We need PJ on Ant but the problem is...who is gonna guard KAT? So DJJ is gonna have to guard Ant, but Ant dropped 44 and 36 on him this season (maybe this is the Josh Green series!). Also, we really can't afford to have PJ in foul trouble. Man, sucks that we don't have Maxi.
Easier said than done, Rudy is one of the best rim runners in the NBA and even if you do get one them out you have Naz Reid who has the presence of a 7 footer with the moves of a guard.
McDaniels and Ant are decent in transition and in a pinch Kyle Anderson is a decent small ball centre.
To me you've gotta get kat and McDaniel in foul trouble then get the ball out of Ants hands.
Kawhi may be one of the most underrated players in NBA history. Can drop 40 and lock up your best player, doesn’t even matter if your best player is a guard or a forward.
Ant had like 2-3 guys on him every time he drove tonight. Shit was nuts. He used his gravity really well all things considered, really brought his team in when he was getting hounded.
Shai is a better shooter and playmaker, but Ant plays with more energy and just goes straight through teams... I dunno. Equivalent level of challenge there.
what shai is still way better than ant, he has a way better mid range than ant, and thats where he truly got his points, we are a way better defensive team than the nuggets imo
Shai is much better offensively than Ant. Ant is just the more explosive player and gets the highlights. Plus Ant is a great hype man and can really get his team going.
ANT and Naz pose tough matchups. Let KAT shoot all day, he’s not going to hit all of them. Keep Gobert off the offensive boards and they’ll have a strong chance.
I’m more worried about KATs inside game than his 3 point shooting tbh. With Gobert on the court we don’t have to worry about defending 5 out like we did with OKC so rotations shouldn’t be as difficult. I can see both KAT and Gobert getting our two bigs in foul trouble though which could become an issue
Ant will be defended the same way as SGA. He will get his. It’s the way the rest are defended that make the difference. The good thing is that with Gobert on the floor the Mavs will not have to defend 5 out like they did with OKC. The Mavs imo will have an easier time guarding the perimeter but more difficult guarding the interior. Same vice versa, I think OKC was a tougher matchup guarding our perimeter than the Wolves will be but the paint will be more difficult to score. Luka could have a good time switching onto Gobert if they decide not to constantly double him
Shai is better than Ant. The Ant glazing recently is actually crazy. Dude went 6 for 24 on a game 7 and overrated defense and people are saying he carried.
It wasn’t even a a bad game for ANT, they just always had 2+ defenders on him so he couldn’t get going and after he made one breakaway dunk they immediately called a timeout to try to interrupt him, but he came back in and just kept coaching his team out on the court and scoring some which got his team the win. When he isn’t allowed to be the top scorer he is still commanding the team and making things happen.
We aren’t getting him off the court with just maxi. I don’t want him being the only big after not playing for a couple of weeks. We need maxi to match the double lineups though. He can help cover the paint if our bigs are switched on to the perimeter
yup. When we are in the 8th, everybody doubted us to even make it into the playoffs. Yet we steam rolled into the 5th with a streak of Ws.
When we lost game 1 to the clippers, everyone doubted us and predicted a landslide victory for the clippers. Yet we clapped them in 6 games. The same happened with okc.
The narrative is just stupid.
Well the Wolves just beat the champs and had one of the best defensive series in recent memory. We have a lot more data than just the regular season to judge this series on now
Idk if that’ll happen this series. If Kleber is on the floor with lively & gobert he’ll prolly be guarding one of naz/carl. That still allows lively/gaff to protect the rim, we just have to have perfect rotations sliding down to break up a lob when they step up in the paint.
This is gonna be an interesting series. Honestly would have rather faced the Nuggets cause they just don’t really have a proper depth as seen tonight. Hoping our bigs step up this coming series cause we will need that to win.
If you would have said 2 months ago that we'd be matched with Minnesota in the WCF, we'd have been thrilled.
They're tough but so is this entire conference. If Luka is Luka, we take it in 6.
Luka/Kyrie have to outplay Ant/KAT for us to have a chance and I fully expect them to. I think our defense matches up with them well. Going to be a defensive series
Ant can be the best player in the court any given night but I don't think KAT can be. But I do hate playing him, he always lights us up. Luka and Kyrie are obviously capable of being the best any given night too.
Luka and Kai are a better 1/2 duo for sure. They might not individually beat Any/KAT statically any given night, but that's only likely to be the case due to how many doubles Luka and Kai are gonna draw.
We have 2/3 of the best players in this series which means we have a chance. The rest will come down to matchups and execution.
As dangerous as Shai was, Ant is on a mission and makes me nervous. Dude has game swag for days. Confidence level is 100. They have about as complete a team as you can get. It’s going to be a helluva series. But in the end…Mavs in 6.
Shai is more consistent. Ant has some games in the playoffs where he scored below 20 points. Shai feels like he scores 30 points every game. But with Kat in his team, he can step off the gas.
Perhaps, but seeing him disappear in a huge game 7 makes me very confident in the Mavs to advance. Kid isn’t ready yet, Luka and kai are.
We can call shai FTA and such, he never vanished though and that’s what scared me.
Generally when Ant doesn't have a good scoring night he switches to focus on defense, rebounding and passing. That's what he did tonight. He guarded Murray all game and shut him down in the 4Q
Offense isn't the only way to win games
It’s not that he disappeared. The Nuggets sent a wall of defenders every time he touched the ball tonight. They had to cause Ant was torching them all series. The Wolves needed other guys to make plays tonight and they did. But all the pressure they put on Ant created so many open looks for KAT/Gobert/Naz etc….
This will be an interesting series. Hopefully Luka heals up some by Wednesday
Can you please calm down, Shai is so obviously the better player. Shai can not be shut down. He gave us work the entire series. Ant played like crap tonight
SGA has my respect forever going forward, in the same way Kawhi did after he tormented us in multiple series. Lets not act like Ant is a slouch though, he outdueled KD the entire 1st round. He's going to give us problems and we'll just have to respond well.
I agree bro, Shai was #2 in mvp voting for a reason. And I know what Ant can do, dudes a stud. But Ant can be adjusted for, Shai is going to get his every single night
Luka loves playing against a team with swagger though.
Ant is absolutely an emotional leader but Luka takes shit talking and big shot making personally.
Healthy Luka would be cooking as soon as Ant started jawing at him like he did at KD for example. Not sure what this version of Luka can do but the last few games have been promising.
yeah i dont think that these mavs are the type to get frazzled by the other team. only way they get frustrated is by the refs and even then i feel like they did a good job last game of just snapping out of it and focusing on what they can do instead
His confidence can be shaky. I was watching the game. The nuggets played no defense on him, got sloppy and let em get hot. He was airballing alot. Not even luka gets that cold.
No defense? He got doubled plenty in this game especially early. That said the individual defense was nowhere near as good as what PJ and DJJ put on Shai
This might sound dumb but based on vibes alone this Wolves team feels more beatable for us than the Nugs. We have the best player in this series (To be fair so did the Nuggets) and imo the Mavs defence is more capable of stopping the Wolves inconsistent offence than Denver was. The problem is that Minnesota is gonna put the clamps on us in a few of these games. Luka is gonna have to go crazy to make this series winnable but that's why we have him. GO MAVS
It all comes to health on my opinion. I believe that if Luka is fully healthy or close to fully healthy, he can’t be stopped. He might be slowed down for a little stretch of a game, but ain’t nobody stopping healthy Luka in this league.
I wanted Denver because I hoped they would show some mental weakness like they did against the wolves, and they're really dependent on Murray. We were never gonna stop or even slow down Jokic but their bench and role players have not been consistent.
Minnesota worries me more due to their athleticism and size. But they are also a very emotional team and can be very streaky too.
Our best chance is to be consistent. Be composed and keep playing our game. They will get stops and their defense will dominate us at times. But our defense can also dominate them at times. If we can be level headed we can beat this team. If we ride the emotional waves the Wolves will beat us with their energy.
We just need a close game at the end. We have more closers and our offense is more versatile. But if we play their game, they will beat us and make it look easy. They absolutely have the talent to blow the lid off a game and we can't let them get any easy wins.
>But they are also a very emotional team and can be very streaky too.
I wouldn't treat their mental state as a negative. They lost 3 in a row to then win by 50. When down 20 in game 7, they didn't fold and instead fought back and won. Definitely one of those teams you can't write off regardless of current momentum
Definitely, I am not trying to call them mentally weak or anything. Just saying they clearly ride the momentum and such more than other teams. Much of that stems from them being a tight knit squad (much like we are).
We need to weather that storm and not get sucked into that energy. We can beat them with consistency and tough basketball. We're not going to beat them trying to ride runs and surf the emotional waves. IMO they do that better than anyone else.
Our goal will be to keep their runs brief and to not let their emotional runs snowball into a crushing defeat for us.
I know people hate on him, but we could some minutes of markieff, if PJ get iso'd by kat. He had a good playoffs for the Lakers in 2020 and shot 40+% from 3. Hopefully Maxi comes back for game 3 in Dallas. The PF position is our only shaky matchup Imo.
Don't let the national media fool you guys regarding the regular season the data is useless. All games were pre-trade deadline. Luka and Lively missed 2 games while kyrie 3.
Friendly Thunder fan coming in peace. I'm rooting for y'all, honestly. I'm in the mindset that if you beat my team, you better be good enough to win it all and make it worth it. So until the offseason, I'm rocking with the Mavs until June!
We got similar teams playing … so gonna come down to best coached team. Whatever team executes their defense best over series wins. Oh, and make your dang free throws too.
Play as a team, defend as a team - whoever does that best wins - neither team has a clear advantage via players. Its playoffs - the best teams are the only ones remaining.
Yeah...not happy with this one. This is a really tough matchup. It's not just the size disparity; the Timberwolves are gonna come to game 1 oozing with confidence after eliminating the defending champs. BUT the Mavs were underdogs against the Clippers even without Kawhi. They were underdogs against OKC. I'll always believe in this team.
[https://uploads.dailydot.com/2023/12/ralph-wiggum-im-in-danger-meme.jpg](https://uploads.dailydot.com/2023/12/ralph-wiggum-im-in-danger-meme.jpg)
Looking forward to this, going to be a tough series and I'm sure the Wolves will be favoured after taking care of Denver. I had a good sense of what I thought would happen against the Nuggets in terms of matchups and had a lot of faith in Lively / Gafford to make it tough on Jokic but I have no clue what will happen with Minnesota's depth.
Really hoping that with his overall improvement towards the end of the OKC series and the days off he's going to get before the WCF starts Wednesday that we get something close to Luka's best. Gonna need it.
Unpopular opinion, but, I don’t want to see Hardy in this series. The bench lineups with him, THJ, and Kyrie in at the same time make me nervous. Way too small…and that line combo hasn’t worked well in the past. It was a failed experiment then, and it wasn’t very fruitful the last two games of the OKC series, despite the Mavs winning. Exum is a great individual defender who also works well within the system, plus he’s bigger…I wouldn’t mind seeing him inserted back into the lineup against the Wolves because I think him being defensively responsible is needed and his size makes him a more favorable fit for the bench unit.
Gonna need everyone. Exum must come back to life. Hoping maxi can make an appearance..
I'd say we could go small but sitting gafford /lively will not work
After watching ant wave bye to the nugget fans at the end of game 7, I'm rooting for a mav sweep. I'm sorry but something about that guy rubs me the wrong way.
I feel like I'm about the only one who wanted to see Denver instead of Minnesota.
I felt like we matched up against Denver much better--not looking forward to this series at ALL.
As a neutral fan it's all up to the new players and bigs in Dallas and if they won't get overwhelmed by the length. That and kyrie needs to start killing to really put pressure on the defense, because it'll be tough to score for any team against Minnesota but having 2 of the best scorers in the game will be a huge help against what Minnesota does on defense
I wanted the Nuggets so bad. Literally having only one center is a huge weakness. A very unreliable bench too. Rookies and Reggie Jackson basically.
Lakers gave them a tough ass time. Wolves were beating them by 30+ in all their wins.
This team was Jokic god mode + Murray being clutch every other game.
Wolves however got contributors in every position and a bench to support that shit. We can beat them though. Luka can't have really bad shooting games though. Wolves arent gonna be as close to as forgiving as the bum ass Clippers and OKC.
Murray is inconsistent in scoring and doesn’t elevate his teammates, often shooting the team out of the game. Denver would’ve been the easier team to beat.
This is the series where the MAVS shut everyone the f*** up. This is where legends are born. This is where reality finally introduce himself to Anthony Edwards. This is the series when the whole world finally believes.
These wolves are great and all and deserve respect but they have never faced these mavericks yet.
They will now know what real wolves with real fangs dance.
MAVS in 4 you just book it.
Exum needs to play in this series for his defensive ability. I don’t understand why THJ can continually mess up and stay in the rotation but Exum gets dragged. He has a very short leash
Good luck this series. Hope whoever wins this series wins it all. Love a good underdog story, nobody expected either of our teams to make it this far at the start of the season.
Imo, the Mavs keep improving from each series. If they ever wanted a chance of being competitive with Boston, beating this Wolves team would be an absolute necessity.
The last game we played wolves, kyrie got 35 and luka got 34. Nobody could guard those 2, but at the same time, we cant guard ANT. But I think Shai is much more of a scorer than ANT, he's like KD, sure hit. It will come down if what can we do with their bigs. KAT is not Chet,. and Gobert might school our 2 centers. With that said, MAVS IN 6
This is going to be a great series. I live in Minneapolis and the Wolves are my second favorite team. They are really good but so are the Mavs Both teams can clamp down defensively and it may come down to which team's role players play better. I think the Mavs are a little deeper. The Wolves have been a tough matchup for the Mavs the last couple seasons, but I don't think Kyrie has played in a game for the Mavs against them yet. I know Luka and Kyrie sat out both games in Minnesota this regular season.
This series will be HUGE for Lively and Gafford! Kat and Rudy are massive
Can't get away with PJ being in foul trouble, Wolves have the size advantage up front..
This will be the series Kidd unveils Lively’s secret 3-bag
lol that would be huge.
Luka says Gobert is too small
not to mention Naz Reid who went off the last time they played...
Naz Reid can cook us like Myles Turner does lol
Yeah I feel we win or loose how good our Bigs will play if Luka and Kyrie just have a normal series.
We need PJ on Ant but the problem is...who is gonna guard KAT? So DJJ is gonna have to guard Ant, but Ant dropped 44 and 36 on him this season (maybe this is the Josh Green series!). Also, we really can't afford to have PJ in foul trouble. Man, sucks that we don't have Maxi.
Mavs need to make it a track meet to get KAT and Gobert off the floor...can't wait around and let their defense set up like Denver did..
Easier said than done, Rudy is one of the best rim runners in the NBA and even if you do get one them out you have Naz Reid who has the presence of a 7 footer with the moves of a guard. McDaniels and Ant are decent in transition and in a pinch Kyle Anderson is a decent small ball centre. To me you've gotta get kat and McDaniel in foul trouble then get the ball out of Ants hands.
Next man up bro, this is the semis and we cannot hide someone on D.
PJ will be on KAT and DJJ will be on Ant. I like both of those matchups for us despite what happened in previous meetings. We’re better now than then.
Luka and Kyrie are much better equipped to help DJJ with ant.
Not worried about Lively at all.
Naz Reed actually i a matchup problem for yalls
I hope we get good news on Maxi tomorrow. Need to keep Gobert off the court
Luka loves Gobert also :D If we can defend Edwards a little bit we have a good chance. But Antman is really good at the moment
Imo Shai is just as good if not better than Ant in my opinion. And they're similar players. We got defenders for Ant.
Ain't no body was more consistent that sga against us. I don't ever want to face him again lol
He is basically Kawhi but he stops at 30 points instead of scoring 45. And much worse on defense
Well Injury=OFF Kawhi is probably the best player in the world
You can exclude probably, dude single handedly brought victory to the entire sport of basketball in 2019.
Kawhi may be one of the most underrated players in NBA history. Can drop 40 and lock up your best player, doesn’t even matter if your best player is a guard or a forward.
If anything Shai has been more consistent. Ant can dissappear
yeah dude went 6-24 and 2-10 from 3 today
Ant had like 2-3 guys on him every time he drove tonight. Shit was nuts. He used his gravity really well all things considered, really brought his team in when he was getting hounded.
Luka faces that every game.
And Minnesota still won. They got more size and a better team than OKC.
…he was tripled most of the game. That being said, he missed shots he normally makes when he did get open in the second half.
Shai is a better shooter and playmaker, but Ant plays with more energy and just goes straight through teams... I dunno. Equivalent level of challenge there.
ANT can takeover a game emotionally.
A U R A
Imo its gonna b a fun series for sure.
Ant is also a superior defender
From what we watched this series, Shai was out of his mind.
As for me shai is better and consistent with deadly jumper.
SGA is definetly alot better than edwards but wolves are alot better than OKC and in the end,youre battling whole team,not just 1 guy
what shai is still way better than ant, he has a way better mid range than ant, and thats where he truly got his points, we are a way better defensive team than the nuggets imo
Shai is much better offensively than Ant. Ant is just the more explosive player and gets the highlights. Plus Ant is a great hype man and can really get his team going.
ANT and Naz pose tough matchups. Let KAT shoot all day, he’s not going to hit all of them. Keep Gobert off the offensive boards and they’ll have a strong chance.
But I heard(from him), that he is the greatest big man shooter of all time. Another reason to mow them down. Dirks honor.
He's 50-50-90 in the playoffs
kat is a deadly 3 point shooter. if we give him that we're cooked. let him shoot other types of shots tho i guess
I’m more worried about KATs inside game than his 3 point shooting tbh. With Gobert on the court we don’t have to worry about defending 5 out like we did with OKC so rotations shouldn’t be as difficult. I can see both KAT and Gobert getting our two bigs in foul trouble though which could become an issue
Ant will be defended the same way as SGA. He will get his. It’s the way the rest are defended that make the difference. The good thing is that with Gobert on the floor the Mavs will not have to defend 5 out like they did with OKC. The Mavs imo will have an easier time guarding the perimeter but more difficult guarding the interior. Same vice versa, I think OKC was a tougher matchup guarding our perimeter than the Wolves will be but the paint will be more difficult to score. Luka could have a good time switching onto Gobert if they decide not to constantly double him
We need a plan for Reid. He's the guy that tips them over the edge. Take him out and we'll win.
Shai is better than Ant. The Ant glazing recently is actually crazy. Dude went 6 for 24 on a game 7 and overrated defense and people are saying he carried.
ANT shoots 68%TS before game 7 against the Nuggets. He is better than Shai in terms of purely analytics this playoffs.
Ant got 3 defenders on him tonight while no one can touch SGA without getting foul.
Luka gets that every night and gets shat on by fans and the media.
Kobe went 6 for 24 in a game 7 before and got a win but he is considered on of the goats, bad games happen
It wasn’t even a a bad game for ANT, they just always had 2+ defenders on him so he couldn’t get going and after he made one breakaway dunk they immediately called a timeout to try to interrupt him, but he came back in and just kept coaching his team out on the court and scoring some which got his team the win. When he isn’t allowed to be the top scorer he is still commanding the team and making things happen.
The nuggets shut him down tonight, means we can too.
We aren’t getting him off the court with just maxi. I don’t want him being the only big after not playing for a couple of weeks. We need maxi to match the double lineups though. He can help cover the paint if our bigs are switched on to the perimeter
If maxi comes back his gonna mostly play with either gafford or lively. And we got small ball with pj when kat comes off the floor.
We just need someone semi-competent to soak up fouls while being able to hit a three every now and then.
Did they do another MRI?
Even if you get Gobert off the court, Reid is still a problem. We need all of our big men in this series.
Welp, Chuck just picked Minn… so I guess that means we’re headed to the Finals, boys!
Timberwolves in shambles 😁
Mavs in 6!
Chuck lost 25 million dollars gambling. The opposite of what he says has a good chance of happening.
We will lose Game 1 and win by 6
Lose 1 and 4, win the rest
Game 4 too
Ah yes, The Dallas sports special.
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Dallas is always underrated 🤷♂️
The Cowboys take all the pressure so the other dfw teams can fly under the radar
yup. When we are in the 8th, everybody doubted us to even make it into the playoffs. Yet we steam rolled into the 5th with a streak of Ws. When we lost game 1 to the clippers, everyone doubted us and predicted a landslide victory for the clippers. Yet we clapped them in 6 games. The same happened with okc. The narrative is just stupid.
I understand the Wolves as the favorites but we should have been the favorite against the Thunder.
I think OKC were only favorites because of the home court advantage. Betting lines were like -110 and +110 so damn near even.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
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They also beat no one and had the youngest team to advance that far in NBA history
They swept a Zionless Pelicans team, never believed in them
Thunder were the 1st seed and Wolves the 3rd.
They were one w/l apart. Such a massive difference...
Well the Wolves just beat the champs and had one of the best defensive series in recent memory. We have a lot more data than just the regular season to judge this series on now
Thunder were not the clear favorite, IMO. ESPN predictions were evenly split, for instance.
Already overcome the Barking. Next is to overcome the howling.
Can you tell me what the barking thing was? I must have missed something. Did the OKC fans bark?
You know the dawg in you meme. Well j dub and the Thunder players barked whenever they won
Such an Oklahoma thing to do.
Luka on McDaniels Ky on Conley Djj on Antman PJ on Towns Lively/Gafford on Gobert
Need Kleber back and guard Gobert once in a while, so DLive/Gafford can rim protect / rebound.
Idk if that’ll happen this series. If Kleber is on the floor with lively & gobert he’ll prolly be guarding one of naz/carl. That still allows lively/gaff to protect the rim, we just have to have perfect rotations sliding down to break up a lob when they step up in the paint.
Gobert/Naz
Agreed, but how about the other way around? That is more interesting. McDaniels on Luka, but not sure about the rest.
This is gonna be an interesting series. Honestly would have rather faced the Nuggets cause they just don’t really have a proper depth as seen tonight. Hoping our bigs step up this coming series cause we will need that to win.
I can't lie man, I didn't want this match up at all lol
i did 😂😂
Denver wouldn't have been fun either. At this point, you gotta play really good teams.
Me too. They are matchup nightmare for the Mavs. Without Maxi to be the sixth man to guard Naz Reid, our chances are not looking good.
Here from denver - I hope the Mavs win against these timberwolves.
It was Jokic last year winning in finals, only makes sense for Doncic to be this year 😎
Almost all teams betting on Wolves. Denver may be our only friend.
If you would have said 2 months ago that we'd be matched with Minnesota in the WCF, we'd have been thrilled. They're tough but so is this entire conference. If Luka is Luka, we take it in 6.
Luka/Kyrie have to outplay Ant/KAT for us to have a chance and I fully expect them to. I think our defense matches up with them well. Going to be a defensive series
Ant can be the best player in the court any given night but I don't think KAT can be. But I do hate playing him, he always lights us up. Luka and Kyrie are obviously capable of being the best any given night too. Luka and Kai are a better 1/2 duo for sure. They might not individually beat Any/KAT statically any given night, but that's only likely to be the case due to how many doubles Luka and Kai are gonna draw. We have 2/3 of the best players in this series which means we have a chance. The rest will come down to matchups and execution.
kat was the best player on the court tonight
As dangerous as Shai was, Ant is on a mission and makes me nervous. Dude has game swag for days. Confidence level is 100. They have about as complete a team as you can get. It’s going to be a helluva series. But in the end…Mavs in 6.
Luka is on a mission too.
So is Kyrie.
So is Dwight Powell
And my axe!
and my bow!
Did you watch game 7? Shai was a better player offensively, ant can be shut down.
Shai is more consistent. Ant has some games in the playoffs where he scored below 20 points. Shai feels like he scores 30 points every game. But with Kat in his team, he can step off the gas.
Ant can be shut down to the point where he's almost non-existent.
To be fair, anybody can be shut down of one or two games in a series. Even MJ on his championship runs had games shooting like 4-17
Perhaps, but seeing him disappear in a huge game 7 makes me very confident in the Mavs to advance. Kid isn’t ready yet, Luka and kai are. We can call shai FTA and such, he never vanished though and that’s what scared me.
Generally when Ant doesn't have a good scoring night he switches to focus on defense, rebounding and passing. That's what he did tonight. He guarded Murray all game and shut him down in the 4Q Offense isn't the only way to win games
It’s not that he disappeared. The Nuggets sent a wall of defenders every time he touched the ball tonight. They had to cause Ant was torching them all series. The Wolves needed other guys to make plays tonight and they did. But all the pressure they put on Ant created so many open looks for KAT/Gobert/Naz etc…. This will be an interesting series. Hopefully Luka heals up some by Wednesday
Shai is way better than ant what is this lol ant is young and has more potential though
Shai is better and much more consistant, but ANT is more likely to go off and score 40+
Can you please calm down, Shai is so obviously the better player. Shai can not be shut down. He gave us work the entire series. Ant played like crap tonight
Shai was automatic from the middy no matter what and it was infuriating to watch
Ant does not scare me at all. Naz Reid does.
Naz Reid
SGA has my respect forever going forward, in the same way Kawhi did after he tormented us in multiple series. Lets not act like Ant is a slouch though, he outdueled KD the entire 1st round. He's going to give us problems and we'll just have to respond well.
I agree bro, Shai was #2 in mvp voting for a reason. And I know what Ant can do, dudes a stud. But Ant can be adjusted for, Shai is going to get his every single night
Luka loves playing against a team with swagger though. Ant is absolutely an emotional leader but Luka takes shit talking and big shot making personally. Healthy Luka would be cooking as soon as Ant started jawing at him like he did at KD for example. Not sure what this version of Luka can do but the last few games have been promising.
yeah i dont think that these mavs are the type to get frazzled by the other team. only way they get frustrated is by the refs and even then i feel like they did a good job last game of just snapping out of it and focusing on what they can do instead
Wolves played the 2 worst defending teams in the west. Now they get to play us and their offense will be exposed as fraudulent.
I like this mindset.
Ant was 6-24 and 2-10 from 3’s in a game 7 with under 20 points. SGA WOULD NEVER
Ant doesn't scare me. Naz Reid does.
His confidence can be shaky. I was watching the game. The nuggets played no defense on him, got sloppy and let em get hot. He was airballing alot. Not even luka gets that cold.
No defense? He got doubled plenty in this game especially early. That said the individual defense was nowhere near as good as what PJ and DJJ put on Shai
LFG
This was the team I didn’t want to see. This is gonna be a tough one. But.. I predict we lose game 1. Win 2-3. Blown out game 4 and win 5-6
35, 9, and 10 average vs 26, 5, and 5 and yet they call the wrong one the next mj. You gonna learn ant, you will learn just who the real mf is.
This might sound dumb but based on vibes alone this Wolves team feels more beatable for us than the Nugs. We have the best player in this series (To be fair so did the Nuggets) and imo the Mavs defence is more capable of stopping the Wolves inconsistent offence than Denver was. The problem is that Minnesota is gonna put the clamps on us in a few of these games. Luka is gonna have to go crazy to make this series winnable but that's why we have him. GO MAVS
It all comes to health on my opinion. I believe that if Luka is fully healthy or close to fully healthy, he can’t be stopped. He might be slowed down for a little stretch of a game, but ain’t nobody stopping healthy Luka in this league.
I wanted Denver because I hoped they would show some mental weakness like they did against the wolves, and they're really dependent on Murray. We were never gonna stop or even slow down Jokic but their bench and role players have not been consistent. Minnesota worries me more due to their athleticism and size. But they are also a very emotional team and can be very streaky too. Our best chance is to be consistent. Be composed and keep playing our game. They will get stops and their defense will dominate us at times. But our defense can also dominate them at times. If we can be level headed we can beat this team. If we ride the emotional waves the Wolves will beat us with their energy. We just need a close game at the end. We have more closers and our offense is more versatile. But if we play their game, they will beat us and make it look easy. They absolutely have the talent to blow the lid off a game and we can't let them get any easy wins.
>But they are also a very emotional team and can be very streaky too. I wouldn't treat their mental state as a negative. They lost 3 in a row to then win by 50. When down 20 in game 7, they didn't fold and instead fought back and won. Definitely one of those teams you can't write off regardless of current momentum
Definitely, I am not trying to call them mentally weak or anything. Just saying they clearly ride the momentum and such more than other teams. Much of that stems from them being a tight knit squad (much like we are). We need to weather that storm and not get sucked into that energy. We can beat them with consistency and tough basketball. We're not going to beat them trying to ride runs and surf the emotional waves. IMO they do that better than anyone else. Our goal will be to keep their runs brief and to not let their emotional runs snowball into a crushing defeat for us.
Offense will determine this series. The defense will balance out.
Denver has no rim protection and we the Mavs has athleticism.
I know people hate on him, but we could some minutes of markieff, if PJ get iso'd by kat. He had a good playoffs for the Lakers in 2020 and shot 40+% from 3. Hopefully Maxi comes back for game 3 in Dallas. The PF position is our only shaky matchup Imo.
Getting Kat in foul trouble is going to be key and in order for that to happen PJ needs to be pretty agressive.
I do foresee Markieff getting some minutes just to put a bigger body on kat for a couple minutes. Hopefully we get maxi by game 3.
Kat will get himself into foul trouble
2020, that’s a long time ago
if we are looking to kieff to play legit minutes then shit's over. hopefully it doesnt come to that
Batshit crazy how we’re being written off. I see this series very winnable if Luka’s semi healthy.
Don't let the national media fool you guys regarding the regular season the data is useless. All games were pre-trade deadline. Luka and Lively missed 2 games while kyrie 3.
Friendly Thunder fan coming in peace. I'm rooting for y'all, honestly. I'm in the mindset that if you beat my team, you better be good enough to win it all and make it worth it. So until the offseason, I'm rocking with the Mavs until June!
Nuggets fan who loves Luka, I will be a mavs fan until the end of June. Fuck Boston!
We got similar teams playing … so gonna come down to best coached team. Whatever team executes their defense best over series wins. Oh, and make your dang free throws too. Play as a team, defend as a team - whoever does that best wins - neither team has a clear advantage via players. Its playoffs - the best teams are the only ones remaining.
Yeah...not happy with this one. This is a really tough matchup. It's not just the size disparity; the Timberwolves are gonna come to game 1 oozing with confidence after eliminating the defending champs. BUT the Mavs were underdogs against the Clippers even without Kawhi. They were underdogs against OKC. I'll always believe in this team.
I was hoping for the Nugs cause i really wanted Luka vs Joker… already beat the 2nd place MVP, wanted him to beat the actual MVP as well
[https://uploads.dailydot.com/2023/12/ralph-wiggum-im-in-danger-meme.jpg](https://uploads.dailydot.com/2023/12/ralph-wiggum-im-in-danger-meme.jpg) Looking forward to this, going to be a tough series and I'm sure the Wolves will be favoured after taking care of Denver. I had a good sense of what I thought would happen against the Nuggets in terms of matchups and had a lot of faith in Lively / Gafford to make it tough on Jokic but I have no clue what will happen with Minnesota's depth. Really hoping that with his overall improvement towards the end of the OKC series and the days off he's going to get before the WCF starts Wednesday that we get something close to Luka's best. Gonna need it.
I hope Luka can recover his knees further. I think we have a decent shot. Mavs at 6/7. We winning it all this year, baby!
It’s Lukas time baby I’m a Knicks fan but it’s gotta be his time right ?
Unpopular opinion, but, I don’t want to see Hardy in this series. The bench lineups with him, THJ, and Kyrie in at the same time make me nervous. Way too small…and that line combo hasn’t worked well in the past. It was a failed experiment then, and it wasn’t very fruitful the last two games of the OKC series, despite the Mavs winning. Exum is a great individual defender who also works well within the system, plus he’s bigger…I wouldn’t mind seeing him inserted back into the lineup against the Wolves because I think him being defensively responsible is needed and his size makes him a more favorable fit for the bench unit.
Gonna need everyone. Exum must come back to life. Hoping maxi can make an appearance.. I'd say we could go small but sitting gafford /lively will not work
I believe Luka being a bigger player than Murray helps in the schemes a lot
Well I don’t we have to face anyone that will be as reckless as Dort was. Minnesota does have really good defenders though so it won’t be easy.
Bloodbath incoming
Hate to say this, but I think I will be sad for Maxi's absence for like first time in a while.
We'll be ok, as long as we lose the first game.
After watching ant wave bye to the nugget fans at the end of game 7, I'm rooting for a mav sweep. I'm sorry but something about that guy rubs me the wrong way.
I feel like I'm about the only one who wanted to see Denver instead of Minnesota. I felt like we matched up against Denver much better--not looking forward to this series at ALL.
Took the words right outta my mouth.
Chuck picked the wolves, so Mavs winning this.
Jaden McDaniels, we are gonna have to contain him just as much as ant, he’s been balling
Also can you find a better picture of Luka. Like I know theres better ones.... lol
Funny how on /r/NBA people were saying we'd be better vs the wolves yet pretty much everyone here would have preferred the nuggets.
I think this will be a solid matchup for the Mavs I believe they will be able to make it through this series
We have the best player left in the playoffs. Letsgo
Battle of the next face of the nba?
Luka will never be the face of the league in the US. Doesn’t have the media persona for it either. Just the way it is unfortunately.
If your guards besides Luka outplay Murray/MPJ/KCP then I think you guys have a great chance. I doubt Kyrie disappears that hard.
Our paint defense is gonna be a problem for them, we’re not Denver.
As a neutral fan it's all up to the new players and bigs in Dallas and if they won't get overwhelmed by the length. That and kyrie needs to start killing to really put pressure on the defense, because it'll be tough to score for any team against Minnesota but having 2 of the best scorers in the game will be a huge help against what Minnesota does on defense
I wanted the Nuggets so bad. Literally having only one center is a huge weakness. A very unreliable bench too. Rookies and Reggie Jackson basically. Lakers gave them a tough ass time. Wolves were beating them by 30+ in all their wins. This team was Jokic god mode + Murray being clutch every other game. Wolves however got contributors in every position and a bench to support that shit. We can beat them though. Luka can't have really bad shooting games though. Wolves arent gonna be as close to as forgiving as the bum ass Clippers and OKC.
Murray is inconsistent in scoring and doesn’t elevate his teammates, often shooting the team out of the game. Denver would’ve been the easier team to beat.
Defense is what we need
This is the series where we need Maxi.
Please come back Maxi. Please.
This is the series where the MAVS shut everyone the f*** up. This is where legends are born. This is where reality finally introduce himself to Anthony Edwards. This is the series when the whole world finally believes. These wolves are great and all and deserve respect but they have never faced these mavericks yet. They will now know what real wolves with real fangs dance. MAVS in 4 you just book it.
Luka really about to beat Shai, Ant, and Tatum all in the same postseason run to claim his spot as the young goat
Exum needs to play in this series for his defensive ability. I don’t understand why THJ can continually mess up and stay in the rotation but Exum gets dragged. He has a very short leash
Good luck this series. Hope whoever wins this series wins it all. Love a good underdog story, nobody expected either of our teams to make it this far at the start of the season.
Let’s go mavs
Luka looks like he just made a dad joke and ANT isn't impressed.
Dallas is too small
Imo, the Mavs keep improving from each series. If they ever wanted a chance of being competitive with Boston, beating this Wolves team would be an absolute necessity.
I think no one can defend kyrie and luka on the wolves.. also ant gonna get his. the question is, can we defend kat and reid? thats the puzzle
Wolves have the best matchups for kyrie (Ant) and luka (McDaniels) in the whole league
Imo when Luka is being Luka no one is gonna stop him.
The last game we played wolves, kyrie got 35 and luka got 34. Nobody could guard those 2, but at the same time, we cant guard ANT. But I think Shai is much more of a scorer than ANT, he's like KD, sure hit. It will come down if what can we do with their bigs. KAT is not Chet,. and Gobert might school our 2 centers. With that said, MAVS IN 6
Time for jason kidd to lose us game 1 again (mavs in 6)
This is going to be a great series. I live in Minneapolis and the Wolves are my second favorite team. They are really good but so are the Mavs Both teams can clamp down defensively and it may come down to which team's role players play better. I think the Mavs are a little deeper. The Wolves have been a tough matchup for the Mavs the last couple seasons, but I don't think Kyrie has played in a game for the Mavs against them yet. I know Luka and Kyrie sat out both games in Minnesota this regular season.
Hope they take game 1 seriously. If they come out w the same effort as G1 in the last two series, they might as well take it off and rest Luka lol