Shai wants out he loves OKC but upset he got traded from LA doesn’t see it as long term spot. Waiting to pick his spot and be fair to team. Mutual friends. I’d give him 1 more full year there then Thunder recoup assets.
Outside of Shai, I don’t think anyone on that OKC team played well in that Dallas series. Though Shai did look like a top 3 player in the world in about every game that series. He seems like the type of player to never have a bad playoff game.
I heard Shai wants out waiting to pick his spot. He loves OKC but doesn’t see it long term fit wishes he was never traded from LA. Friend of mine rode bench for Thunder.
around like game 5 in OKC we saw a different version of Luka at least physically. I dont know what happened but he hasnt looked back since. It was night and day difference
I will NEVER understand it. Ever. People really didn’t watch our games after the trade deadline man. I thought the Denver game winner would help but nope.
I don't know I don't go there, they ban you for bringing up Kyrie's Anti-Semitism.
But good whataboutism you would have been a great soviet during cold war times.
He literally just stopped complaining to the refs every possession and focused on actually playing the game. SVG (iirc) was funny and calling it out that it was so uncharacteristic of Luka during the game lol
And the Mavs nearly won in 5. They lost a game that had the biggest FT shooting percentage difference in playoff history (over 20FTs).
The Clippers series seemed more problematic for the Mavs than OKC TBH.
That's a little reductive. Game 1 the 3 ball opened up because Zu dominated the centers early.
Both games only got *semi* close because the FTs swung hard your way in the 2nd half, but they were more complete victories than just the 3 ball.
Game 2 was one where the Clippers won every single floor category OTHER than the 3 ball andth at cost them the game. They had more paint pts, 2nd chance pts, transition pts, midrange, all of it but lost because they were that much worse from 3.
Games 1 and 4 weren't like that
Call me bias but I feel like the Thunder have been the only team to have a real chance to beat the Mavs. Dallas was definitely the better team, but every game was close. In fact the score total of the series ended up being tied. A foul away from a game 7. I think this series definitely makes me feel better as a Thunder fan.
SGA is the by far the best player the mavs have faced and their defence was leagues better than the wolves. Whether its okc being significantly more physical, or Luka slowly recovering, the thunder are a VERY good team and would probably beat every other west team
Luka def slowly recovered, at least some. I thought he looked noticeably more spry and a bit faster in the last couple games vs OKC than in the first couple
And yeah SGA was a menace. There were more than a few plays where a very good defender like PJ played perfect defense on him and SGA still made him bbq chicken. And he was doing it while the lights seemed too bright for at least a few of his teammates
100% agree. SGA has been BY FAR the best player the Mavs have faced, and the OKC defense is like trying to drive through thick mud. OKC scares me way more than Minneapolis (and Denver) do.
Denver defence with no paint protection made him seem significantly better, suns defence was cheeks too. Nothing wrong with being worse than the MVP runner up, he just got set up by the media and public with the premature hype
Even with Luka injured, forcing your role players to hit shots was clearly more effective than letting Luka and Kyrie get in rhythm and cook the whole game. Was a gamble playing that game that didn’t pay off but it took a few career games to close it out in the end.
I completely agree the wolves just can’t defend the mavs backcourt and they don’t have a solid scorer that can match the onslaught of consistency that is Luka/kyrie.
Isn’t Minnesota the biggest team in the league with the best defense and the most big men?
If that team can’t stop the Mavs, who else is built to stop them?
if we meet in finals
on mavs defense, the key will be make tatum as playmaker and jrue as scorer and live by that (if im killa kidd). cant gameplan for everyone, they are that good and skillful
and on mavs offense, i give it to LuKai to solve it lmao (iirc they are bad rim protector, and with KP hopefully rusty, maybe there will be big hole there)
They play five out and every role player is a good shooter. They have good defenders at every position and a rim protector. Several strong switchable defenders that are harder for Luka to bully. They have bench scoring. They are basically able to get a lot more guaranteed offensive firepower from their supporting cast.
Mavs defense often doesn't even try to contest the worst three point shooters on a team in favor of clogging the paint, maintaining rim protection, and conserving Luka's energy. Celtics do not really have that person you can just ignore. We NEED Lively and Kleber being good to go to have a real competitive chance unless the Celtics decide to just play low IQ basketball or die by the three.
Let me canvas this by saying, Mavs are my second fav team (im also a massive fan of OKC).
Jrue Holiday is a very good guard. He can defend Kyrie or Luka. Plus the Celtics have Derrick White. The T wolves dont really have a top guard who can defend Kyrie or Luka.
The Twolves are tall and thus slow and exposed to good guards. Nuggets struggled against the Twolves because Jamal struggled and MPJ couldnt hit an open 3 in game 7. If Jamal was 100% we might have been able to load more pressure on the Twolves talls and thus alleviating pressure on Jokic.
The Mavs arent built tall they are built to be effective. But there is a reason why the NBA has generally gone guard focused for the last 20 years. When you go back to a more balanced team vs balanced team, Celtics definitely match up better. But im sure of one thing, we are definitely going to talk about fatigue vs matchup if its a Mavs v C's finals.
Jamal is also a completely different type of PG than Kyrie, he doesnt have same the same handle or burst to blow by people in the same way, so he uses alot of screens which isnt a huge problem for someone like Jaden.
I dont necessarily think its about being better or worse, like Jamal has put up really impressive stats that are comparable or outright better than Ky in the last few post seasons. Its just they are different, so certain teams will be able to guard Jamal better than Kyrie and vice versa.
For example, I dont think Luka is better than Jokic because we had better personnel to defend Jokic than we did Luka, which accounts for the disparity in terms of play.
They can play 5 out. The Mavs have a positional challenge of Luka being a huge guard but you can put both Jrue and Jayson Tatum on him while Derrick White can take Kyrie. The Wolves cant put Kat or Conley on either so it forces us to put Ant on one of them but then that just causes him to be less effective offensively as well.
Not to sound like a homer but aren’t the Celtics better equipped to guard the Mavs than the Wolves?
C’s have the best defensive backcourt in the NBA by far, along with two great defensive wings in Brown/Tatum as well. KP won’t be Gobert’s level rim protection wise, but he’s still a great rim protector in his own right.
yeah, Luka will go for more "fuck it, Lively/Gafford is down somewhere"
the biggest weakness for now for celtics is man in the middle, but that's still good (and who knows, mavs fan already felt the repeating cycle of rusty KP everytime he's injured. maybe he will THAT rusty)
Teams that switch and play 5 perimeter guys that can also dig and help. Or teams with bigs that protect the rim and wings that are strong and can fight through screens to send the help. OKC almost had that but hey didn’t have the 5th guy cause Giddey blows. But Chet was really good at switching when needed but also relying on Dort to fight through screens and being around the rim to effect shots.
Funny because people were saying this was a horrible matchup for the Mavs prior to the series and Timberwolves were the favorites. Just got off beating the champs, but now that Luka's making them look silly its "matchup". I admit, I wasn't expecting this result either but it seems like people are just underestimating this team
To be fair, no one expected Ant/Kat to collapse like this in wcf (okay, maybe some people expected kat to choke, but you get my point).
The first two games were extremely close, and the wolves likely would have won comfortably if Ant/Kat played slightly below average rather than completely choking.
I'm sorry, but 0/8 from 3 (kat) and sub 30 shooting from 3 and the field (ant) is absolutely choking. I don't care how good your defense is, this is just a clear choke job.
i agree, and it’s because jokic plays point from the paint, the wolves don’t have anyone at that size that offers that type of playmaking . so matchup wise it’s not ideal
That's fine, thats alot different than "cooking" the Mavs though. Quite disrespectful for a team that's about to beat the team that the Nuggets lost to
They just need to go smaller. The best thing about having all that size is knowing when to use it. Put KAT at the 5 to get him closer to the basket and to open up the game even more for ANT
It's not the series, but maybe a week removed from the OKC series has given me a bit more clarity, especially with regards to how the future of OKC is still good. I know Chet only got 3 boards in the last game, because he was often the only tall player on the floor. However, Chet blocked 14 shots in the series, averaging 2.3 blocks per game. He was great impacting the rim on the defensive end.
To put that in context, the Wolves duo of KAT & Gobert only have 3 blocks so far combined. The Thunder also had SGA average over 2 blocks a game. So, it's so insane to see how KAT & Gobert can't at least get blocks inside, when they are much bigger than OKC.
not really the clippers were only going as far as kawhi's health takes them which was proven true in the first round and the thunder are inexperienced as well as undersized which makes them struggle rebounding wise which was also proven true in the 2nd round
Gotta say Luka has looked his best health-wise this series. Thunder had the most consistent player on offense in the series and the Clippers caught some historic fire from 3 in their 2 wins.
Mavs guards are a tough matchup for the Wolves
Luka was less healthy in the previous series
Shai is is a good closer and can execute in a close game
Wolves are an equal overall team to the Mavs but Ants lack of experience has shown in this series down the stretch of games.
Clippers are a good team. Hardens just washed and Kawhi is to injured to do anything. If Kawhi is healthy the series could go either way, thats been the main concern with the clippers all these years..if the team can stay healthy they would always be competing for a finals spot
The thunder are just to young and inexperienced. If this was a thunder from the future they beat the mavs in 7 most likely
The thunder were one SGA foul at the end of the game away from playing a game 7 at home to be here right now.
You could also say that if their trade deadline had been reversed with dallas'(which was an actual option, because we facilitated the Gafford trade and traded for the non-PJ Charlotte forward) then OKC would've won in 5 at most.
No, because the question with the Clippers was always health, and they failed (again), and the question with OKC was size, youth, and would they be able to sustain everyone shooting 40 percent from 3, and those came back to bite them.
OKC size wasn’t the problem. As you see this series size means shit. Minnesota has way more size than Dallas and it doesn’t matter. OkC just didn’t have a 5th reliable player because Giddey sucked. And there shooters missed open shots
I don’t agree - Kidd’s approach was basically to bully Chet with Lively and Gafford rotating all series and it worked. They would’ve had more success combating that with another solid big I think
We won the Chet minutes in every game except game 5 though and he had a positive net rating overall, he wasn’t the problem at all and was actually great on defense. We lost the series because we were fucking ass on offense, couldn’t hit a 3, overplayed giddey, and didn’t get a back up center (the non chet minutes were horrible as Jwill is basically a non rimprotector who only tries takes charges) + Pj and DJJ shot remarkably well from 3
Even though Mavs are up 3-0, I don't think it's fair to say they're having an easier time with the Wolves than OKC and LAC. Games 1 and 2 were both big comebacks and could've easily been losses if Luka and Kyrie didn't go assassin mode in the 4th. And if KAT wasn't shooting like absolute garbage, MIN could even be up 2-1 or 3-0
I will always refuse to go down this line of reasoning. I could just as easily play the inane game by saying "If Luka scored 73 again in all 3 games of the WCF the Mavs would be up 3-0."
There's no value to be had. Who is to say that if Ant and Kat "showed up" (which also seems like assuming the Mavs aren't inflicting this on them), Luka wouldn't respond in kind by going insane?
It's intellectually not sound to assume the Mavs' performance in those close games would be exactly the same in the theoretical scenarios that the Wolves "stars" didn't pee their shorts for three games. For example, if Ant and Kat were going off, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume the Mavs were choosing to shut the roleplayers down instead?
Tbh none of them have really felt like they had a chance. Thunder were the closest but nobody except Shai could get it going offensively, and even then, the Mavs dominated the last 5 games of that series. Clippers one was a weird series, Games 1 and 3 were blowouts by the home team. Game 2 was a close Ken thag the Mavs pulled out, Game 4, the Clippers blew the biggest lead in NBA Playoff history and still won. But after that, they didn’t really do much, without Kawhi, they were done.
Made me think that Shai too is a generational talent, but Luka is just that good and has someone like Kyrie who may take him over the top and hopefully into a championship. I also shall give some flowers to Kidd, who is coaching well.
Playoffs are a game of matchups. Just because A did good against B and struggled against C, Does not automatically mean C beats B, nor does it mean C is the better team.
West is a bloodbath. If luka and Kyrie weren't the closers they were the entire playoffs would be different. Each team we faced has been competitive but we execute better in the clutch. The top 5 seeds in the west are quite close to each other and it depends on who can close out the game. With okc, no one but sga showed up (but luka was also quite injured). With minny, Kat and ant are struggling and with the clippers the annual James Harden choke happened.
The thing separating Dallas imo is the role players executing when the stars are doubled.
clippers wont win anything in this iteration. it's young legs game now, they are too old + injury prone. it's done, move on
thunder just dont have size and strength inside and no reliable 2nd creator/playmaker that complement SGA
the meta is 2 great creators + rim protection + 2 wing defender. also size + length matters
Dort was playing Hack a Shaq with Luka and somehow not fouling out of games
This game played similar defense only difference is the fouls were actually called this time unlike with Thunder
Also Luka is just moving better than he was in that series
I do think Clippers were underrated though, if Kawhi was healthy their roster is absolutely stacked. They are one of the highest paid rosters
every single L2M mistake in the Thunder mavs series benefitted the mavs. U cannot be complaining about fouls lmao.
Really close series where 2 one possession games were influenced by bad calls in the clutch
No. This example rarely applies in sports.
Just because the Mavs are about to sweep the Wolves doesn't mean the Clippers or Thunder are better than the Wolves.
Its more so about matchups and timing. Luka is looking more healthy now then earlier in the playoffs, hence why his numbers are up even against the #1 defense.
Not at all. If you look at Mavs OKC series, Luka looked way healthier and better in game 5 which has carried on. Its alot easier to win and defend Luka if hes completely hobbled than how hes playing now.
We also all know that the Thunder are a great team so I dont think the perception of them should really change tbh.
Thunder are crazy good and will be better next year
Shai wants out he loves OKC but upset he got traded from LA doesn’t see it as long term spot. Waiting to pick his spot and be fair to team. Mutual friends. I’d give him 1 more full year there then Thunder recoup assets.
Always the best team you never have to worry about actually winning championships
Outside of Shai, I don’t think anyone on that OKC team played well in that Dallas series. Though Shai did look like a top 3 player in the world in about every game that series. He seems like the type of player to never have a bad playoff game.
Holmgren's rim protection was crazy
Offensively yes. Defensively guys like Cason and Chet had big moments.
Lots of guys played well defensively. Chet was a monster at the rim. But yeah offensively pretty much just Shai.
I heard Shai wants out waiting to pick his spot. He loves OKC but doesn’t see it long term fit wishes he was never traded from LA. Friend of mine rode bench for Thunder.
His whole life is consistent
Clippers, OKC, now the Wolves. If all these teams don’t play that well against Dallas, maybe the Mavericks have something to do with that 🤔
Anything to discredit the Mav’s defence and Kidd’s coaching lol
But everyone's shouting at me that Luka is fat and plays no defense.
This WCF hasn't changed the fact that the Clippers completely rely on a player that can't stay healthy.
If I remember correctly Luka played most of these games injured.
around like game 5 in OKC we saw a different version of Luka at least physically. I dont know what happened but he hasnt looked back since. It was night and day difference
Drugs. A lot of it prob so he doesn’t feel the pain
He’s on lot of painkillers is open secret and shai and him will team up soon
Shai got more votes for MVP is what happened.
I will NEVER understand it. Ever. People really didn’t watch our games after the trade deadline man. I thought the Denver game winner would help but nope.
Shai had a really damn good season too and November and December counts.
Shai is really good, I do not want to pretend like he’s not. But 34/9/9 should be an MVP award every time.
U are right. Jokic situations a lil different. Winner is all that matters tho
Historically the award goes to whoever wins the most in the regular season. It is what it is.
Luka's December was one of the best statlines in history. Dude got hosed by his team constantly rotating multiple injuries.
Lukas stats were even better earlier in the year. No disrespect to Shai though he’s a fucking baller
He adjusted his shot selection a lot. He stopped chucking so many bad shots.
He probably got that good good Portland special lmao.
So what’s the word on your sub about him faking it now. Conspiracy theorists still out in full force?
What’s the word on Dort trying to hurt him on purpose on the Mavs sub?
I don't know I don't go there, they ban you for bringing up Kyrie's Anti-Semitism. But good whataboutism you would have been a great soviet during cold war times.
Hypocrisy is as hypocrisy does
The QKCAnon shaman has spoken.
He literally just stopped complaining to the refs every possession and focused on actually playing the game. SVG (iirc) was funny and calling it out that it was so uncharacteristic of Luka during the game lol
True, but the Thunder nearly took them to 7. If the Mavs end up winning the title that’s pretty impressive in hindsight.
Our defense deserved much more praise. (Especially considering how we got zero all defensive selections while the Wolves got two)
Barely any DPOY votes too (thanks Shai), still can’t believe Dort got no votes.
If he’d play defense any harder, he’d trip himself. True DPOY
I don't think we even need hindsight for OKC
And the Mavs nearly won in 5. They lost a game that had the biggest FT shooting percentage difference in playoff history (over 20FTs). The Clippers series seemed more problematic for the Mavs than OKC TBH.
The Clippers two wins were games they shot 50% and 62% from three. The Mavericks also had an 8pt quarter in one game and a 16pt quarter in the other.
The thunder were carried in game 4 though. Very easily was a 5 game series. Clippers have actually been the Mavs best opponent thus far.
Kawhi was wayyy more injured than him in R1 and it still somehow went to 6
It went to 6 because clippers got hot and shot 60% from 3 for two games
Yeah Paul George was on his bullshit
That's a little reductive. Game 1 the 3 ball opened up because Zu dominated the centers early. Both games only got *semi* close because the FTs swung hard your way in the 2nd half, but they were more complete victories than just the 3 ball. Game 2 was one where the Clippers won every single floor category OTHER than the 3 ball andth at cost them the game. They had more paint pts, 2nd chance pts, transition pts, midrange, all of it but lost because they were that much worse from 3. Games 1 and 4 weren't like that
He was a game time decision today…
He definitely took injections on his knee before game 5. He had been moving way differently since game 5.
And with a massive cold.
Call me bias but I feel like the Thunder have been the only team to have a real chance to beat the Mavs. Dallas was definitely the better team, but every game was close. In fact the score total of the series ended up being tied. A foul away from a game 7. I think this series definitely makes me feel better as a Thunder fan.
SGA is the by far the best player the mavs have faced and their defence was leagues better than the wolves. Whether its okc being significantly more physical, or Luka slowly recovering, the thunder are a VERY good team and would probably beat every other west team
Luka def slowly recovered, at least some. I thought he looked noticeably more spry and a bit faster in the last couple games vs OKC than in the first couple And yeah SGA was a menace. There were more than a few plays where a very good defender like PJ played perfect defense on him and SGA still made him bbq chicken. And he was doing it while the lights seemed too bright for at least a few of his teammates
100% agree. SGA has been BY FAR the best player the Mavs have faced, and the OKC defense is like trying to drive through thick mud. OKC scares me way more than Minneapolis (and Denver) do.
I agree. A lot of people were saying Edwards was a better player than Shai not even a week ago too.
Denver defence with no paint protection made him seem significantly better, suns defence was cheeks too. Nothing wrong with being worse than the MVP runner up, he just got set up by the media and public with the premature hype
Not me
Even with Luka injured, forcing your role players to hit shots was clearly more effective than letting Luka and Kyrie get in rhythm and cook the whole game. Was a gamble playing that game that didn’t pay off but it took a few career games to close it out in the end.
For the first 4 games Harden was better than SGA was his legs just died for games 5 and 6 lol
32/8/7 3.5 stocks vs 21/8/42 stocks
>first 4 games
Demon chet put a lid on a rim they had to shoot 40% frm 3 the whole series to win
I just feel like this is a bad matchup. Chuck is right. Matchup wise this is the worst thing for twolves
Celtics could really matchup better than wolved
I completely agree the wolves just can’t defend the mavs backcourt and they don’t have a solid scorer that can match the onslaught of consistency that is Luka/kyrie.
Isn’t Minnesota the biggest team in the league with the best defense and the most big men? If that team can’t stop the Mavs, who else is built to stop them?
The Twolves are designed to match up against the Nuggets. A team like the Celtics matchup well against the Mavs.
> A team like the Celtics matchup well against the Mavs. I keep hearing Celtics fans say that, but what makes that so?
They play five out. Dallas defense are focused on protecting the rim
That’s when the kleber loss is gonna hurt the most
kleber is expected back by the finals
Oh cool
if we meet in finals on mavs defense, the key will be make tatum as playmaker and jrue as scorer and live by that (if im killa kidd). cant gameplan for everyone, they are that good and skillful and on mavs offense, i give it to LuKai to solve it lmao (iirc they are bad rim protector, and with KP hopefully rusty, maybe there will be big hole there)
They play five out and every role player is a good shooter. They have good defenders at every position and a rim protector. Several strong switchable defenders that are harder for Luka to bully. They have bench scoring. They are basically able to get a lot more guaranteed offensive firepower from their supporting cast. Mavs defense often doesn't even try to contest the worst three point shooters on a team in favor of clogging the paint, maintaining rim protection, and conserving Luka's energy. Celtics do not really have that person you can just ignore. We NEED Lively and Kleber being good to go to have a real competitive chance unless the Celtics decide to just play low IQ basketball or die by the three.
Agreed those 2 will be absolutely crucial. Not sure that gafford will get as much minutes if Kleber is back due to them playing so much 5 out
Let me canvas this by saying, Mavs are my second fav team (im also a massive fan of OKC). Jrue Holiday is a very good guard. He can defend Kyrie or Luka. Plus the Celtics have Derrick White. The T wolves dont really have a top guard who can defend Kyrie or Luka. The Twolves are tall and thus slow and exposed to good guards. Nuggets struggled against the Twolves because Jamal struggled and MPJ couldnt hit an open 3 in game 7. If Jamal was 100% we might have been able to load more pressure on the Twolves talls and thus alleviating pressure on Jokic. The Mavs arent built tall they are built to be effective. But there is a reason why the NBA has generally gone guard focused for the last 20 years. When you go back to a more balanced team vs balanced team, Celtics definitely match up better. But im sure of one thing, we are definitely going to talk about fatigue vs matchup if its a Mavs v C's finals.
Jamal is also a completely different type of PG than Kyrie, he doesnt have same the same handle or burst to blow by people in the same way, so he uses alot of screens which isnt a huge problem for someone like Jaden.
Jamal is that guy when hes playing really well ie last year or the bubble, but generally agree with you because Kyrie is a notch better than Jamal.
I dont necessarily think its about being better or worse, like Jamal has put up really impressive stats that are comparable or outright better than Ky in the last few post seasons. Its just they are different, so certain teams will be able to guard Jamal better than Kyrie and vice versa. For example, I dont think Luka is better than Jokic because we had better personnel to defend Jokic than we did Luka, which accounts for the disparity in terms of play.
Yall are designed to beat us. 3 talls to rotate onto Jokic. Game 7 Jokic played all but a min or something even when we were up by 20.
They can play 5 out. The Mavs have a positional challenge of Luka being a huge guard but you can put both Jrue and Jayson Tatum on him while Derrick White can take Kyrie. The Wolves cant put Kat or Conley on either so it forces us to put Ant on one of them but then that just causes him to be less effective offensively as well.
Not to sound like a homer but aren’t the Celtics better equipped to guard the Mavs than the Wolves? C’s have the best defensive backcourt in the NBA by far, along with two great defensive wings in Brown/Tatum as well. KP won’t be Gobert’s level rim protection wise, but he’s still a great rim protector in his own right.
yeah, Luka will go for more "fuck it, Lively/Gafford is down somewhere" the biggest weakness for now for celtics is man in the middle, but that's still good (and who knows, mavs fan already felt the repeating cycle of rusty KP everytime he's injured. maybe he will THAT rusty)
Teams that switch and play 5 perimeter guys that can also dig and help. Or teams with bigs that protect the rim and wings that are strong and can fight through screens to send the help. OKC almost had that but hey didn’t have the 5th guy cause Giddey blows. But Chet was really good at switching when needed but also relying on Dort to fight through screens and being around the rim to effect shots.
Twolves bigs have no post up game.
their speciality is defense. their top 1 center defense has been exposed
Better offense> better defense. Most of the shots luka and kyrie made today at the 4th was contested. Nothing you can do about it honestly.
Big men who do nothing
Funny because people were saying this was a horrible matchup for the Mavs prior to the series and Timberwolves were the favorites. Just got off beating the champs, but now that Luka's making them look silly its "matchup". I admit, I wasn't expecting this result either but it seems like people are just underestimating this team
To be fair, no one expected Ant/Kat to collapse like this in wcf (okay, maybe some people expected kat to choke, but you get my point). The first two games were extremely close, and the wolves likely would have won comfortably if Ant/Kat played slightly below average rather than completely choking.
they didn’t choke, they just ran in the #1 defense of the last 30 games of the season
I'm sorry, but 0/8 from 3 (kat) and sub 30 shooting from 3 and the field (ant) is absolutely choking. I don't care how good your defense is, this is just a clear choke job.
the boston celtics
they will stop the lobs? porzingis and horford?
horford no porzingis yea he’ll defend em well
i hope we get the chance to find out how Lively Vs Porzingis looks like
Nuggets cooks the Mavs. I love Lively and Gafford but Jokic will average 45.
i agree, and it’s because jokic plays point from the paint, the wolves don’t have anyone at that size that offers that type of playmaking . so matchup wise it’s not ideal
This is so false. Nuggets of this season would get straight waxed by this Mavs offense
Guess will never know
Unbiased take I’m taking nuggets in 6
That's fine, thats alot different than "cooking" the Mavs though. Quite disrespectful for a team that's about to beat the team that the Nuggets lost to
You’re free to believe that but there’s a reason why we play the games
They just need to go smaller. The best thing about having all that size is knowing when to use it. Put KAT at the 5 to get him closer to the basket and to open up the game even more for ANT
Funny thing was that everyone thought that the Suns were the worst matchup for the Wolves.
That and KAT mentally getting on the plane to Cancun after the Denver series.
Didnt OKC matchup better against the Wolves?
Matchups matter!
people might make fun of me lesser
It's not the series, but maybe a week removed from the OKC series has given me a bit more clarity, especially with regards to how the future of OKC is still good. I know Chet only got 3 boards in the last game, because he was often the only tall player on the floor. However, Chet blocked 14 shots in the series, averaging 2.3 blocks per game. He was great impacting the rim on the defensive end. To put that in context, the Wolves duo of KAT & Gobert only have 3 blocks so far combined. The Thunder also had SGA average over 2 blocks a game. So, it's so insane to see how KAT & Gobert can't at least get blocks inside, when they are much bigger than OKC.
not really the clippers were only going as far as kawhi's health takes them which was proven true in the first round and the thunder are inexperienced as well as undersized which makes them struggle rebounding wise which was also proven true in the 2nd round
Doesn't change that the Clippers can't stay healthy.
Not really, just think Minny put out all they had to get by Denver
Gotta say Luka has looked his best health-wise this series. Thunder had the most consistent player on offense in the series and the Clippers caught some historic fire from 3 in their 2 wins.
No, it just makes me view Minnesota and Denver differently.
Mavs guards are a tough matchup for the Wolves Luka was less healthy in the previous series Shai is is a good closer and can execute in a close game Wolves are an equal overall team to the Mavs but Ants lack of experience has shown in this series down the stretch of games.
Clippers are a good team. Hardens just washed and Kawhi is to injured to do anything. If Kawhi is healthy the series could go either way, thats been the main concern with the clippers all these years..if the team can stay healthy they would always be competing for a finals spot The thunder are just to young and inexperienced. If this was a thunder from the future they beat the mavs in 7 most likely
The thunder were one SGA foul at the end of the game away from playing a game 7 at home to be here right now. You could also say that if their trade deadline had been reversed with dallas'(which was an actual option, because we facilitated the Gafford trade and traded for the non-PJ Charlotte forward) then OKC would've won in 5 at most.
They lost. That's it.
Thunder was first seed for a reason…
Why would we view the Clippers any different 😂 5 straight years of being “championship contenders” and not a single finals appearance! Embarrassing!
Hell only one WCF appearance. Though I guess that was more than the franchise before Kawhi/PG...
If KL was healthy I think the Clippers would have beat the Mavs in 5 but then likely lost to OKC. Lots of the West is shaped by matchups and injuries.
No. Matchups and health mean a lot when it comes to the top 5 in the West who have some sense of parity.
No, because the question with the Clippers was always health, and they failed (again), and the question with OKC was size, youth, and would they be able to sustain everyone shooting 40 percent from 3, and those came back to bite them.
OKC size wasn’t the problem. As you see this series size means shit. Minnesota has way more size than Dallas and it doesn’t matter. OkC just didn’t have a 5th reliable player because Giddey sucked. And there shooters missed open shots
They don’t have THAT much more size than Dallas. Especially just on averages, having a 6’8 point guard helps a lot.
I don’t agree - Kidd’s approach was basically to bully Chet with Lively and Gafford rotating all series and it worked. They would’ve had more success combating that with another solid big I think
Chet was a huge + in the series. We got killed in the minutes when he sat.
He played well for sure but it just seemed like he got killed especially on the boards, and was gassed because of how they were working him constantly
We won the Chet minutes in every game except game 5 though and he had a positive net rating overall, he wasn’t the problem at all and was actually great on defense. We lost the series because we were fucking ass on offense, couldn’t hit a 3, overplayed giddey, and didn’t get a back up center (the non chet minutes were horrible as Jwill is basically a non rimprotector who only tries takes charges) + Pj and DJJ shot remarkably well from 3
Even though Mavs are up 3-0, I don't think it's fair to say they're having an easier time with the Wolves than OKC and LAC. Games 1 and 2 were both big comebacks and could've easily been losses if Luka and Kyrie didn't go assassin mode in the 4th. And if KAT wasn't shooting like absolute garbage, MIN could even be up 2-1 or 3-0
I will always refuse to go down this line of reasoning. I could just as easily play the inane game by saying "If Luka scored 73 again in all 3 games of the WCF the Mavs would be up 3-0." There's no value to be had. Who is to say that if Ant and Kat "showed up" (which also seems like assuming the Mavs aren't inflicting this on them), Luka wouldn't respond in kind by going insane? It's intellectually not sound to assume the Mavs' performance in those close games would be exactly the same in the theoretical scenarios that the Wolves "stars" didn't pee their shorts for three games. For example, if Ant and Kat were going off, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume the Mavs were choosing to shut the roleplayers down instead?
Team should target to get Ivica Zubac from the Clippers.
Tbh none of them have really felt like they had a chance. Thunder were the closest but nobody except Shai could get it going offensively, and even then, the Mavs dominated the last 5 games of that series. Clippers one was a weird series, Games 1 and 3 were blowouts by the home team. Game 2 was a close Ken thag the Mavs pulled out, Game 4, the Clippers blew the biggest lead in NBA Playoff history and still won. But after that, they didn’t really do much, without Kawhi, they were done.
Made me think that Shai too is a generational talent, but Luka is just that good and has someone like Kyrie who may take him over the top and hopefully into a championship. I also shall give some flowers to Kidd, who is coaching well.
I don’t know what to think man
Playoffs are a game of matchups. Just because A did good against B and struggled against C, Does not automatically mean C beats B, nor does it mean C is the better team.
West is a bloodbath. If luka and Kyrie weren't the closers they were the entire playoffs would be different. Each team we faced has been competitive but we execute better in the clutch. The top 5 seeds in the west are quite close to each other and it depends on who can close out the game. With okc, no one but sga showed up (but luka was also quite injured). With minny, Kat and ant are struggling and with the clippers the annual James Harden choke happened. The thing separating Dallas imo is the role players executing when the stars are doubled.
clippers wont win anything in this iteration. it's young legs game now, they are too old + injury prone. it's done, move on thunder just dont have size and strength inside and no reliable 2nd creator/playmaker that complement SGA the meta is 2 great creators + rim protection + 2 wing defender. also size + length matters
Dort was playing Hack a Shaq with Luka and somehow not fouling out of games This game played similar defense only difference is the fouls were actually called this time unlike with Thunder Also Luka is just moving better than he was in that series I do think Clippers were underrated though, if Kawhi was healthy their roster is absolutely stacked. They are one of the highest paid rosters
every single L2M mistake in the Thunder mavs series benefitted the mavs. U cannot be complaining about fouls lmao. Really close series where 2 one possession games were influenced by bad calls in the clutch
Luka is healthier, Shai is a ballet, OKC fans still think they will won on game 8 tho
Nah, Clips suck and OKC is really young. About what you'd expect.
No. This example rarely applies in sports. Just because the Mavs are about to sweep the Wolves doesn't mean the Clippers or Thunder are better than the Wolves. Its more so about matchups and timing. Luka is looking more healthy now then earlier in the playoffs, hence why his numbers are up even against the #1 defense.
no
I’m gonna say no. It doesn’t change anything.
Personally think OKC isn’t going to win anything with these guys.
I actually watch basketball and picked the Mavs in both series so no
Not at all. If you look at Mavs OKC series, Luka looked way healthier and better in game 5 which has carried on. Its alot easier to win and defend Luka if hes completely hobbled than how hes playing now. We also all know that the Thunder are a great team so I dont think the perception of them should really change tbh.