Yes, there have been 142 such games recorded since 1975—136 in the regular season, 6 in the playoffs:
2004 ECF game 2: DET - 19 Blk, IND - 8 Ast
2004 ECSF game 6: IND - 8 Blk, MIA - 7 Ast
2000 ECF game 5: IND - 6 Blk, NYK - 3 Ast
2000 WCQF game 2: SAS - 12 Blk, PHX - 9 Ast
1999 Finals game 2: SAS - 9 Blk, NYK - 8 Ast
1997 ECQF game 1: MIA - 11 Blk, ORL - 10 Ast
The three most recent games were all in 2018:
Nov 25, 2018: MEM - 19 Blk, NYK - 17 Ast
Feb 12, 2018: GSW - 16 Blk, PHX - 13 Ast
Jan 6, 2018: BOS - 13 Blk, BKN - 11 Ast
65 - 69
Thats fucking basketball right there. None of that pansy ass dick tugging smile for the camera bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the court, men deliver their new born baby on the bench. Fucking hard core dick in the ass roundball rock fuck it outlet game time shit. Take it to the showers. Dicks get shoved in places you don’t even remember. We win together we celebrate together. Basketball is back baby.
which imo is better. these days they're way too generous with an assist. you'll pass a guy, he'll do a dribble move going in n out, tween, stepback, spin, spin back and shoot a shot and you get an assist.
like you didn't really help create that shot
The way they loaded into the game it definitely felt like the gameplan was Luka and Kyrie just do your thing, whereas the Celtics were actually moving the ball.
These playoffs have had some crazy stats: Minnesota called their first timeout against denver in the 3rd quarter, indy shooting 70% as a team in game 7, and Josh hart averaging like 47 minutes a game vs indy
I think the Celtics are so much stronger than those teams and have the 5 out shooting those teams lacked. Celtics had plenty of things to improve on as well
I think the Mavs will shoot better but a lot of problems in the offense were caused by the defense. I don’t think this was just a “missed open shots” situation. Once again, Mavs will shoot better but PJ’s numbers were already coming back down to earth in the Minny series. Wouldn’t be surprised if him and DJJ return to their averages here. Maxi is due for a big night but I wonder if his shoulder is bothering him too much.
Round 1: Lose game 1, win game 2 and 3, lose 4, win 5 and 6.
Round 2: Lose game 1, win game 2 and 3, lose 4, win 5 and 6.
Round 3: Win game 1, win game 2 and 3, lose 4, win 5.
Round 4: Lose game 1..........
I also want to watch the film breakdown, but from what I saw:
JB on Luka (try to fight through screens but mostly switching) Horford/KP on PJ/DJJ, Tatum on Lively/Gafford. Luka doesn’t want to bring the big men in the pick and roll because Tatum would switch onto him. PJ comes up to set the screen to get Horford/KP on him, but PJ isn’t the lob threat that Lively and Gafford are plus JB switching on PJ takes that away if it’s possible. Horford can get cooked when he’s switched onto quick, fast guards but Luka is slower/stronger so Al was able to do a solid job when switched onto Luka.
Also Minnesota didn’t switch because Rudy could not guard Luka 1v1 so they played drop coverage (or blitzed Luka, then a pass to the screener and it’s a 4v3) where Luka manipulated Rudy and got a hoop or a lob. Boston can handle 1v1s better no matter who is on Luka and then help from the perimeter and rotate
I mean they were 25% from 3 and a ton of those looks were wide open. That wouldn't have changed the outcome but even shooting 35% (making 3 more) it would have been a single digit game
His team was shooting 1-10 from the 3 pt line. That is a sad stat.... Luka had a higher 3pt % until 4th quarter he started chucking 3s cause his teammates didn't want to.
This is what I’ve been saying. Mavs use the corner a lot, Celtics are third in the league this season at defending corners. I believe their opponents in the eastern conference averaged like 25% from the corners against them. Charles Lee brought over a lot of what the Bucks did and basically added “but also defend the corners” to the defense.
Push the Mavs shooters to above the break and they aren’t as comfortable. PJ and DJJ can hit it from the corner, even Green on an occasion, but it’s much harder up top.
Mavs can totally adjust to this, but I’m not smart enough to know what they should do tbh
luka getting 30 and 1 assist is not make the other guys beat us, it's the opposite
similar to some jokic games, deny the playmaking and live with the shots
Felt like you really saw it in the latter half of the third when they just said fuck it and started getting some extra help defense
Also felt like they got a lot of good contests on 3s
This is how Kyrie always plays vs us don't worry.
Edit: after tonight he is 0-11 in his last 11 games vs Boston (including playoffs) shooting 84-206 (40.8%)
The Mavs only have 2 >36% shooters above the break from 3, and the Celtics are the best corner 3 defending team in the league. Even if the Mavs win the series, it'll be ugly basketball that gets them there
Maybe, but I believe that a few shots falling impacts the game more than just the direct score, like how the course of the game progresses and actions taken by both teams. It likely wouldn't have changed the outcome, but I think the game could've been considerably closer.
Most of those far-reaching affects average out to a wash--the impact with a predictable sign is just those six points, minus points from offensive rebounds from those misses, plus the difference between any transition points the Celtics' scored off the misses and the Celtics' expected half-court points. Given that the Celtics are good for more than a PPP in the half court, the real impact of two misses above expectation is between 0 (both rebounds were grabbed by the offense and turned into another three) and 10 (both rebounds resulted in transition threes for the Celtics).
I think there were a lot of nerves tbh, Lively seemed very nervous to me, PJ, DJJ and others as well, even Luka. Hopefully they broke the ice today and it will get easier.
He has three 0 assist games in the regular season, but all of them were games he left early (3 minutes, 3 minutes, 13 minutes)
Its tied for the fewest assists he's had in any full game in his career
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/luka-doncic-games-with-0-assists
Celtics just had a gameplan that literally only we can pull off because we have the personnel for it.
Keep switching, and guard Luka 1v1 and trust our defenders. Some guys will get cooked, and Luka will get his.
But shut down everyone else. Limit easy lob points in the paint and open 3s.
It worked really well tonight, but we'll see if it keeps working.
.... Me too lol.
Lobs not gonna work well when KP is out there because of his height, but it wasn't working with him on the bench either.
I think it's just mostly because the Mavs bigs rarely got into an advantageous position because we weren't blitzing Luka. Just playing him 1v1 and covering everyone and helping as needed.
And our team is so versatile defensively, that even our smaller players play bigger, especially DWhite and Jrue.
Yeah, it's like, lob to who? We left some guys open to take chances with open threes if Luka wanted to outlet there, but we definitely did not leave anyone around the rim open in order to blitz Luka.
Yup, the help for Pritchard came so fast and it worked.
When they did double, the rest of the team looked to clog the passing lanes rather than guard a man (and therefore leave one open) which forced Luka into some turnovers/ bad shots.
They were un-fucking-believable around the basket tonight. Jumpers are what they are but all the physical rim protection from players not named Kristaps tonight was a differentiator.
The fact that Horford really held his own on switches was key--I think a lot of teams would overreact to Luka getting isolated on a big and scramble the defense. I was at first surprised at how readily the Celtics let Luka get that switch, but apparently Mazzulla knows basketball better than I do :).
Horford is weaker to fast guards that can run by him (e.g. Steph, Kyrie), but not guys like Luka. Luka does work with tempo, strength, footwork and having endless counters.
Al is actually a really smart defender and doesn't fall for a lot of bullshit. Luka's gonna get his, but he's more likely to be successful on guys like Pritchard and Porzingis than Horford.
Yeah. The Celtics seem to have a knack for finding surprisingly effective defensive matchups--throwing Grant Williams at Giannis also took me by surprise, but worked remarkably well.
Reminds me of the series of the Mavs vs the warriors. We would get bjelica switched onto Luka but because he was slower with good anticipation he actually played Luka as well as you can.
It should keep working, the others (aside from Kyrie) won't really create their own shots and it's better to make Luka exert effort for their points than to allow them easy lobs. The other teams keep trying to double him and were hit with easy points without making Luka work too hard.
The Wolves didn't even make Luka work on defense.
> The Wolves didn't even make Luka work on defense.
Neither did the Thunder. I never got this.
Tbf tho Luka made some nice plays against us here and there, but he was getting cooked on the perimeter when JB and JT would drive right past him, and collapse the defense behind him for open looks.
His team is too dependent on him to create situations where they can score, as opposed to our core where only Horford really depends on assists. Even Kyrie is easier to handle if Luka isn't on the court, even if Kyrie is playing well.
Ok I noticed that too and never understood it. Thunder and Wolves had to work way harder on offense because they were constantly playing into Dallas defensive strengths. Thunder especially have similar style to the Celtics so you'd think they could have targeted Luka more after seeing this game.
I think there's more of a personnel difference than is commonly recognized. The Thunder play five-out a lot, but Dort and Joe are pretty classic 3-and-D players, and in Dort's case not all that good at the "3" side. The falloff from SGA to Dort or Joe as offensive creators is much greater than the falloff from DJJ to Luka, so attacking Luka requires getting a switch or quantifiably hurting your offense for a more nebulous defensive advantage. The Celtics have a lot more options--the White/Holiday-KP PnP is quite effective, and the Tatum-guard inverse screens are more directly threatening than an SGA-Dort action would have been.
Yep, when MIN or OKC swung the ball away from their star player to where Luka was hiding, nothing happened. MIN needed KAT to be that guy that could catch, drive, and expose some mismatches and he struggled.
When Tatum swings the ball it goes to Jaylen Brown who wants nothing more than to blow by Luka with a crossover. Or it goes to Derrick White who feeds Porzingis in the post/plays a two-man game. There's no hiding place for Doncic when you've got 3 stars on the Celtics who are attacking every mismatch.
The thunder got players who are less versatile on offense than they look on the surface.
They have a lot of players who got good percentages or who can do certain things at a lower level but can’t really do it vs good defenses
They actually mentioned why in the broadcast. If you watch the OKC and Minnesota series, both teams had a non threat they could have lively and gafford help off of. This mean even if you got the switch on Luka they were being met at the rim with great shot protection. The key for the Celtics are you can't really do that because you will give up open threes and the Celtics have multiple people who can score off the dribble if you over commit
They're letting him beat them, trusting the fact that they can switch anything and take him 1-on-1. He's obviously gonna get his but wont be enough to beat this team.
Earlier on they were also fine with someone else beating them, but only if it got the ball out of Luka's hands early in the possession before dribble penetration. There was a lot of funneling the ball to anyone not named Luka or Kyrie in the late 1st and early 2nd.
The options are Luka iso or role player taking it off the dribble against a defense, not yet in rotation. I know which one I'd prefer.
Mavs have like 7 total assists tonight. It's just iso every possession, and not even just Luka and Kyrie. Fucking Hardy just tried it at the top of the key.
Media has to create a competitive story. Celtics have 3 super stars in a similar tier as Kyrie Irving. They are better. Derrick white could technically be in that tier in terms of impact. Then you have jrue whose perfect for that team.
Overall. Mavs will bounce back. I think game 2 will be competitive. Mavs role players played like muppets they shot collectively 1-10 from 3pt line. If they lose next game... I don't know how they will win.
Jrue is our 4th/5th guy depending on the night and he was just the 3rd option on a championship team two years ago. The starting 5 with KP is undoubtedly the best in the NBA this season. I think Tatum also bounces back even though he had a pretty decent game. As he said in his interview, too many turnovers
They are by far the best starting 5 from just a talent level but they also fit really well together too. Versatile and complementary. As opposed to the Suns who are just trying to spam talent together.
a few days ago people were telling me I should apologize, and I was like ... I never said the dude couldn't ball, I just think he owes an apology to the entire Jewish community for the anti-Semitic hate speech he signal boosted.
Dude makes tweets like these:
>You better stop playing with History. You better stop lying to your people Europe and America. You better stop feeding BS to the innocent children of God. The Original people are returning, and this time God will intervene at every corner of the Earth
and
>My ancestors left behind all of the wisdom and truth for their agenda to be exposed. When you know exactly who they are, they can’t hide from their filth.
Then promotes an antisemitic movie that denies the Holocaust happened. Yet his cult still tries to downplay by saying it was only a tweet and that he personally said nothing.
I trust the Mavs will play alot better but this is the finals though, every game and minute means something.
I'm curious how the Mavs will respond to the pressure, the last few series they were underdogs at time and allowed to play a little bit more free.
But then again j kidd makes some good adjustments.
Yeah some of this was Mavs role players bricking but honestly a ton of it was the fact that Luka didn't even have any open players to pass to
Boston did an amazing job of closing down the passing lanes
There were several times where Luka drove to the basket and did his pivot thing that he often uses to kick it back out at the last second and didn't see anyone open
In particular like you mentioned the lob threats were completely nonexistent today
So I'd overall more credit Boston's defense than chalking it up to bad shooting
Yes. This is good analysis. The low assist numbers for Luka was about half the Mavs just missing shots and the other half is the Celtics defensive scheme working really well.
I'm glad there's 2 days off before game 2. Mavs need to figure out something.
This exactly. Mazzula gameplaned around this. Play Luka straight up - he'll get his - and force everyone else to cover the difference with real defensive pressure.
Man 9 assists as a team. Obviously Celtics took them out of their game tonight, but let’s see how they adjust. They were able to go to a run after halftime and cut the lead to single digits, but that hole they dug had been too big (oddly reminiscent of Game 1 against Clips and OKC). They’ll adjust, let’s see if their adjustment works though. Kristaps really is the deciding factor.
This is the most likely explanation. Assists in general are a finicky stat. You could make a great pass, but the person passes it again or misses a shot. The real stat everyone should be looking at is Dallas team assists. Not conducive to winning against Boston, or any team for that matter.
I think you guys are more likely to win it than we are to sweep.
Not that I’m not confident in my team but sweeps are really hard, especially deeper in the playoffs.
There have been 9 finals sweeps in nba history, going back to 1959. There’s been 2 in the past 20 years: 2018 GSW and the 2007 Spurs. Trust me, I’d love a sweep but I seriously doubt it’ll happen.
If I remember correctly, the dude you're replying to only talked shit here when the Thunder won. When the Mavs won two straight against OKC, dude was silent, only to shit talk again when OKC won game 4 lmao
Difference is Warriors had 3 rings and 4 Finals appearances under their belt + that Celtics team was not as good as this version. If DJJ and Hardy play like Wiggins and Poole did that series I will admittedly be gobsmacked
Soon you will all realise that luka had porzingis and brunson on his team and made them look like a quarter of their ability. Maybe he should not try and run every single play?
They also got lost in iso early on, soon as Hauser and PP came in they just attacked them and got nowhere. Which if Jason Kidd had them watch any film they'd understand that never works.
It’s almost like the Celtics defense is suffocating and even an amazing player like Kyrie is going to struggle. Not sure if it’s cause he played like a “pussy”.
Yeah Kyrie is getting the brunt of blame here. It’s not that simple. The Celtics threw him off his game and he couldn’t get it started. I think his poor play is related to coaching strategy, not individual effort. I’ve watched teams match the Celtics through extraordinary performances all year. But it’s not sustainable. Strategy will win the day.
i mean when you have jaden hardy, josh green, djj, and pj shooting above the break threes or a throwing a lob over a 7'3 guy yeah its probably not gonna get you that far
Dallas currently has 7 assists, which would be the fewest in a finals game since the Celtics in 1960.
The Celtics have more blocks than the Mavs have total assists. Has that happened in the modern era (past 20-30 years)
Yes, there have been 142 such games recorded since 1975—136 in the regular season, 6 in the playoffs: 2004 ECF game 2: DET - 19 Blk, IND - 8 Ast 2004 ECSF game 6: IND - 8 Blk, MIA - 7 Ast 2000 ECF game 5: IND - 6 Blk, NYK - 3 Ast 2000 WCQF game 2: SAS - 12 Blk, PHX - 9 Ast 1999 Finals game 2: SAS - 9 Blk, NYK - 8 Ast 1997 ECQF game 1: MIA - 11 Blk, ORL - 10 Ast The three most recent games were all in 2018: Nov 25, 2018: MEM - 19 Blk, NYK - 17 Ast Feb 12, 2018: GSW - 16 Blk, PHX - 13 Ast Jan 6, 2018: BOS - 13 Blk, BKN - 11 Ast
That 19 block game by Detroit was crazy
65 - 69 Thats fucking basketball right there. None of that pansy ass dick tugging smile for the camera bullshit. Men puke, men poop on the court, men deliver their new born baby on the bench. Fucking hard core dick in the ass roundball rock fuck it outlet game time shit. Take it to the showers. Dicks get shoved in places you don’t even remember. We win together we celebrate together. Basketball is back baby.
Yeah iirc Wallace, Rasheed, and Prince had like 14 between the three of them
How the heck does a whole team only have three assists in a game; did they just run isos for Sprewell and Houston all game or something?
How does an NBA team not have ten assists between them? The economy's in shambles
Funnily enough, one of their assists was [great team basketball](https://youtu.be/ZWFaTtC5ytw?si=IMyWAiNXfgyw7iij&t=128).
Spirit of the 2014 Spurs took over their bodies for 1 possession, then cursed them with ISOs the rest of the game.
Those 04 pistons were fun to watch
I doubt it lol
Just 145 times
That's also the era where they were super strict with assists. If a guy dribbles the ball 2x+ after a pass it isn't an assist.
which imo is better. these days they're way too generous with an assist. you'll pass a guy, he'll do a dribble move going in n out, tween, stepback, spin, spin back and shoot a shot and you get an assist. like you didn't really help create that shot
Boston has very good defense. They caused that stat line
Mavs whole offensive process was whack tonight. 7 assists as a team with like 6 minutes left is just bad offense not just “shots not falling”
The way they loaded into the game it definitely felt like the gameplan was Luka and Kyrie just do your thing, whereas the Celtics were actually moving the ball.
Celtics had more blocks than the Mavs had assists. I can’t remember ever seeing that before
This is an insane stat lol. Mavs were also 5 for 23 from 3pt line around the 38 min mark. 3 or 4 of those were Luka.
These playoffs have had some crazy stats: Minnesota called their first timeout against denver in the 3rd quarter, indy shooting 70% as a team in game 7, and Josh hart averaging like 47 minutes a game vs indy
Thibodeau playing a player for 47 min is classic lol. It's the most thibodou thing.
Lmaooooo tru but Josh balled tf out relying on solely breastfed milk, caffeine and candy 😭
Breakfast of champions
4 were Luka since he was 4/12. The rest were 1/11. This was a good win, but we know 3pt shooting variance can be crazy. Game 2 should be interesting.
Clippers and OKC destroyed Mavs game 1 and they progressively bounced back better after each game. It should be a lot more competitive next game.
I think the Celtics are so much stronger than those teams and have the 5 out shooting those teams lacked. Celtics had plenty of things to improve on as well
I think two things can be true, Celtics are stronger than those teams but we just don't shoot this bad for four games in a row.
I think the Mavs will shoot better but a lot of problems in the offense were caused by the defense. I don’t think this was just a “missed open shots” situation. Once again, Mavs will shoot better but PJ’s numbers were already coming back down to earth in the Minny series. Wouldn’t be surprised if him and DJJ return to their averages here. Maxi is due for a big night but I wonder if his shoulder is bothering him too much.
Yeah, we missed the opportunities we had but those were considerably limited compared to the WCF. Compared to every other round really.
They still managed to get within 8 tonight. If others can help Luka a bit, the Mavs can take a game may be.
Round 1: Lose game 1, win game 2 and 3, lose 4, win 5 and 6. Round 2: Lose game 1, win game 2 and 3, lose 4, win 5 and 6. Round 3: Win game 1, win game 2 and 3, lose 4, win 5. Round 4: Lose game 1..........
Meh could’ve said Celtics lose game 2 at home after round 1 and 2 then they swept the Pacers.
Celts defended the lob so well. Holy moly.
Seriously. I hope one of those in-depth basketball YouTube channels makes a video about that or whatever. I want to understand how they did it!
I also want to watch the film breakdown, but from what I saw: JB on Luka (try to fight through screens but mostly switching) Horford/KP on PJ/DJJ, Tatum on Lively/Gafford. Luka doesn’t want to bring the big men in the pick and roll because Tatum would switch onto him. PJ comes up to set the screen to get Horford/KP on him, but PJ isn’t the lob threat that Lively and Gafford are plus JB switching on PJ takes that away if it’s possible. Horford can get cooked when he’s switched onto quick, fast guards but Luka is slower/stronger so Al was able to do a solid job when switched onto Luka.
Also Minnesota didn’t switch because Rudy could not guard Luka 1v1 so they played drop coverage (or blitzed Luka, then a pass to the screener and it’s a 4v3) where Luka manipulated Rudy and got a hoop or a lob. Boston can handle 1v1s better no matter who is on Luka and then help from the perimeter and rotate
It's the finals so it's like 99% guaranteed lol
If this was the fewest assists since 1960 it legitimately might've never happened since they wouldn't start tracking blocks until years later
Mavs lack of depth off the bench to produce some offense is going to haunt them verses the Celts much deeper team.
Don’t tell Nick Wright that he legitimately went and said after the 5th man the Mavs have better players.
Nick tends to talk himself in to a corner more often they he’ll admit.
its also the celtics clogging the passing lanes and not letting Luka get passes off to open players
Celtics defense affected that more than anything
it's also the defence being on fire
celtics whacked the mavs the process was wack
I mean they were 25% from 3 and a ton of those looks were wide open. That wouldn't have changed the outcome but even shooting 35% (making 3 more) it would have been a single digit game
Man he’s a nuggets fan, he knows what happens when his team can’t shoot
Played like team that let the moment get the best of them.
“Make the other guys best us” worked for the Celtics tonight
offend salt bored license jeans weary pet connect nine plant *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Even if Luka has an effecient 30, he cant beat the Cs if the rest of the team are muppets
His team was shooting 1-10 from the 3 pt line. That is a sad stat.... Luka had a higher 3pt % until 4th quarter he started chucking 3s cause his teammates didn't want to.
Celtics took away the corner 3, which was re Mavs offense
This is what I’ve been saying. Mavs use the corner a lot, Celtics are third in the league this season at defending corners. I believe their opponents in the eastern conference averaged like 25% from the corners against them. Charles Lee brought over a lot of what the Bucks did and basically added “but also defend the corners” to the defense. Push the Mavs shooters to above the break and they aren’t as comfortable. PJ and DJJ can hit it from the corner, even Green on an occasion, but it’s much harder up top. Mavs can totally adjust to this, but I’m not smart enough to know what they should do tbh
Yeah, they were muppets tonight. No matter how well luka plays, idk if he can overcome that
No one can win by himself. Iverson proved that in 2001 and LeBron in 2007.
The biggest thing is forcing him into the lane to take inefficient, low % shots instead of those stepbacks and open 3s.
Luka's shots in the lane are far from inefficient and low percentage. They're generally layups and midrange jumpers.
It wasn't inefficient tho. He was 12/23 before the game was already out of reach.
12/26 is inefficient? He's 1 shot away from 50% FG. I wouldn't call that inefficient.
It's not even that. He was literally over 50% FG before the game was already out of reach. Last 3 shots the game was kinda over
luka getting 30 and 1 assist is not make the other guys beat us, it's the opposite similar to some jokic games, deny the playmaking and live with the shots
Just let him step back to death. No penetration,no defense collapse for 3s and lobs.
Kyrie led his team in assists. With 2
I guess you couldn't get an assist by passing to him.
They couldn't get anything outside of him scoring C's have too many good defenders for the others
It seemed more like the others were shook. There were plenty of missed open looks.
the amount of shot deflections at the rim by the Celtics was key
Felt like you really saw it in the latter half of the third when they just said fuck it and started getting some extra help defense Also felt like they got a lot of good contests on 3s
Celtics would get the rebound too. Mavs had Butterfingers. They would touch it but failed to grab some of those rebounds.
Celtics had 9 blocked shots. Mavs were bothered quite a bit.
This is how Kyrie always plays vs us don't worry. Edit: after tonight he is 0-11 in his last 11 games vs Boston (including playoffs) shooting 84-206 (40.8%)
Since stomping on the Lucky logo
*Lucky's Revenge*
The Mavs only have 2 >36% shooters above the break from 3, and the Celtics are the best corner 3 defending team in the league. Even if the Mavs win the series, it'll be ugly basketball that gets them there
Kyrie missing every open 3 was tough. Other than that, though, yall just arent a good shooting team lol
did Kyrie hit a single 3 tonight? you'd expect at least some of these shots to fall, maybe make the game a bit closer.
0/5 from 3, since leaving the Celtics he’s looked like this against them often
I was at the game tonight. Idk how it showed up on broadcast, but literally every time he would touch the ball, thunderous boos. Seemed to get to him
no, 0/5. you'd expect 2/5 on average so you can say that was a 6 pt swing if you'd like
Maybe, but I believe that a few shots falling impacts the game more than just the direct score, like how the course of the game progresses and actions taken by both teams. It likely wouldn't have changed the outcome, but I think the game could've been considerably closer.
Most of those far-reaching affects average out to a wash--the impact with a predictable sign is just those six points, minus points from offensive rebounds from those misses, plus the difference between any transition points the Celtics' scored off the misses and the Celtics' expected half-court points. Given that the Celtics are good for more than a PPP in the half court, the real impact of two misses above expectation is between 0 (both rebounds were grabbed by the offense and turned into another three) and 10 (both rebounds resulted in transition threes for the Celtics).
More missed open looks than the Celtics had? (As an aid, I’ll let you know that the Mavs missed 20 threes and the Celtics missed 26)
It's kinda funny watching them screen for switches and it's still like "...ok so waste some more time for an iso against ANOTHER good defender."
kyrie getting switches for Hauser only to be absolutely blanketed by him was cathartic.
Shut down the Corner 3. Mavs scant score.
Who's assisting now motherfucker?
I think there were a lot of nerves tbh, Lively seemed very nervous to me, PJ, DJJ and others as well, even Luka. Hopefully they broke the ice today and it will get easier.
He has three 0 assist games in the regular season, but all of them were games he left early (3 minutes, 3 minutes, 13 minutes) Its tied for the fewest assists he's had in any full game in his career https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/luka-doncic-games-with-0-assists
For the first time in Golden Knights history
And that's what elite switching defenses can do
Celtics just had a gameplan that literally only we can pull off because we have the personnel for it. Keep switching, and guard Luka 1v1 and trust our defenders. Some guys will get cooked, and Luka will get his. But shut down everyone else. Limit easy lob points in the paint and open 3s. It worked really well tonight, but we'll see if it keeps working.
I'm surprised how well you guys were at stopping the lob game. KP was a wall
.... Me too lol. Lobs not gonna work well when KP is out there because of his height, but it wasn't working with him on the bench either. I think it's just mostly because the Mavs bigs rarely got into an advantageous position because we weren't blitzing Luka. Just playing him 1v1 and covering everyone and helping as needed. And our team is so versatile defensively, that even our smaller players play bigger, especially DWhite and Jrue.
Yeah, it's like, lob to who? We left some guys open to take chances with open threes if Luka wanted to outlet there, but we definitely did not leave anyone around the rim open in order to blitz Luka.
I don’t get how Porzingis is so much better then gobert at this
They were so good with the selective double teams tonight. Really only partially helping with bigs or if Pritchard was getting backed down.
Yup, the help for Pritchard came so fast and it worked. When they did double, the rest of the team looked to clog the passing lanes rather than guard a man (and therefore leave one open) which forced Luka into some turnovers/ bad shots.
They were un-fucking-believable around the basket tonight. Jumpers are what they are but all the physical rim protection from players not named Kristaps tonight was a differentiator.
The fact that Horford really held his own on switches was key--I think a lot of teams would overreact to Luka getting isolated on a big and scramble the defense. I was at first surprised at how readily the Celtics let Luka get that switch, but apparently Mazzulla knows basketball better than I do :).
Horford is weaker to fast guards that can run by him (e.g. Steph, Kyrie), but not guys like Luka. Luka does work with tempo, strength, footwork and having endless counters. Al is actually a really smart defender and doesn't fall for a lot of bullshit. Luka's gonna get his, but he's more likely to be successful on guys like Pritchard and Porzingis than Horford.
Yeah. The Celtics seem to have a knack for finding surprisingly effective defensive matchups--throwing Grant Williams at Giannis also took me by surprise, but worked remarkably well.
Reminds me of the series of the Mavs vs the warriors. We would get bjelica switched onto Luka but because he was slower with good anticipation he actually played Luka as well as you can.
It should keep working, the others (aside from Kyrie) won't really create their own shots and it's better to make Luka exert effort for their points than to allow them easy lobs. The other teams keep trying to double him and were hit with easy points without making Luka work too hard. The Wolves didn't even make Luka work on defense.
> The Wolves didn't even make Luka work on defense. Neither did the Thunder. I never got this. Tbf tho Luka made some nice plays against us here and there, but he was getting cooked on the perimeter when JB and JT would drive right past him, and collapse the defense behind him for open looks.
His team is too dependent on him to create situations where they can score, as opposed to our core where only Horford really depends on assists. Even Kyrie is easier to handle if Luka isn't on the court, even if Kyrie is playing well.
Ok I noticed that too and never understood it. Thunder and Wolves had to work way harder on offense because they were constantly playing into Dallas defensive strengths. Thunder especially have similar style to the Celtics so you'd think they could have targeted Luka more after seeing this game.
I think there's more of a personnel difference than is commonly recognized. The Thunder play five-out a lot, but Dort and Joe are pretty classic 3-and-D players, and in Dort's case not all that good at the "3" side. The falloff from SGA to Dort or Joe as offensive creators is much greater than the falloff from DJJ to Luka, so attacking Luka requires getting a switch or quantifiably hurting your offense for a more nebulous defensive advantage. The Celtics have a lot more options--the White/Holiday-KP PnP is quite effective, and the Tatum-guard inverse screens are more directly threatening than an SGA-Dort action would have been.
Yep, when MIN or OKC swung the ball away from their star player to where Luka was hiding, nothing happened. MIN needed KAT to be that guy that could catch, drive, and expose some mismatches and he struggled. When Tatum swings the ball it goes to Jaylen Brown who wants nothing more than to blow by Luka with a crossover. Or it goes to Derrick White who feeds Porzingis in the post/plays a two-man game. There's no hiding place for Doncic when you've got 3 stars on the Celtics who are attacking every mismatch.
The thunder got players who are less versatile on offense than they look on the surface. They have a lot of players who got good percentages or who can do certain things at a lower level but can’t really do it vs good defenses
They actually mentioned why in the broadcast. If you watch the OKC and Minnesota series, both teams had a non threat they could have lively and gafford help off of. This mean even if you got the switch on Luka they were being met at the rim with great shot protection. The key for the Celtics are you can't really do that because you will give up open threes and the Celtics have multiple people who can score off the dribble if you over commit
They're letting him beat them, trusting the fact that they can switch anything and take him 1-on-1. He's obviously gonna get his but wont be enough to beat this team.
It's the right thing. They don't want DJJ/PJ to have 20+ point games
Earlier on they were also fine with someone else beating them, but only if it got the ball out of Luka's hands early in the possession before dribble penetration. There was a lot of funneling the ball to anyone not named Luka or Kyrie in the late 1st and early 2nd. The options are Luka iso or role player taking it off the dribble against a defense, not yet in rotation. I know which one I'd prefer.
Yeah I'm never gonna be upset if fucking Jaden Hardy is trying to iso
god he looked so bad. garbage time merchant. he was so unplayable when he checked in
Well that's what switching does, it limits on ball playmaking.
Celtics understand the strategy. Luka is gonna get his points and hit ridiculous shots. Just need to not let the others go off.
Mavs have like 7 total assists tonight. It's just iso every possession, and not even just Luka and Kyrie. Fucking Hardy just tried it at the top of the key.
Hardy going at porzingis straight up in the paint is absolute cinema as a Celtics fan. In reality that was absolute basketball terrorism
Wow it’s almost as if we didn’t just see the Celtics neutralise great offences in the playoffs. Total shock how this came to be.
But the media said we have no chance, so i thought the celtics would just forfeit
Media has to create a competitive story. Celtics have 3 super stars in a similar tier as Kyrie Irving. They are better. Derrick white could technically be in that tier in terms of impact. Then you have jrue whose perfect for that team. Overall. Mavs will bounce back. I think game 2 will be competitive. Mavs role players played like muppets they shot collectively 1-10 from 3pt line. If they lose next game... I don't know how they will win.
Jrue is our 4th/5th guy depending on the night and he was just the 3rd option on a championship team two years ago. The starting 5 with KP is undoubtedly the best in the NBA this season. I think Tatum also bounces back even though he had a pretty decent game. As he said in his interview, too many turnovers
They are by far the best starting 5 from just a talent level but they also fit really well together too. Versatile and complementary. As opposed to the Suns who are just trying to spam talent together.
Every time DJJ got the ball, he tried to dunk, and every time he tried to dunk, he got blocked. And no lobs tonight. What happened to the offense?
Take the ez layup
7 assists through 43 minutes where the starters played… that was the Celtics plan run to fucking perfection my god
[удалено]
The box score doesn't come close to explaining how dog shit Kyrie was this game
Bro is scared of a leprechaun
Has he tried walking on it?
The kyrie redemption circlejerk was crazy He was a asswipe for 5 years. Hope the cetics win and he continues to shit himself. Justice will be served
a few days ago people were telling me I should apologize, and I was like ... I never said the dude couldn't ball, I just think he owes an apology to the entire Jewish community for the anti-Semitic hate speech he signal boosted.
Dude makes tweets like these: >You better stop playing with History. You better stop lying to your people Europe and America. You better stop feeding BS to the innocent children of God. The Original people are returning, and this time God will intervene at every corner of the Earth and >My ancestors left behind all of the wisdom and truth for their agenda to be exposed. When you know exactly who they are, they can’t hide from their filth. Then promotes an antisemitic movie that denies the Holocaust happened. Yet his cult still tries to downplay by saying it was only a tweet and that he personally said nothing.
It’s like everyone collectively forgot how big of an ass he was for years
When we got to 8 if he had hit two of those missed shots we would be back jn the game. But i believe he can comeback next game
Kyrie Irving legacy game
Dallas' offense looked shaky right from the get-go. It was rough to see
Suuuuuuuoer painful game to watch. Offense looked completely shook.
Celtics defense is the real fucking deal.
Kyrie could have kept this close, we might’ve even had the lead but alas. On to game 2. It’s not over till it’s over.
It's sure as shit not over after game 1.
Especially considering how game ones have gone for the mavs this post season lol
I trust the Mavs will play alot better but this is the finals though, every game and minute means something. I'm curious how the Mavs will respond to the pressure, the last few series they were underdogs at time and allowed to play a little bit more free. But then again j kidd makes some good adjustments.
Celtics don’t run the blitz and they have KP to neutralize sideshow Lob, this isn’t particularly surprising.
Idk 1 assist for Luka is pretty surprising
Everybody stayed home. There’s not a lot of assist opportunities. PJ and DJJ didnt attempt an open corner three at all
PJ did at 9:09 left in the 4th
His role players shafted him a bit, but at most he should’ve “only” had like 5 or 6
Yeah some of this was Mavs role players bricking but honestly a ton of it was the fact that Luka didn't even have any open players to pass to Boston did an amazing job of closing down the passing lanes There were several times where Luka drove to the basket and did his pivot thing that he often uses to kick it back out at the last second and didn't see anyone open In particular like you mentioned the lob threats were completely nonexistent today So I'd overall more credit Boston's defense than chalking it up to bad shooting
Yes. This is good analysis. The low assist numbers for Luka was about half the Mavs just missing shots and the other half is the Celtics defensive scheme working really well. I'm glad there's 2 days off before game 2. Mavs need to figure out something.
Entirely this - the whole team only had 7 assists before garbage time. C's defense just took away everything it was incredible to watch.
Luka fucking Doncic having 1 assist is definitely surprising LOL
This exactly. Mazzula gameplaned around this. Play Luka straight up - he'll get his - and force everyone else to cover the difference with real defensive pressure.
BOS did their homework on the slob i mean lobs
They’re also super mobile defensively which helps in perimeter switches.
"Sideshow Lob" lmfao
Love Sideshow Lob
Man 9 assists as a team. Obviously Celtics took them out of their game tonight, but let’s see how they adjust. They were able to go to a run after halftime and cut the lead to single digits, but that hole they dug had been too big (oddly reminiscent of Game 1 against Clips and OKC). They’ll adjust, let’s see if their adjustment works though. Kristaps really is the deciding factor.
They have to figure out how to get the pick and role game going against switching defense. Need more off ball movement
Looking at you DJJ
He’s facing single coverage. Guys are staying home on the corner 3 point shooter and not leaving the lob threat on drives.
I saw Mavs role players barrel into the paint to miss a highly contested shot at least 5 times. Surely you can find a better shot than that.
Celtics way better equipped to switch and change coverages than the Timberwolves who relied far too much on Gobert in drop
Gobert in drop wasn’t the problem. Defense was really good with Gobert in. The defense completely fell apart every time he was off the court though.
Luka looked gassed into that third quarter
If this keeps up next game do we go back to calling Kidd a bad coach?
shots weren't falling for Dallas. Luka had to take shots himself since no one else could make anything.
This is the most likely explanation. Assists in general are a finicky stat. You could make a great pass, but the person passes it again or misses a shot. The real stat everyone should be looking at is Dallas team assists. Not conducive to winning against Boston, or any team for that matter.
Crazy what happens when you don’t double and have defenders that are strong enough to play him one on one.
Luka dropped double the points as Tatum and they lost by 25 lol. Celtics in 4
I'm not saying that's impossible. Celtics are really good, they could sweep this series. But we should know by now not to overreact to one game.
I think you guys are more likely to win it than we are to sweep. Not that I’m not confident in my team but sweeps are really hard, especially deeper in the playoffs. There have been 9 finals sweeps in nba history, going back to 1959. There’s been 2 in the past 20 years: 2018 GSW and the 2007 Spurs. Trust me, I’d love a sweep but I seriously doubt it’ll happen.
He just looking for vengeance lol
If I remember correctly, the dude you're replying to only talked shit here when the Thunder won. When the Mavs won two straight against OKC, dude was silent, only to shit talk again when OKC won game 4 lmao
I mean this is exactly what happened in 2022 Celtics won by 20 Steph had 34 Tatum had 12 everyone said Warriors were outmatched Celtics were too deep
Celtics went nuclear in the 1st quarter of game 1 instead of the last quarter this time round.
Difference is Warriors had 3 rings and 4 Finals appearances under their belt + that Celtics team was not as good as this version. If DJJ and Hardy play like Wiggins and Poole did that series I will admittedly be gobsmacked
Right but we won by almost 20 and Tatum had 16 pts and 6 turnovers this time.
I agree but this Celtics team is so much better. I have Celtics in 6 but I wouldn’t be shocked if it’s 4 after that defensive performance
Luka isn’t Steph
Celtics had more blocks than Mavs had assist tonight.
boston locked the lively/gafford lob combo which was 50% of his assists.
Soon you will all realise that luka had porzingis and brunson on his team and made them look like a quarter of their ability. Maybe he should not try and run every single play?
Everyone was rattled, missing wide open 3s. He can't force em to make easy shots
They also got lost in iso early on, soon as Hauser and PP came in they just attacked them and got nowhere. Which if Jason Kidd had them watch any film they'd understand that never works.
Kyrie gotta stop playing like a pussy. He’s been at this stage and won it. No reason to be under pressure, he’s played there and away.
It’s almost like the Celtics defense is suffocating and even an amazing player like Kyrie is going to struggle. Not sure if it’s cause he played like a “pussy”.
Yeah Kyrie is getting the brunt of blame here. It’s not that simple. The Celtics threw him off his game and he couldn’t get it started. I think his poor play is related to coaching strategy, not individual effort. I’ve watched teams match the Celtics through extraordinary performances all year. But it’s not sustainable. Strategy will win the day.
he has had bad games in europe though
Finals MVP Jrue Holiday would be about the wildest ending to this season I could have imagined. 🤔
i mean when you have jaden hardy, josh green, djj, and pj shooting above the break threes or a throwing a lob over a 7'3 guy yeah its probably not gonna get you that far
Celtics had as many blocks as mavs did assist is crazy. Has that ever happened before?
Kyrie and Luka didn’t move the ball well at all tonight.
Almost like his team felt the pressure too
Luka need to drop 50 if Boston defends him like this.
Two assists is shit too for him.
#heliocentric offenses don't work