Why does everyone refuse to create Dallas’ defense and taking away most good looks whenever anyone puts the ball on the floor. Kyrie’s defense is being so overlooked, the Doncic talk is borderline ridiculous at times and Kidd is really showing out for the schemes he’s using. I know Celtics fans generally hate all 3 but it hasn’t only been Minnesota unable to score the ball (my inner Hubie Brown) against them.
I think Dallas is good on D. I also think that Minnesota has looked insanely out of sorts.
Correlation? I mean the Clippers and Thunder’s offense looked out of sorts much of their series as well. There is one common denominator there and whether my rating had Dallas’ defense #1 in the league at the end of the regular season or 5th or 8th or whatever people rate them….it’s been nothing short of elite in these three series.
Mavs defensive rating now sits at 8th in the playoffs out of 16 teams. Its a good defense given the teams they've faced but I think it actually has been short of elite. Its not enough to just say its been good?
And that's been the series. Three close games, three times Dallas has found a way to execute at the end and Minnesota has not. It's really been that simple.
Strong disagree on this. I would venture more than half the analysts take Dallas.
No bc my rating has had them much much better than good for a long time now.
We’ll see I guess. I wouldn’t expect this. They usually don’t make bold statements that could backfire against them so badly with high risk picks.
Mavs began a 24-9 run to close the regular season on Feb 5th. Best team point differential since Feb 5th:
And one of the losses in that 24-9 stretch was a 28 point loss to the Celtics despite Doncic having a triple double.
I recall a number of plays down the stretch where Minny would try something initially, I'd be like "oh, good stuff to snuff that out, Dallas", and then the Wolves would just give up.
Yeah it’s literally how I make my living. If I had Dallas rated the same as everyone looking at certain metrics I’d never been able to confidently play them at +700 to make The Finals. Awesome post though.
I think that, after the season, Brad will come out with some cryptic Sun Tzu-style quote about "winning the battle before it's fought", and everyone will get very suspicious as to how the other team's alpha scorer got injured in every series, right through the title.
I always thought it was so the corporate CEOs can plan their schedules well in advance.
Dallas' defense has been great in the playoffs (and this series), but Minnesota looking bad when the game is on the line is hardly new. They were 27th in crunch time net rating this season, 2nd worst among playoff teams (Miami was 28th) and by far the worst among teams that got to round 2 (Cleveland was the 2nd worst among the 8 conference semi-finalists, and they finished 18th in crunch time net rating this season). Once Ant's insane jump shooting regressed to the mean (in no small part because Dallas defends the rim in ways that Denver and Phoenix couldn't), their offense fell back to earth.
100% agree on Minnesota’s 4Q offense as discussed upthread pregame. We also acted on this information in the betting discord at the half and in 4Q when Dallas was engaged in the game while Minnesota couldn’t even run their offensive in the 1H….despite shooting regression heavily favoring the T-Wolve in the 2H. It wasn’t only crunch time Minny had issues w their half court sets.
I remember one play in particular, where the plan seemed to be to attack Luka by....having Jaden McDaniels run a PnR with Luka in it? It went about as well as you'd expect, and there was no Plan B.
Minnesota could absolutely take 1-2 more games. Beyond that, variance makes it hard, which is why no one comes back from 3-0. I would say that they need to win it in the first 43 minutes, because their crunchtime offense is so bad, but they nearly won game 2 in spite of that.
The only time I can actually remember Minnesota attacking a Luka "mismatch" was when Gobert had him in the post, and Luka immediately stole the ball. I felt like I was being punk'd, that was less of an attempt at taking advantage of Luka's defense and more another chance for him to show up Gobert.
They tried a couple other times. Ant went at him, Dallas showed help, Ant passed to Naz in the corner, closeout, and the possession fizzled.
Doncic’s greatest defensive weaknesses are his inability to close out on 3-pt shooters and defending in transition. Trying to attack a 6-10 rugged defender off the dribble as he’s retreating with Lively and Gafford helping isn’t the way to do it. Everyone taking about him like he can simply be overpowered and out quicked “in a tight halfcourt set” like a Pritchard is missing this. I stress “in a tight halfcourt set” as the other way to exploit him is in transition but that isn’t Minnesotas game. The Wolves are a good matchup for Luka defensively whereas Boston should have more ways to engage him when out of position.
KAT and Ant
The way Dallas has been utilizing Doncic, Jrue is primed for a bunch of open corner 3s if someone else takes the ball up. I’ll take that.
This is how betting works if you’re doing it successfully for a living. You have to find an edge and find what others aren’t doing in a handful of different ways.
It’s very rare for the series favorite to be the one down 0-3. The line is down to 2 from 3.5 in part due to Lively likely being out which obv helps Minnesota but still doesn’t address their 4Q problems with Dallas’ halfcourt sets on both ends of the floor. They essentially need to get up 10+ and find a way to hang on which is a difficult win condition to ensure for 4 games.
Well, they very easily could have won game 2, despite the execution issues. Luka's shot doesn't go in, Naz's does, etc.
No doubt that both Dallas and Boston could have easily lost a game in this series. It’s more than simply make or miss when one team struggles getting shots off down the stretch though. If not for that questionable foul on Jones, the Wolves would have went their final 3 possessions w/o even getting a shot off….while the Mavs easily executed on their final play to get Gobert on Doncic 25-feet from the basket for an open 3.
Yea they've been out-shot in the final few minutes, and have executed better in the final 3 or whatever better, but its not the worst sign that each game has been tight. They're not hopeless is all. No Lively for g4, all of a sudden Powell is playing back-up minutes (and Gafford has to pace himself a bit more to play for 35 min). More paths to Minny finding ways to be up 10+ in the 4th. Gafford played most of the 2h yesterday and had major juice down the end obv, Dallas will most likely need him down the stretch in any remaining close game.
Totally agree on Lively being a big loss espeically after already losing Kleber as you are correct in that it gives Minnesota a greater opportunity to avoid the game being decided in the final possessions. I will disagree on your point about losing close games not being a bad sign as this is the area Dallas has always held a tremendous advantage over them and controlled the game enough to get into this next to ideal situation at end of games.
Yea he just got confirmed out. Maybe a bit concerning that they did it almost 36 hours before game time, but I feel like if they make the Finals he's definitely playing.
Lively out. Kleber is GTD. That’s what we’ve heard to this point. Teams are playing games with what they get out this time of year but this is a reputable source.
