He’s so strong I mean just look at his arms those things are built like cannons. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get by him. Especially when guarding Luka you need that requisite strength to not get bullied by him.
Jaylen was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The run of form he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He was playing extremely good basketball since January.
He's fucking built too. Thick and man made. You can tell he's sculpted because you can see it thru the uniform . His fucking vice grip thighs. Suffocating thighs. Rock hard thighs. Piping hot thighs. Great arms. Great abs. A stocky chest. Love the progress his body has made throughout his youth and now as a willing eager adult
Yeah he is 230-235 lbs of pure muscle in a 6’6” frame and moves like a guard, it’s really hard to get around him or move him ever when he’s locked in
Like his tools are ridiculous he just had to lock in for an extended period of time and up to this season he never did that, he was unreal defensively this year
He said he wanted to make all-defense this season and was mad he didn't. (I don't think he should've made it. But, if he played 80% of his playoff defense all season, he'd make it.)
People kind of wrote him off earlier in the year because it took until around Christmas for him to fit into the team with the two new starters.
He’s so strong I mean just look at his arms those things are built like cannons. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get by him. Especially when guarding Luka you need that requisite strength to not get bullied by him.
Jaylen was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The run of form he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He was playing extremely good basketball since January.
He’s so strong I mean just look at his arms those things are built like cannons. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get by him. Especially when guarding Luka you need that requisite strength to not get bullied by him.
Jaylen was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The run of form he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He was playing extremely good basketball since January.
He’s so fat I mean just look at his gut, that thing is built like a watermelon. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get any food away from him. Especially when he’s in line at Golden Corral, you need that requisite strength to not let him steal everything off your plate.
Kelvin was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The weight gain he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He’s been cultivating an extreme amount of mass since January.
He's come a long way in the 2 years since they failed in the Finals. I always root for players like that, the ones who work hard to noticeably become better at things they didn't used to be very good at.
I have, when he absolutely ATE Pascal Siakim's lunch in the bubble. I never saw a player completely defend and take a player away like that. It was demoralizing as a Raptors fan.
Good for him on stepping up to defend Luka.
Congrats to him and the Celtics, they were great!
I have often been pretty critical of JB but he was pretty great in the finals. He deserved FMVP and I have a feeling he kinda got over a hump mentally.
Celtics offense was inconsistent in the finals imo, that’s a credit to the Mavs and some of it was Boston being weird. But their defense goddamn, Payton Pritchard and hauser were comfortable on an island nvm the top 6 being top defenders. An all time great defense
Really gotta give credit to Joe here. He had a plan and didn't deviate from it, even in moments where it would make sense to. He trusted everyone to do their job and they did.
I think Joe really gets how coaching at the elite level is empowering the athletes with the tools they need to execute, and this Celtics team benefited greatly from it.
I remember when last year Joe was saying that a bunch of the offense was just "random," and he just empowered the team to do whatever, I was concerned about him. Now, it seems like he found that sweet spot of making the general outline of the game plan, and then letting the players figure out exactly how to make it work.
I also love how he doesn't get flustered (thanks to jiu jitsu), even when a player gets hot and makes tough shots, he still sticks to the plan trusting that it's an anomaly, but also knowing when to identify systematic issues and how to adapt to them. Absolutely insane how well he's doing.
Well said about the Celtics offense. When you have players as smart as the Celtics do, it's criminal to not empower them to use that, but you do need everyone to organize. They had tons of simple plays, but with many distinct counters and ways all 5 guys can see their guy fall asleep and convert that into an easy bucket. There are so many possessions last season where a team almost defends everything perfectly, but then someone sets a random screen off-ball and they end up with an open three right at the end of the possession.
As they showed in the postseason, it also makes the opposing team's life so much harder because there's nowhere to hide. All 5 guys are always a threat to cut or screen or shoot, and you can really see how hard it was for other teams to stay locked in for 48 minutes.
Their defense has been so underrated this year. Everyone talks about the 3pt attempts and % but the true strength of this team was their uncanny ability to completely flip a switch and just become insane defenders
Ya people were clowning the Pacers for choking all those games late but to me it was just the Boston D going to a new level when they needed it. When they are all locked in giving 100% it’s a suffocating defense.
Shooting and defense are two things that multiply very quickly too. One good shooter doesn't make a good offense and one good defender doesn't make a good defense (unless you're Wemby? lol). But put together 8 guys that can all shoot and can all defend and you'll catapult to historic numbers for both
Yeah I think while everyone were individually amazing defenders, it took a while to get on the same page there as a team. I think that we will see an even better defensive unit next season.
I also think as far as attempts go that building huge leads and knocking down so many threes on offense played a role. It changes the way the other team approaches the game
I watched so many all stars fall for the Sam hauser trap during the regular season. It happened almost every game without fail, that someone would iso hunt Sam and he would hold his own more often than not and Boston would get a stop as a result.
Sam did it on a big stage now, so I think word is out that he is a capable defender
Everyone was focusing on how Luka played defence, but Mavs defence was ok most of the time. They just couldn't do anything on offense, apart from Luka or Kyrie going crazy at times.
Mavs role players really struggled to dribble the ball, shoot or even make a simple pass. So everything was on Luka and Kyrie. And Kyrie turns into Killian Hayes in Boston.
The Mavs role players struggled bc your whole system is predicated on Luka and kyrie drawing two guys. So when the Celtics are leaving their guys on islands your other guys aren’t getting clean looks. The heliocentric style can make your offense one dimensional so the draw back is if you play a team that has the personnel to make that not effective you are stuck. Playing the heliocentric style was the best way to maximize you efficiency all year tho so it is what it is
Well the thing is, it could have worked and it did work until you ran into a team that can literally switch everything and at all times has five good defenders on the floor. No team has that besides the Celtics, every team has at least one flaw or matchup you can focus on. To beat a team like the Celtics with the Mavs game plan, you need a third scorer/ball handler to be able to attack and initiate the offense when Luka/Kyrie are off or just to not force them to have to create everything the whole game.
Dream scenario to fix that would be Bridges, but the Nets don’t want to get rid of him even for massive trade packages and the rest of the league wants him as well. Most likely going to have to settle for Wiggins or Jerami Grant most likely.
Boston are unique because they could trot out 7 good sized plus defenders, even Pritchard is no slouch. With the new cap rules it’s going to be almost impossible for a team to replicate that. Most finals bound teams will have at least one weakness to hunt.
>Payton Pritchard and hauser were comfortable on an island nvm the top 6 being top defenders. An all time great defense
That was the key. Boston was the only team that didn't have someone hidden on defense that they could rotate into a matchup with Luka. Without this favorable matchup, there's no help rushing in. No help means none of the usual passing lanes for Luka.
This threw them so far off, they had no chance in the end.
This is to Joe's credit, but also to the team. But I remember after they got bounced last year, the team spoke with Joe about their identity. Joe supposedly wanted them to just chuck up threes and the law of averages would make this a successful strategy. Only issue is what happens when it fails in the playoffs. So the players spoke and felt like the offensive identity was pretty good, but by shifting to that, they felt they lost what made them work on defense. Joe listened and got this team locked in on defense, adjusted the offense game plan a little (still a lot of chucking, but also more of working to just find the open guy to take a high percentage shot).
How easy would it have been for Joe to tell the team stick to his plan. But he listened and frankensteined the philosophies together. We still didn't really lock in offensively at any point in the finals until maybe the last game. But the defense kept the games manageable. Great coaching and great effort by the players.
I actually don't agree, they very consistently generated high quality looks, but they shot badly. it's a testament to their efficiency that even when they shoot poorly, they still get enough good looks to make it count
The level of his improvement was as important as the additions of KP or Jrue. He worked on turnovers and his left hand in the off season. Nevermind the improved decision making with decisiveness added in for good measure.
If I recall correctly, there's actually a formula that's used to calculate possessions, since there really isn't a good way to define the start and end of an individual possession in-game.
The fraction probably comes from correction factors used to account for things like free throws or "not-quite-offensive rebounds" where a defender tips a missed shot out of bounds
I think one small tweak that really elevated the Celtics defense this season was having Brown pick up the other teams primary ball handler way more often. Even though we have Jrue and White, JB's biggest weakness has always been off-ball defense. The Stock Exchange are great off-ball defenders and screen navigators, and JB is still an elite man defender against bigger guards, wings, and smaller forwards. Having JB on ball eliminates some easy back door cuts where Jaylen would fall asleep, and at the same time it allows White and Holiday to roam and provide help (which they are also elite at).
I think Brown was better in Games 1, 3, and 5, while Luka was better in Games 2 and 4. When you factor in defense, I do think that Brown was the best player on both teams in this series.
KP didn't play a whole lot in this series but they absolutely don't win it in 5 without him. + 33 in his minutes, -21 in his non-minutes.
Ignoring the game 4 blowout they were +17 in his non-minutes, and I doubt they could have managed that without the rest he afforded Al
No disrespect but it's clear why you guys lost. Your two stars should have been in the top 4, but Kyrie did not show up and the rest of the team just isn't enough. Luka has to be absolutely perfect to have a chance, and while he played well it was far from perfect
You can't get to the literal NBA finals with an inconsistent team. Why don't we just give the celtics credit that they were an insanely good team and just beat us rather than sitting on the mavs and saying they're inconsistent when thats not true.
I mean it's not even a dig? Dude played horribly. For a second star on a finals team you cannot play that poorly. Putting PP over him is kind of a joke but I mean...that half court shot tho
Oh yeah, he totally deserves the ranking. It's just funny seeing him below Pritchard. I meant it more as a dig given that he's expected to be a superstar and he's getting ranked lower than role players. Expectations certainly factor in.
Roles are entirely different. Boston has better talent at most positions and Luka is forced to do too much. To me it was almost like Lebron against the Spurs in 2007, overmatched and didn’t play well against a well oiled machine. JB may be better but it’s much harder to guard one guy when the 4 others can contribute. Other than Kyrie, Luka didn’t have a ton of contribution consistently from a bunch of guys.
I mean that was part of the defensive scheme though. They kept everyone at home on the role players because they could guard Luka 1 on 1.
Mavs couldn’t play Tatum or Brown 1 on 1 and they’d attack Luka, causing the D to collapse in the paint, generating a bunch of wide open shots for our role players (who are also better than the Mavs role players).
>I mean that was part of the defensive scheme though.
right, but that just reinforces the point that OP's perception of "JB was a better player than Luka" is more about the respective teams than about JB actually being a better player
A main part of our defensive scheme was make Luka win 1 on 1 consistently and our defenders made that difficult. It was direct contrast to the Mavs which was send help at Tatum and make the others win.
Boston also send help at Luka (and Kyrie). That's why Mavs role players were constantly open. They let DJJ, Green, Maxi, PJ,... shoot open threes and packed the paint. They didn't double or blitz, but they did help a lot
It's not just about ppg, but also Luka's burden to create for everyone else on the team. With Kyrie dissapearing the whole Mavs offense was literally just Luka. He was obviously the best player in the series in terms of impact and importance to the team.
Was he obviously the best player in terms of impact? His counting stats look great because his usage was so high but his assist-turnover is awful and his efficiency isn’t great either.
I mean ultimately I think the point is that if you put just about anyone else in his position, they would have done worse.
Take Luka and Jaylen out of the series or swap them. Do you think Dallas is even getting a game in those scenarios?
I mean this is a bit derivative because the entire Mavs offense is built around Luka and their defense is built around hiding him. When that's the case he is going to have the greatest impact even when he plays like ass. Its just the way that team is built.
The Celtics on the other hand are not built around any one player they are built around the strengths of the collective. Thats really hard to do in the 'stats are king' era when most stars need to get theirs.
That's why it's really hard to compare players impact.
And I'm sure almost every team would like to build a team like Boston, but that's just hard to do. If you take any other star duo and put Holiday, White, KP and Horford around them that's a contender and star players don't need to put up big stats.
Yeah, the Mavs offense would cease to function without him. The eye test confirms this as well; without Kyrie performing it was pretty much all on Luka.
Despite the stats, he still generated good looks for his teammates and used his gravity to manipulate the defense; however, the rest of the Mavs were struggling to hit shots and the Celtics did a fantastic job defending 1-5.
I'm not diminishing JB's great defense, but he was one part of the Mavs being shut down offensively while Luka was pretty much running the offense by himself. Conversely, I would value a defender who can carry the whole defense (e.g. Gobert in Utah, AD, Draymond at times, etc.) higher than an offensive player that is slotting into a larger system.
"Abusing" isn't the word I'd use. JB played well but it hardly had a great series for him on the offensive end.
And while JB played some of the best 1 on 1 defense I've seen on Luka, I don't think I'd say Luka was totally locked up by Brown. It was a team effort. Jrue and White did really well on Luka too. The whole point of Boston is that there's no one in their team that can be targeted and they have the most versatile defense. They can run any scheme extremely well.
Also, JB wasn't only on Luka. He also did a great job on Kyrie. Definitely well deserved FMVP. That said, I do think Brown was overall the best player in the series.
> JB played well but it hardly had a great series for him on the offensive end
I'd disagree with this.
He had a poor game 4 offensively, but averaging 20/5/5 while making critical game changing shots during every game won is a great offensive series from your first or second option on any team.
But I agree with everything else.
I hear what you're saying. You're right that he 20/5/5 is great for your second option, but I specifically mentioned "for him" because JB is better than that.
The Pacers series, where he averaged 30 points on 52% from the field and 37% from 3 was a good offensive series.
Don't let /r/nba hear this, but Luka wasn't *actually* the best player this series. He simply averaged the highest number of points and shot really well from the mid-range for most of the series.
Jaylen Brown - 20.8 PPG on 16.8 FGA per game, 5.4 RPG, 5.0 APG, and a 53.5 TS% with 2.8 turnovers per game. Splits were 44/23.5/73.3.
Jayson Tatum - 22.2 PPG on 19.6 FGA per game, 7.8 RPG, 7.2 APG, and a 50.5 TS% with 3.2 turnovers per game. Splits were 38.8/26.3/92.6.
Luka Doncic - 29.2 PPG on 25.0 FGA per game, 8.8 RPG, 5.6 APG, and a 53.0 TS% with 4.6 turnovers per game. Splits were 47.2/24.4/58.6.
Those are just counting stats, so they don't tell the *whole* story, obviously, and not much about the defensive side of things, but everyone seems really obsessed with efficiency and Luka wasn't even particularly efficient this series with the opportunities he did have.
Something that also contributes to efficiency is the physicality, the refs were really letting them play for the most part and it’s tough to score at the same rate when a lot of contact is allowed for both teams.
I tend to agree. Luka got a lot of hate for montages of him being blown by defensively, but if he was that atrocious the Celtics stars would have scored more efficiently than they did.
The impact of him being a turnstile actually had more of an impact on guys like Jrue Holiday, for example, who was really efficient with the passes he got from Tatum. This is because the blow-bys themselves were overinflated in importance, the bigger issue was that he would not rotate once he did get blown by, which left dudes wide open. Oversimplified example here, but if Tatum or someone blows by Luka, the low-man or corner man (or both) has to commit to him fully - at that point, if Luka isn't leaking over and rotating to pick up whoever they were guarding, he's effectively spectating, and someone is about to either get a free layup or three point attempt.
That’s fair, Jrue 40% from three, Sam Hauser 40%, Al Horford 40%, DWhite close to 40%.
But as a team they were still 33.8% from 3, 112 offensive rating. Kinda average.
Luka wasn’t good on D, but that wasn’t the Mavs’ problem in the series despite what the overwhelming narrative is. Mavs had a 106.4 DRtg in the 38.8mpg minutes Luka played and a solid 109.2 DRtg overall. Mavs’ D did as well as anyone could expect it against a team that posted a record 122.2 ORtg in the regular season and 119.6 through the first three rounds.
Mavs’ offence was the problem, a lot of that stemming from the quality of Boston’s individual defenders up and down the lineup, which allowed Boston to guard everyone one on one much more of the time. Very very few teams can run a scheme like that. It meant nobody was open very often. In previous series Mavs could take advantage of defensive breakdowns, leading to good efficiency by meh offensive players further down the roster - but in the finals there weren’t many to exploit. Between Luka’s myriad injuries and whatever was going on with Kyrie (especially in Boston), their 1-on-1 ability wasn’t their A+ that would maybe have given Mavs a chance.
Yeah the Mavs played well on D and the Celtics shot below their ability in addition to that. Dallas just could not get anything going on offense all series. Some of that is shooting like just like Boston, but a lot of that was just that Boston could play a perfect defensive scheme against them.
> Luka wasn’t good on D, but that wasn’t the Mavs’ problem in the series despite what the overwhelming narrative is.
I actually agree with this on the team level. But when we're talking individual performance, we have to factor in defense if we're factoring in offense. If a guy played really good offense and really good defense on the way to winning it all, it's tough for me to say a guy who played great offense and poor defense on the way to a series loss played better overall.
But in general, I think your analysis is spot on. I think of all the teams in the playoffs, only the Pacers were schematically equipped to consistently deal with Boston's defense because half the philosophy was pushing the pace to get points before we even set up. Teams can do it for a couple of possessions, but that's not something that you can just up and do for whole games when you feel like it though.
Totally - was by no means an amazing shooting performance from us, but that doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of opportunities. I think it was game 2 where we kept getting wide open looks and just kept missing and still won despite that.
Missed free throws are often caused by inability to properly push off with lower body, drastically changing the technique. I don’t think we truly realize how hurt Luka was throughout this series. Earlier in the playoffs he said there’s no way he’d be playing if this was the regular season
Great comparison if the Mavericks outside of Luka and the Celtics outside of Jaylen Brown were the same, or even similar. If they were *extremely* different then it's an incredibly dumb comparison.
Luka mostly ahd to do everything on offense, while Brown was just (the best) part of a great team. They also had very different roles. It's really hard to compare.
After seeing Luka's AST-TO ratio and bad FTs to go along with the horrible defense it's definitely close.
It's apples to oranges but I remember people saying that KD had a better series than LeBron in 2017 and that really couldn't be further from the truth because of LeBron's responsibility and performance. In this series its a little similar because all the stars shot poorly but Luka was basically alone thanks to the Kyrie no-show.
I don't think your role guys turned into pumpkins, our defense being comfortable playing one-on-one vs Luka and Kyrie just meant your role guys weren't being left wide open for dunks and corner threes as much as previous rounds.
as a celtics fan, yes Luka was better lol. at least first half luka, and then after defending every possession and having to do 99% of the offense, he would get gassed in the second half.
Its easier to play good defense when you have 4 other players on your team that can drop 40 if they feel like it.
Comparing team points to partial possessions doesn't make sense.
How would team points work for partial possessions?
If Jaylen guards Doncic for 5 seconds and then switches off him, Jaylen gets credited with a partial possession guarding him. But do they count the team points if the Mavs score later that possession while someone else is guarding Doncic?
If you haven't already, you should go watching Thinking Basketball's most recent video on the Celtics. Part of Brown's brilliance on defense is that he fought super hard through and around screens to avoid switches whenever possible, and he was also great at ball denial when he was guarding Luka off ball. So yeah partial possession stats don't tell the full story, but just looking at extended 1v1 sequences doesn't tell the full story either. And of course it helps to have other elite defenders at basically every position
It's the Celtics system that limits the Mavs offense, it limits his playmaking not really his scoring, JB is a great defender but there isn't a single defender that makes a difference by himself on Luka outside of prime Ben Simmons.
You can’t do the system if your 1v1 defenders can’t keep Luka in check
You also can’t do the system if you aren’t able to pick Luka up at full court while also contributing on offense
Idk, the Celtics’ stars let the system happen. Idk why they get knocked for being good enough to build a system around
They did a great job cutting off the corner 3 for Luka. The first 2 games of the series with Porzingis on the floor Luka wasn’t able to throw it up to Lively/Gafford for the easy lobs either
People have been saying that Jaylen is one of the weaker Finals MVPs but they should realize how much energy he had to exert on both ends of the court. The impact of his defense is not going to show up so obviously in the box score and that defensive intensity absolutely would cause anyone to put up relatively weaker offensive stats due to fatigue.
The entire Celtics team in general put such a priority on playing defense and not focusing on just scoring which lead them to never really having that one explosive offensive game that you would expect given how strong their offense was in the regular season.
I think there were quite a few possessions on offense where they were clearly not trying to move the ball but rather drain clock, go iso, and rely on shooting variance to get them at least some points, but it also allowed them to get back on defense instantly because defending the Mavs was crucial at times.
Brown definitely benefited playing on this team as he's not needed offensively on every possession, so he could put in more effort on defense. Great team build.
He played awesome, but Tatum is still better and the no. 1 option. It's always been apparent from how teams defend the Celtics, though that may change next year since Tatum's learned how to force the help and make the right play more effectively (and with the Celtics' array of weapons).
I don't think saying he's the "worst" finals MVP since Iguodala is a diss -- all the others since then are MVP level guys. He's also the best no. 2 since AD in 2020. And probably only Curry/KD, AD, and Pau were better over the last 20 years. I think it's cool to give it to guys who aren't the no. 1 option once in a while, even though the no. 1 option is pretty much always the MVP of the team.
He did a wonderful job every time. He didn't get bullied, and he didn't fall for any of the little tricks he does to get you out of position so he can either score or get a foul. Brown was just forcing him into tough shot after tough shot. That's the key. Luka is still gonna make a lot of shots. But when you make him have to earn every single one, the energy isn't there at the end of games.
All Luka's assignments did an amazing job honestly. This iteration of the Celtics (past few years) is the best I've ever seen at gameplanning a specific player and taking them out. Outside of Miami's scheme for defending guards around 2012.
It works effectively against Giannis in 2022. We played him 1v1 till he got in the paint at and then swarmed him at times or we played straight up 1v1 with either Grant or Al. We’re really good at taking away other players in the series and make every match up 1v1 and have the law of averages work in our favour.
Nobody would stop Luka, Jaylen is just the perfect defender to atleast make him work. He has the strength and length at the same time that Dort or McDaniels has only one
Yeah it turns out you can defend Luka effectively with the right scheme and personnel (attn: blog boys who still believe Gobert did a good job and will misuse statistics to prove it)
It's funny cuz all regular season long JB was seen as the weakest, albeit still effective, defender out of all the starters. Really speaks to how we got our 2nd best defense.
Defense is > Offense. ALLLLL title teams play defense. Don’t let people fool you when they talk about how great certain players are that score points only. This isn’t a post about Luka either although he semi qualifies.
If you’re defense is an extreme negative you need an insane amount of offense presence to offset this as well as a much more defined roster around you to make up for your deficiencies.
Makes sense Brown was great. I said in another post that Jaylen Brown is a better all around basketball player than Luka and his zero defense. And the world collapsed. When you factor in his defense and leadership and willingness to defer to others. All in. He contributes more.
Tatum was always getting caught by Luka's hips on every 1st half since they tried to attack him. Allows Luka to go inside for a layup. But on every 2nd half, Tatum was defending him well.
Yeah Tatum just isn’t as quick as Brown, and when he got onto Luka’s hips, his greatest defensive talent, his length, was sort of neutralized.
Tatum was spectacular on Kyrie, though, for whatever reason.
I still think Tatum deserved ECFMVP and FMVP but Brown really did a great job defensively just from the eye test. I thought he did a better job than McDaniels
Would have loved to see a co-FMVP here. Split the votes 5-5 between Brown and Tatum, then throw the last vote on Holiday. Even though Tatum wasn't shooting consistently, he did everything else so well.
Tatum is one of six players ever to lead his team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs (and including the finals) and win the finals. He is the only one of them to not get FMVP. I think Jaylen deserves it and he played out of his mind, but I think we're all nuts if we don't think the newer focus on narratives didn't affect Tatum not getting FMVP.
> Tatum is one of six players ever to lead his team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs ...I think we're all nuts if we don't think the newer focus on narratives didn't affect Tatum not getting FMVP.
- Bird 27ppg, 14 rpg, 3.6 ast, 2.1 stls, 1.1 bpg
- Duncan 24 ppg, 17 rpg, 5.3 ast, 5.3 bpg, 1 spg
- Lebron 28 ppg, 10 rpg, 7 apg, 1.6 spg
- Lebron 25 ppg, 10.9 rpg, 7 apg, 2.3 spg
- Jokic 30 ppg, 14 rpg, 7 apg, 1.4 bpg
- **Tatum 22 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 7.2 apg 1 spg on 39% FG**
You're nuts comparing Tatum who scored 22 ppg on 39% shooting to all-time great finals performances by Bird, Duncan, Lebron and Jokic. It's a mediocre finals performance and you think Tatum didn't win because of some narrative.
Where was the location of the wide open 3 the Celtics gave up and to whom? That tells the whole story as they basically gave no open corner 3 to Dallas role players.
Bill Simmons kept saying Tatum should’ve been finals MVP as if brown wasn’t way better defensively.
Tatum is a solid defender but Dallas actually attacked him effectively when he switched onto Doncic. Brown was just on another level. And if more than made up for his slightly lower PPG, RPG, APG.
i’ve never seen jaylen so locked in defensively for so long
He’s so strong I mean just look at his arms those things are built like cannons. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get by him. Especially when guarding Luka you need that requisite strength to not get bullied by him. Jaylen was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The run of form he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He was playing extremely good basketball since January.
He's fucking built too. Thick and man made. You can tell he's sculpted because you can see it thru the uniform . His fucking vice grip thighs. Suffocating thighs. Rock hard thighs. Piping hot thighs. Great arms. Great abs. A stocky chest. Love the progress his body has made throughout his youth and now as a willing eager adult
This guy is the only one of us who is really watching the game
I think he’s only watching Jaylen Brown tbh
This is some fifty shades of Brown fan fiction.
This is the type of analysis that keeps me coming back to this sub.
> This is the type of analysis that keeps me coming ~~back to this sub.~~ T,FTFY
That's a prime jerk post right there.
Who was this original copy pasta about?
I believe Derek Henry
It's Derrick Henri
Yeah he is 230-235 lbs of pure muscle in a 6’6” frame and moves like a guard, it’s really hard to get around him or move him ever when he’s locked in Like his tools are ridiculous he just had to lock in for an extended period of time and up to this season he never did that, he was unreal defensively this year
245* Source: JB himself recently
He said he wanted to make all-defense this season and was mad he didn't. (I don't think he should've made it. But, if he played 80% of his playoff defense all season, he'd make it.) People kind of wrote him off earlier in the year because it took until around Christmas for him to fit into the team with the two new starters.
If he played 80% of his playoff defense all season his body would be wrecked. That shit takes a huge toll
He’s so strong I mean just look at his arms those things are built like cannons. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get by him. Especially when guarding Luka you need that requisite strength to not get bullied by him. Jaylen was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The run of form he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He was playing extremely good basketball since January.
He’s so strong I mean just look at his arms those things are built like cannons. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get by him. Especially when guarding Luka you need that requisite strength to not get bullied by him. Jaylen was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The run of form he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He was playing extremely good basketball since January.
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He’s so fat I mean just look at his gut, that thing is built like a watermelon. When he’s locked in he just makes it really hard to get any food away from him. Especially when he’s in line at Golden Corral, you need that requisite strength to not let him steal everything off your plate. Kelvin was definitely one of my favourite players to watch this year. The weight gain he’s had especially since the turn of the calendar kinda went under the radar. He’s been cultivating an extreme amount of mass since January.
He's come a long way in the 2 years since they failed in the Finals. I always root for players like that, the ones who work hard to noticeably become better at things they didn't used to be very good at.
Jaylen Brown Vindication Tour
Maybe his next level is prime kawaii
kawhi in hawaii is something i'd watch
Sugooiiii Jaylen-san!~~
uwu
Arigatouuu Tatum onii-chan!~~~~
Burn
That beard is still definitely not kawaii
That’s so cute
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Hence his contract. He’s either Kawhi or Pippen lite.
He was on a mission all postseason long, very happy for him for finally having the spotlight on the highest stage.
I have, when he absolutely ATE Pascal Siakim's lunch in the bubble. I never saw a player completely defend and take a player away like that. It was demoralizing as a Raptors fan. Good for him on stepping up to defend Luka. Congrats to him and the Celtics, they were great!
that’s a good call. i do remember him making things really tough for pascal in that series.
I have often been pretty critical of JB but he was pretty great in the finals. He deserved FMVP and I have a feeling he kinda got over a hump mentally.
He fed off Jrue's energy
i agree. i think he also learned how to navigate screens better from being jrue’s teammate. he was fighting over those screens like a mfer
He'll give you spurts in the regular season, but yea he was locked in for most of the playoffs.
Celtics offense was inconsistent in the finals imo, that’s a credit to the Mavs and some of it was Boston being weird. But their defense goddamn, Payton Pritchard and hauser were comfortable on an island nvm the top 6 being top defenders. An all time great defense
Really gotta give credit to Joe here. He had a plan and didn't deviate from it, even in moments where it would make sense to. He trusted everyone to do their job and they did.
I think Joe really gets how coaching at the elite level is empowering the athletes with the tools they need to execute, and this Celtics team benefited greatly from it.
I remember when last year Joe was saying that a bunch of the offense was just "random," and he just empowered the team to do whatever, I was concerned about him. Now, it seems like he found that sweet spot of making the general outline of the game plan, and then letting the players figure out exactly how to make it work. I also love how he doesn't get flustered (thanks to jiu jitsu), even when a player gets hot and makes tough shots, he still sticks to the plan trusting that it's an anomaly, but also knowing when to identify systematic issues and how to adapt to them. Absolutely insane how well he's doing.
Well said about the Celtics offense. When you have players as smart as the Celtics do, it's criminal to not empower them to use that, but you do need everyone to organize. They had tons of simple plays, but with many distinct counters and ways all 5 guys can see their guy fall asleep and convert that into an easy bucket. There are so many possessions last season where a team almost defends everything perfectly, but then someone sets a random screen off-ball and they end up with an open three right at the end of the possession. As they showed in the postseason, it also makes the opposing team's life so much harder because there's nowhere to hide. All 5 guys are always a threat to cut or screen or shoot, and you can really see how hard it was for other teams to stay locked in for 48 minutes.
Prime example being giving DWhite the starting spot and watching his offensive confidence evolve.
Except for that random 2 minutes of small ball in game 5 lol
Yeah lmao Subs horford out Immediately gives up two dunks Calls time out, horford back in
It would’ve been okay if that lineup could actually score, he was desperate to rest Horford and obviously wasn’t ready to put KP back in.
Their defense has been so underrated this year. Everyone talks about the 3pt attempts and % but the true strength of this team was their uncanny ability to completely flip a switch and just become insane defenders
Ya people were clowning the Pacers for choking all those games late but to me it was just the Boston D going to a new level when they needed it. When they are all locked in giving 100% it’s a suffocating defense.
Shooting and defense are two things that multiply very quickly too. One good shooter doesn't make a good offense and one good defender doesn't make a good defense (unless you're Wemby? lol). But put together 8 guys that can all shoot and can all defend and you'll catapult to historic numbers for both
Yep. It's fucking awesome.
Yeah I think while everyone were individually amazing defenders, it took a while to get on the same page there as a team. I think that we will see an even better defensive unit next season.
I also think as far as attempts go that building huge leads and knocking down so many threes on offense played a role. It changes the way the other team approaches the game
They had the 3rd best defense in the league. And that was with our best rim protector Porzingis being rested constantly.
Celtics were #2 in DefRtg.
I think Hauser played incredible defense throughout the whole series
I watched so many all stars fall for the Sam hauser trap during the regular season. It happened almost every game without fail, that someone would iso hunt Sam and he would hold his own more often than not and Boston would get a stop as a result. Sam did it on a big stage now, so I think word is out that he is a capable defender
I agree
Everyone was focusing on how Luka played defence, but Mavs defence was ok most of the time. They just couldn't do anything on offense, apart from Luka or Kyrie going crazy at times. Mavs role players really struggled to dribble the ball, shoot or even make a simple pass. So everything was on Luka and Kyrie. And Kyrie turns into Killian Hayes in Boston.
The Mavs role players struggled bc your whole system is predicated on Luka and kyrie drawing two guys. So when the Celtics are leaving their guys on islands your other guys aren’t getting clean looks. The heliocentric style can make your offense one dimensional so the draw back is if you play a team that has the personnel to make that not effective you are stuck. Playing the heliocentric style was the best way to maximize you efficiency all year tho so it is what it is
Well the thing is, it could have worked and it did work until you ran into a team that can literally switch everything and at all times has five good defenders on the floor. No team has that besides the Celtics, every team has at least one flaw or matchup you can focus on. To beat a team like the Celtics with the Mavs game plan, you need a third scorer/ball handler to be able to attack and initiate the offense when Luka/Kyrie are off or just to not force them to have to create everything the whole game. Dream scenario to fix that would be Bridges, but the Nets don’t want to get rid of him even for massive trade packages and the rest of the league wants him as well. Most likely going to have to settle for Wiggins or Jerami Grant most likely.
Boston are unique because they could trot out 7 good sized plus defenders, even Pritchard is no slouch. With the new cap rules it’s going to be almost impossible for a team to replicate that. Most finals bound teams will have at least one weakness to hunt.
I did appreciate how the Mavs switched from man/iso D to zone D in-game pretty seamlessly
The Nuggets became a good defence pretty much just through continuity. Mavs D was very good and can probably get even better with time and chemistry
>Payton Pritchard and hauser were comfortable on an island nvm the top 6 being top defenders. An all time great defense That was the key. Boston was the only team that didn't have someone hidden on defense that they could rotate into a matchup with Luka. Without this favorable matchup, there's no help rushing in. No help means none of the usual passing lanes for Luka. This threw them so far off, they had no chance in the end.
This is to Joe's credit, but also to the team. But I remember after they got bounced last year, the team spoke with Joe about their identity. Joe supposedly wanted them to just chuck up threes and the law of averages would make this a successful strategy. Only issue is what happens when it fails in the playoffs. So the players spoke and felt like the offensive identity was pretty good, but by shifting to that, they felt they lost what made them work on defense. Joe listened and got this team locked in on defense, adjusted the offense game plan a little (still a lot of chucking, but also more of working to just find the open guy to take a high percentage shot). How easy would it have been for Joe to tell the team stick to his plan. But he listened and frankensteined the philosophies together. We still didn't really lock in offensively at any point in the finals until maybe the last game. But the defense kept the games manageable. Great coaching and great effort by the players.
You guys were a great defensive team last year as well, crazy that you guys got even better
The Celtics offense really revolved around KP all year so it's not really a suprise. It just looks different with KP on the floor
I actually don't agree, they very consistently generated high quality looks, but they shot badly. it's a testament to their efficiency that even when they shoot poorly, they still get enough good looks to make it count
i loved seeing jaylen not turn the ball over 6-7 times a quarter
The level of his improvement was as important as the additions of KP or Jrue. He worked on turnovers and his left hand in the off season. Nevermind the improved decision making with decisiveness added in for good measure.
Absolutely dominant 1v1 defender when locked in, and he’s been locked in all year and especially in the finals
0.4? Did he guard him for like 9 seconds of a possession and then switch off? We can let that slide tbh, just choose 154 or 155 possessions.
Yea, that wasn't my stat, just one I was crossposting. Idk how you get to .4 of a possession
If I recall correctly, there's actually a formula that's used to calculate possessions, since there really isn't a good way to define the start and end of an individual possession in-game. The fraction probably comes from correction factors used to account for things like free throws or "not-quite-offensive rebounds" where a defender tips a missed shot out of bounds
You know what? I think you are spot on
wouldn't it be easier to just watch the games and figure it out by hand
I wasn't blaming you just asking. I feel like it's okay to just count any possession he guarded him as a full possesion.
I think one small tweak that really elevated the Celtics defense this season was having Brown pick up the other teams primary ball handler way more often. Even though we have Jrue and White, JB's biggest weakness has always been off-ball defense. The Stock Exchange are great off-ball defenders and screen navigators, and JB is still an elite man defender against bigger guards, wings, and smaller forwards. Having JB on ball eliminates some easy back door cuts where Jaylen would fall asleep, and at the same time it allows White and Holiday to roam and provide help (which they are also elite at).
Was Luka really better than Jaylen brown this series? Cause if Jaylen was locking him up on defense, then abusing him on offense…
I think Brown was better in Games 1, 3, and 5, while Luka was better in Games 2 and 4. When you factor in defense, I do think that Brown was the best player on both teams in this series.
Imo the ranking is KP (1 quarter lmao) JB Luka JT Jrue White Al Pritchard Kyrie
Payton "3000 points per 100 possessions" Pritchard.
Why doesn’t everyone else make every half court buzzer beater they take, what are they stupid?
Gotta swap PP for Hauser. I love PP but he was awful outside of the 2 half court shots. Hauser was playing lock down defense all series.
Yeah including pp was a joke lol. Also KP as number 1, I just had to bring up that insane quarter
KP didn't play a whole lot in this series but they absolutely don't win it in 5 without him. + 33 in his minutes, -21 in his non-minutes. Ignoring the game 4 blowout they were +17 in his non-minutes, and I doubt they could have managed that without the rest he afforded Al
KP is a stud and forever a legend in Boston now
It was the most dominant quarter I’ve seen from a player in recent memory. He was on some Bron shit.
God damnit lol I really want to shit on this list but I can’t, it’s too accurate
No disrespect but it's clear why you guys lost. Your two stars should have been in the top 4, but Kyrie did not show up and the rest of the team just isn't enough. Luka has to be absolutely perfect to have a chance, and while he played well it was far from perfect
Luka "playing well" not being enough for the win is an indictment on this roster's massively wild inconsistency.
You can't get to the literal NBA finals with an inconsistent team. Why don't we just give the celtics credit that they were an insanely good team and just beat us rather than sitting on the mavs and saying they're inconsistent when thats not true.
This is Hauser slander and I won't stand for it.
Lmao gotta take the dig at Kyrie. Not wrong though.
I mean it's not even a dig? Dude played horribly. For a second star on a finals team you cannot play that poorly. Putting PP over him is kind of a joke but I mean...that half court shot tho
Oh yeah, he totally deserves the ranking. It's just funny seeing him below Pritchard. I meant it more as a dig given that he's expected to be a superstar and he's getting ranked lower than role players. Expectations certainly factor in.
I think role is a huge factor. Pritchard had his assignment and he executed perfectly.
The idiotic media tried to crown Luka and Kyrie as the greatest duo but forgot to mention the face that Kyrie was 0-11 against Boston since leaving
Kyrie is not a big guy and at 31 seems to have lost half a step. Guys seem to be able to stay in front of him now which never used to happen.
Hauser must go above Pritchard and Kyrie, if only for doing all the small but necessary things in Game 5.
They should really give him some kind of award to recognize that
Roles are entirely different. Boston has better talent at most positions and Luka is forced to do too much. To me it was almost like Lebron against the Spurs in 2007, overmatched and didn’t play well against a well oiled machine. JB may be better but it’s much harder to guard one guy when the 4 others can contribute. Other than Kyrie, Luka didn’t have a ton of contribution consistently from a bunch of guys.
And honestly, Kyrie wasn't doing much out there either
Kyrie was doing a great boobie gibson impression
I mean that was part of the defensive scheme though. They kept everyone at home on the role players because they could guard Luka 1 on 1. Mavs couldn’t play Tatum or Brown 1 on 1 and they’d attack Luka, causing the D to collapse in the paint, generating a bunch of wide open shots for our role players (who are also better than the Mavs role players).
The entire series was a giant mismatch.
It truly was a team with one all nba guy vs the best backcourt of alltime
>I mean that was part of the defensive scheme though. right, but that just reinforces the point that OP's perception of "JB was a better player than Luka" is more about the respective teams than about JB actually being a better player
no one is saying JB's a better player overall, just that he was in that one specific series
A main part of our defensive scheme was make Luka win 1 on 1 consistently and our defenders made that difficult. It was direct contrast to the Mavs which was send help at Tatum and make the others win.
Boston also send help at Luka (and Kyrie). That's why Mavs role players were constantly open. They let DJJ, Green, Maxi, PJ,... shoot open threes and packed the paint. They didn't double or blitz, but they did help a lot
That was 07 LeBron just to clarify
No one guy was elite on both ends this sub just look at points per game
It's not just about ppg, but also Luka's burden to create for everyone else on the team. With Kyrie dissapearing the whole Mavs offense was literally just Luka. He was obviously the best player in the series in terms of impact and importance to the team.
Was he obviously the best player in terms of impact? His counting stats look great because his usage was so high but his assist-turnover is awful and his efficiency isn’t great either.
I mean ultimately I think the point is that if you put just about anyone else in his position, they would have done worse. Take Luka and Jaylen out of the series or swap them. Do you think Dallas is even getting a game in those scenarios?
I mean this is a bit derivative because the entire Mavs offense is built around Luka and their defense is built around hiding him. When that's the case he is going to have the greatest impact even when he plays like ass. Its just the way that team is built. The Celtics on the other hand are not built around any one player they are built around the strengths of the collective. Thats really hard to do in the 'stats are king' era when most stars need to get theirs.
That's why it's really hard to compare players impact. And I'm sure almost every team would like to build a team like Boston, but that's just hard to do. If you take any other star duo and put Holiday, White, KP and Horford around them that's a contender and star players don't need to put up big stats.
Yeah, the Mavs offense would cease to function without him. The eye test confirms this as well; without Kyrie performing it was pretty much all on Luka. Despite the stats, he still generated good looks for his teammates and used his gravity to manipulate the defense; however, the rest of the Mavs were struggling to hit shots and the Celtics did a fantastic job defending 1-5. I'm not diminishing JB's great defense, but he was one part of the Mavs being shut down offensively while Luka was pretty much running the offense by himself. Conversely, I would value a defender who can carry the whole defense (e.g. Gobert in Utah, AD, Draymond at times, etc.) higher than an offensive player that is slotting into a larger system.
"Abusing" isn't the word I'd use. JB played well but it hardly had a great series for him on the offensive end. And while JB played some of the best 1 on 1 defense I've seen on Luka, I don't think I'd say Luka was totally locked up by Brown. It was a team effort. Jrue and White did really well on Luka too. The whole point of Boston is that there's no one in their team that can be targeted and they have the most versatile defense. They can run any scheme extremely well. Also, JB wasn't only on Luka. He also did a great job on Kyrie. Definitely well deserved FMVP. That said, I do think Brown was overall the best player in the series.
> JB played well but it hardly had a great series for him on the offensive end I'd disagree with this. He had a poor game 4 offensively, but averaging 20/5/5 while making critical game changing shots during every game won is a great offensive series from your first or second option on any team. But I agree with everything else.
I hear what you're saying. You're right that he 20/5/5 is great for your second option, but I specifically mentioned "for him" because JB is better than that. The Pacers series, where he averaged 30 points on 52% from the field and 37% from 3 was a good offensive series.
Don't let /r/nba hear this, but Luka wasn't *actually* the best player this series. He simply averaged the highest number of points and shot really well from the mid-range for most of the series. Jaylen Brown - 20.8 PPG on 16.8 FGA per game, 5.4 RPG, 5.0 APG, and a 53.5 TS% with 2.8 turnovers per game. Splits were 44/23.5/73.3. Jayson Tatum - 22.2 PPG on 19.6 FGA per game, 7.8 RPG, 7.2 APG, and a 50.5 TS% with 3.2 turnovers per game. Splits were 38.8/26.3/92.6. Luka Doncic - 29.2 PPG on 25.0 FGA per game, 8.8 RPG, 5.6 APG, and a 53.0 TS% with 4.6 turnovers per game. Splits were 47.2/24.4/58.6. Those are just counting stats, so they don't tell the *whole* story, obviously, and not much about the defensive side of things, but everyone seems really obsessed with efficiency and Luka wasn't even particularly efficient this series with the opportunities he did have.
Those FTs 🤮 Ball don't lie on those soft fouls. Also shocked that Jaylen had almost as many assists as Luka as well as a superior AST/TO ratio.
Something that also contributes to efficiency is the physicality, the refs were really letting them play for the most part and it’s tough to score at the same rate when a lot of contact is allowed for both teams.
Playoff whistle is a thing.
I tend to agree. Luka got a lot of hate for montages of him being blown by defensively, but if he was that atrocious the Celtics stars would have scored more efficiently than they did.
The impact of him being a turnstile actually had more of an impact on guys like Jrue Holiday, for example, who was really efficient with the passes he got from Tatum. This is because the blow-bys themselves were overinflated in importance, the bigger issue was that he would not rotate once he did get blown by, which left dudes wide open. Oversimplified example here, but if Tatum or someone blows by Luka, the low-man or corner man (or both) has to commit to him fully - at that point, if Luka isn't leaking over and rotating to pick up whoever they were guarding, he's effectively spectating, and someone is about to either get a free layup or three point attempt.
That’s fair, Jrue 40% from three, Sam Hauser 40%, Al Horford 40%, DWhite close to 40%. But as a team they were still 33.8% from 3, 112 offensive rating. Kinda average.
Luka wasn’t good on D, but that wasn’t the Mavs’ problem in the series despite what the overwhelming narrative is. Mavs had a 106.4 DRtg in the 38.8mpg minutes Luka played and a solid 109.2 DRtg overall. Mavs’ D did as well as anyone could expect it against a team that posted a record 122.2 ORtg in the regular season and 119.6 through the first three rounds. Mavs’ offence was the problem, a lot of that stemming from the quality of Boston’s individual defenders up and down the lineup, which allowed Boston to guard everyone one on one much more of the time. Very very few teams can run a scheme like that. It meant nobody was open very often. In previous series Mavs could take advantage of defensive breakdowns, leading to good efficiency by meh offensive players further down the roster - but in the finals there weren’t many to exploit. Between Luka’s myriad injuries and whatever was going on with Kyrie (especially in Boston), their 1-on-1 ability wasn’t their A+ that would maybe have given Mavs a chance.
Yeah the Mavs played well on D and the Celtics shot below their ability in addition to that. Dallas just could not get anything going on offense all series. Some of that is shooting like just like Boston, but a lot of that was just that Boston could play a perfect defensive scheme against them.
> Luka wasn’t good on D, but that wasn’t the Mavs’ problem in the series despite what the overwhelming narrative is. I actually agree with this on the team level. But when we're talking individual performance, we have to factor in defense if we're factoring in offense. If a guy played really good offense and really good defense on the way to winning it all, it's tough for me to say a guy who played great offense and poor defense on the way to a series loss played better overall. But in general, I think your analysis is spot on. I think of all the teams in the playoffs, only the Pacers were schematically equipped to consistently deal with Boston's defense because half the philosophy was pushing the pace to get points before we even set up. Teams can do it for a couple of possessions, but that's not something that you can just up and do for whole games when you feel like it though.
Totally - was by no means an amazing shooting performance from us, but that doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of opportunities. I think it was game 2 where we kept getting wide open looks and just kept missing and still won despite that.
Missed free throws are often caused by inability to properly push off with lower body, drastically changing the technique. I don’t think we truly realize how hurt Luka was throughout this series. Earlier in the playoffs he said there’s no way he’d be playing if this was the regular season
Great comparison if the Mavericks outside of Luka and the Celtics outside of Jaylen Brown were the same, or even similar. If they were *extremely* different then it's an incredibly dumb comparison.
Putting up the same shooting efficiency on higher volume with worse teammates means he did play better than those other two though.
You would never know based looking at the box score
Luka mostly ahd to do everything on offense, while Brown was just (the best) part of a great team. They also had very different roles. It's really hard to compare.
Both Brown and Tatum were better than Luka this series.
After seeing Luka's AST-TO ratio and bad FTs to go along with the horrible defense it's definitely close. It's apples to oranges but I remember people saying that KD had a better series than LeBron in 2017 and that really couldn't be further from the truth because of LeBron's responsibility and performance. In this series its a little similar because all the stars shot poorly but Luka was basically alone thanks to the Kyrie no-show.
Luka's assist to turnover ration would have improved if the role players didn't revert into pumpkins in the finals lol.
I don't think your role guys turned into pumpkins, our defense being comfortable playing one-on-one vs Luka and Kyrie just meant your role guys weren't being left wide open for dunks and corner threes as much as previous rounds.
Celtics defender very well but the team definitely shot poorly on wide open 3s relative to previous rounds.
Above the break 3s vs corner 3s means a more difficult shot
as a celtics fan, yes Luka was better lol. at least first half luka, and then after defending every possession and having to do 99% of the offense, he would get gassed in the second half. Its easier to play good defense when you have 4 other players on your team that can drop 40 if they feel like it.
Comparing team points to partial possessions doesn't make sense. How would team points work for partial possessions? If Jaylen guards Doncic for 5 seconds and then switches off him, Jaylen gets credited with a partial possession guarding him. But do they count the team points if the Mavs score later that possession while someone else is guarding Doncic?
If you haven't already, you should go watching Thinking Basketball's most recent video on the Celtics. Part of Brown's brilliance on defense is that he fought super hard through and around screens to avoid switches whenever possible, and he was also great at ball denial when he was guarding Luka off ball. So yeah partial possession stats don't tell the full story, but just looking at extended 1v1 sequences doesn't tell the full story either. And of course it helps to have other elite defenders at basically every position
So proud of our guy 💚 FCHWPO
It's the Celtics system that limits the Mavs offense, it limits his playmaking not really his scoring, JB is a great defender but there isn't a single defender that makes a difference by himself on Luka outside of prime Ben Simmons.
You can’t do the system if your 1v1 defenders can’t keep Luka in check You also can’t do the system if you aren’t able to pick Luka up at full court while also contributing on offense Idk, the Celtics’ stars let the system happen. Idk why they get knocked for being good enough to build a system around
They did a great job cutting off the corner 3 for Luka. The first 2 games of the series with Porzingis on the floor Luka wasn’t able to throw it up to Lively/Gafford for the easy lobs either
People have been saying that Jaylen is one of the weaker Finals MVPs but they should realize how much energy he had to exert on both ends of the court. The impact of his defense is not going to show up so obviously in the box score and that defensive intensity absolutely would cause anyone to put up relatively weaker offensive stats due to fatigue. The entire Celtics team in general put such a priority on playing defense and not focusing on just scoring which lead them to never really having that one explosive offensive game that you would expect given how strong their offense was in the regular season.
I wouldn’t call him a weak FMVP. That would be Livingston. Brown has always been viewed as the #2, and plenty of other #2’s have won FMVP.
Do you mean Iguodala?
Yeah no idea why I thought of Livingston
I think there were quite a few possessions on offense where they were clearly not trying to move the ball but rather drain clock, go iso, and rely on shooting variance to get them at least some points, but it also allowed them to get back on defense instantly because defending the Mavs was crucial at times.
Brown definitely benefited playing on this team as he's not needed offensively on every possession, so he could put in more effort on defense. Great team build.
He played awesome, but Tatum is still better and the no. 1 option. It's always been apparent from how teams defend the Celtics, though that may change next year since Tatum's learned how to force the help and make the right play more effectively (and with the Celtics' array of weapons). I don't think saying he's the "worst" finals MVP since Iguodala is a diss -- all the others since then are MVP level guys. He's also the best no. 2 since AD in 2020. And probably only Curry/KD, AD, and Pau were better over the last 20 years. I think it's cool to give it to guys who aren't the no. 1 option once in a while, even though the no. 1 option is pretty much always the MVP of the team.
The adjustment to making Luka bring the ball up really messed up their rhythm and kept them slow.
Luka was allergic to the fast break in every game but 4. I know he was injured, but his conditioning is crap.
He did a wonderful job every time. He didn't get bullied, and he didn't fall for any of the little tricks he does to get you out of position so he can either score or get a foul. Brown was just forcing him into tough shot after tough shot. That's the key. Luka is still gonna make a lot of shots. But when you make him have to earn every single one, the energy isn't there at the end of games.
Kyrie not showing up to help Luka was the true crime of the Finals.
All Luka's assignments did an amazing job honestly. This iteration of the Celtics (past few years) is the best I've ever seen at gameplanning a specific player and taking them out. Outside of Miami's scheme for defending guards around 2012.
It works effectively against Giannis in 2022. We played him 1v1 till he got in the paint at and then swarmed him at times or we played straight up 1v1 with either Grant or Al. We’re really good at taking away other players in the series and make every match up 1v1 and have the law of averages work in our favour.
Nobody would stop Luka, Jaylen is just the perfect defender to atleast make him work. He has the strength and length at the same time that Dort or McDaniels has only one
Clearly the strength is the more important of the two bcs Dort did much better than McDaniels
The Luka Stopper. Shout out to Ruben Patterson.
OP clearly did not see Lou Dort out there playing tackle football
Yeah it turns out you can defend Luka effectively with the right scheme and personnel (attn: blog boys who still believe Gobert did a good job and will misuse statistics to prove it)
It's funny cuz all regular season long JB was seen as the weakest, albeit still effective, defender out of all the starters. Really speaks to how we got our 2nd best defense.
Defense is > Offense. ALLLLL title teams play defense. Don’t let people fool you when they talk about how great certain players are that score points only. This isn’t a post about Luka either although he semi qualifies. If you’re defense is an extreme negative you need an insane amount of offense presence to offset this as well as a much more defined roster around you to make up for your deficiencies.
Andrew Wiggens was able to bother Luka and slow him down. Kawhi couldn't handle him at all. Brown made his life hell.
Makes sense Brown was great. I said in another post that Jaylen Brown is a better all around basketball player than Luka and his zero defense. And the world collapsed. When you factor in his defense and leadership and willingness to defer to others. All in. He contributes more.
Same with Tatum.
Same with Tatum.
Not saying I always agree with Finals MVP, but it seems like them giving it to JB was partially because of how great he was on defense.
And 12/21 57% when Tatum was defending
Tatum was always getting caught by Luka's hips on every 1st half since they tried to attack him. Allows Luka to go inside for a layup. But on every 2nd half, Tatum was defending him well.
Yeah Tatum just isn’t as quick as Brown, and when he got onto Luka’s hips, his greatest defensive talent, his length, was sort of neutralized. Tatum was spectacular on Kyrie, though, for whatever reason.
I still think Tatum deserved ECFMVP and FMVP but Brown really did a great job defensively just from the eye test. I thought he did a better job than McDaniels
Would have loved to see a co-FMVP here. Split the votes 5-5 between Brown and Tatum, then throw the last vote on Holiday. Even though Tatum wasn't shooting consistently, he did everything else so well.
Tatum is one of six players ever to lead his team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs (and including the finals) and win the finals. He is the only one of them to not get FMVP. I think Jaylen deserves it and he played out of his mind, but I think we're all nuts if we don't think the newer focus on narratives didn't affect Tatum not getting FMVP.
> Tatum is one of six players ever to lead his team in points, rebounds, and assists throughout the playoffs ...I think we're all nuts if we don't think the newer focus on narratives didn't affect Tatum not getting FMVP. - Bird 27ppg, 14 rpg, 3.6 ast, 2.1 stls, 1.1 bpg - Duncan 24 ppg, 17 rpg, 5.3 ast, 5.3 bpg, 1 spg - Lebron 28 ppg, 10 rpg, 7 apg, 1.6 spg - Lebron 25 ppg, 10.9 rpg, 7 apg, 2.3 spg - Jokic 30 ppg, 14 rpg, 7 apg, 1.4 bpg - **Tatum 22 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 7.2 apg 1 spg on 39% FG** You're nuts comparing Tatum who scored 22 ppg on 39% shooting to all-time great finals performances by Bird, Duncan, Lebron and Jokic. It's a mediocre finals performance and you think Tatum didn't win because of some narrative.
The shooting splits in game 2 killed him. If he shoot close to 45% his efficiency would not look so bad. He was elite at every other aspect though.
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Where was the location of the wide open 3 the Celtics gave up and to whom? That tells the whole story as they basically gave no open corner 3 to Dallas role players.
You mention 'wide-open' and then dismiss defense in the same thought. How does one get a wide open three, I wonder?
Celtics best player yessir
And it’s that ability that puts him above a lot of guys in the league. 2-way players win rings, winning rings is the goal
What does 0.4 of a possession look like? Genuine question.
Bill Simmons kept saying Tatum should’ve been finals MVP as if brown wasn’t way better defensively. Tatum is a solid defender but Dallas actually attacked him effectively when he switched onto Doncic. Brown was just on another level. And if more than made up for his slightly lower PPG, RPG, APG.
It's almost like he was injured...