 4 way race.

Has anyone seen the actual voting results? ECF was close with a 5-4 vote in favor of JB. Would imagine this is just as close, but with Jrue in the mix now as well.

Holiday certainly came up with some of the biggest key plays on both offense and defense.. But my only problem with him winning the award Is tatum and brown usually get most of the attention. Drew is more of an afterthought for opposing defenses.

shackles10 wrote:Has anyone seen the actual voting results? ECF was close with a 5-4 vote in favor of JB. Would imagine this is just as close, but with Jrue in the mix now as well.

According to this WSJ article JB edged out JT by 3 votes for Finals MVP. No tally provided, though.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/boston-celtics-jayson-tatum-jaylen-brown-nba-finals-6e84f4e5?st=x15yqj7k6q0ogtq&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Good read, btw. I shared the free link so it won’t be paywalled.

To me brown sealed it in game 3. That game pretty much unofficially ended the series.

Tatum was solid all finals best games were close outs 4&5 browns worse were 4&5 and everyday seems like a holiday Tatum Jrue brown for me

ConnorHenry wrote:

shackles10 wrote:Has anyone seen the actual voting results? ECF was close with a 5-4 vote in favor of JB. Would imagine this is just as close, but with Jrue in the mix now as well.

According to this WSJ article JB edged out JT by 3 votes for Finals MVP. No tally provided, though.

https://www.wsj.com/sports/basketball/boston-celtics-jayson-tatum-jaylen-brown-nba-finals-6e84f4e5?st=x15yqj7k6q0ogtq&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Good read, btw. I shared the free link so it won’t be paywalled.

It was 7-4. There's a list of who voted and who they voted for floating around twitter. If I stumble across it again, I'll post the link.

EDIT:

?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1802926690173378802%7Ctwgr%5Eb38194de75b62dd0aaea0040ccba1b3d2d31dd49%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fathlonsports.com%2Fnba%2Fdoris-burke-did-not-want-jaylen-brown-win-nba-finals-mvp-celtics-mavs

Coming into the year I mentioned Brown's fit with bringing in Porzingis and Holiday should be focus on defense and more baseline play and corner 3s. The corner 3s did not come to fruition, instead, Holiday adjusted and shot the highest percentage of his 3PA in his career and an obscenely proficient percent success rate from the corner this year. Brown really embraced defense this season and during the playoffs and he was a deserving MVP and MVP chants at the Garden.

Holiday was great. Loved his off ball movement, cuts, and becoming a terror from the dunker spot.

Tatum had a career playoff low of 48% EFG this year, but his best playoff performance as a distributor. I hope he continues to grow his game in that regard.

Derrick While also deserves a strong honorable mention.

I gave the slightest of edge to JB just for the defensive effort on Luka. It takes an extraordinary amount of effort to pressure a guy that gifted the way Brown did. Could have made a good case for anyone of them, which is why this team is so strong.

Crazy that JB was never in serious foul trouble at any part of the series either. I'm sure Mavs fans and haters alike will say that's proof of bias, but JB played hard, physical at times, but always determined defense. He was no more physical defensively than Luka is offensively with his shoulders, head butts, and push offs.

Could definitely make a good case for Jrue, was a big part of the game one and two victories, was our leading rebounder last night and finished a team best +21. Ignoring game 4, we were +48 with Jrue on the floor thru the series, versus +15 with DWhite, and it's not because White played poorly.

Our team's success thru the whole series seemed to correlate with whether Jrue was on his game, and he was our most consistent presence on the court throughout the entire postseason, IMO.

Tatum didn't shoot real well, but ignoring game 4, he averaged 24/9/8 while presumably having been the biggest focal point of the Mavs' defense. Was by far our best player first half last night, despite not shooting great. Not sure if his wrist was bothering him again, would be great to see that figured out permanently.

I'm glad Jaylen won, I'm sure it meant a lot to him as he had the most to prove on a personal level. He was a huge part of our game 1 victory, which set the tone. Then he was a big part of our game 3 victory, which sealed the deal. And he was just a huge part of the series overall by virtue of going at it against Luka.

Jaylen Brown managed to win the FMVP while averaging 20.8 ppg on .535 TS%. His triple slash was 44/23.5/73.3, a truly horrendous showing that would've been awful in early 2000s, let alone 2024. Jaylen's greatest achievement in 2024 finals was that Tatum had an even worse finals. Oh, and he was the first person to pick up Luka before getting switched off on to Tatum who got switched off on to Horford.

Could have gone to either of the three and I would have had no issue. I think Jaylen taking the initiative to guard Luka the way he did all series as one of the two stars on the team was just about enough to give it to him.

Jammer wrote:Picking a Finals MVP for this series was a real head scratcher because of the variance from game to game of the Top 3 players and factoring their level of defense and the impact of their other activities. I knew Holiday could get overlooked with his defense on Kyrie, but didn't realize the effect reduced scoring in some of the games versus rebounding and assisting could have on Tatum.

An Alternative view:

Pts. + Rebounds + (0.5xAssists) + Steals + (0.5xBlocks) - Missed Field Goals - (0.5xMissed Free Throws) - Turnovers - (0.5xBlocks)

5 game Average Against Dallas by The Main Players

+18.4 Jayson Tatum 40.2 minutes
+16.6 Jrue Holiday 37.8 minutes
+16.1 Jaylen Brown 38.6 minutes

+12.7 Derrick White 36.8 minutes
+12.35 Kristaps Porzingis 20 minutes (only played in 3 games)
+12.0 Al Horford 30 minutes
+8.4 Sam Hauser 15.6 minutes WOW

+0.4 Payton Pritchard 12.4 minutes

If the final vote had been 5-5-1 with Tatum and Brown splitting it and Jrue getting some love I would have been fine with that. In the end I thought Brown edged Tatum by a sliver, but it was very close. He was a more efficient and better defensively, Tatum controlled the game more with his passing and gravity, but Browns physical defense on Luka was critical as well.

In the end I thought Brown sacrificed maybe more than anybody on the team. Both him and Tatum gave up shots, but Tatum still made all-nba first team and Brown was missed the cut coming in at 16th in all-nba voting largely just because he scored less than last season. basically he gave up an all-nba selection to be more a of glue guy and really improved his defense. So its nice he got recognized with these series MVP's.

Also, its a great story. Went from the worst playoff series of his life last year to Conference Finals and Finals MVP this year. Said he'd go to war for Boston, and he backed that up. Legend.

And I can guarantee you Tatum does not care. Just became a champion, excellent shot to win another Olympic gold this summer, 315 million dollar contract incoming.

playa-hater wrote:Holiday certainly came up with some of the biggest key plays on both offense and defense.. But my only problem with him winning the award Is tatum and brown usually get most of the attention. Drew is more of an afterthought for opposing defenses.

That's fair but other than consistency it's not his offense that has him in the conversation. It's the defense and all the timely plays and that basically goes back all the way through the playoffs.