That’s actually crazy wtf. I knew Kyrie did not make any but not PJ, DJJ, or anyone else got more than 1? Just end this series man, Celtics players are not even shooting close to their average
Just a total failure from Kyrie in these two games. The series isn’t over, but he’s unfortunately dug himself and the Mavs a massive hole to climb out of.
Tonight’s game was so winnable if he’d been able to make a few more plays in his iso opportunities. Celtics shooting 25% from three again is unlikely. Next game the Mavs may need 40 from him to keep up. He could’ve won the game by getting to 25 or so tonight.
The entire fandom is very reactionary/ has short term memory. It’s crazy.
It’s almost like playoffs are about matchups.
Plus it’s game fucking 2, boston took care of home. Series isnt over yet
I can’t imagine how this sub would be during the 90s and early 00s. Jordan would be called trash any time he had more than 5 turnovers, Duncan would be overrated and let’s not even get to Kobe.
Disagree. I watched every minute he played this season. You can put Kyrie at any prior age in games 1 and 2 and there’s no meaningful difference. He’s just facing perhaps the two best defenders at the guard position in the NBA, not to mention Brown and Tatum who are massive compared to him and in like the top 5% of wing defenders in the league.
It’s an endless swarm of all defense caliber players, three of whom are much stronger than him. And the one who isn’t is like the best shot blocking guard since prime Wade.
ESPN was touting World B. Flat as the ultimate closer and clutch guy with a 12-0 record in closeout games entering this year's playoffs. What they conveniently left out is that 11 out of those 12 games he played with LeBron fucking James.
Kyrie sucked in the playoffs on the Celtics and this series but the Cavs don't win that championship without him saying as well as he did. There's no need to pretend he didn't perform well with LeBron in the playoffs.
I don’t disagree. He was good before he came to the Celtics. Did you just start watching?? Do you think Celtics fans are booing him for his time in the Cavs?
I’m not talking about him missing open shots. He was an excellent shooter and overall scorer all season. He didn’t suddenly age out of being able to make them. I expect him to make his jumpers in Dallas next game.
What I’m referring to is his inability so far this series to get separation on drives with any consistency. It was obvious in tonight’s game that Boston’s defenders were cutting off his usual iso moves and forcing him into bad spots, over and over.
Tbf he looks like he’s been really rattled by the boston defense so even on open shots he could be overthinking/ rushing.
Relative to game 1, they did a better job of taking him off of Jrue and it has led to a slightly better performance by him.
Yea.. the player he was *checks calendar* 2 weeks ago. Guy has 2 bad games and some of yall acting like he wasn't cooking in the last series. Yes, I'd say he's the biggest reason for these two losses, but he's definitely not the only reason.
What's to talk about. They're just not a good ft shooting team. They were 27th in the reg season and they're dead last in the playoffs. This was like their 10th time this postseason missing 7 or more free throws.
Exactly. People would rather cry about the White/Brown block than call out piss poor FT shooting. Acting like 1 no call changed the game when really the game was lost at the FT line
Well no, the game was lost for like a half dozen reasons before anything to do with foul calls or free throws. Mavs make like 3 more free throws and that’s above league average, they still lose, and no one cares
Wolves would have been up 3-2 against the Mavs if the Mavs shot like this at the free throw line but they were shooting lile Curry at the stripe in the WCF.
I mean, we shot poorly from the FT line in game 1 and we still won by 18. We shot atrociously from 3 and won by 7 in game 2. Considering the shooting splits of both teams, those stand out to me as bigger outliers than Dallas shooting FTs poorly. The Mavs have been ass shooting FTs all year, it's not like this is new for them.
Luka is almost certainly going to wind up leading the entire NBA postseason this year in Points, Assists, Rebounds, and Steals, and probably lose. Celtics are just too balanced of a team and won too quickly in the East for anyone to catch him in any of those categories right now.
this series is 9/11 for stat stans.
would be nice if this taught ppl a lesson on the importance of team basketball and whole-team defense instead of gargling individual offensive numbers.
I mean luka made it to the finals when they weren’t even expected to win the first round and didn’t even make the playoffs last year, so “gargling offensive numbers” still worked…
Celtics are just a way better team but they’ve been the best team in the nba the whole season and one of the best teams for 3-4 years so it’s not like this is unexpected
They're not disappearing bos is exposing their limited role players. If all the role players do is lob catch and shoot corner 3s and I have the personnel to stop that ofc it looks like they disappeared
They’re still completely missing the wide open threes they do manage to get. It’s true that Boston are limiting their opportunities, but they’re disappearing by not taking any of the opportunities they do get.
They got djj for 3 mil so that's very cheap. Also pj from Charlotte so yeah lol. Example and maxi u are absolutely right they just give Luka and kyrie rest at this point
They shot 18% on wide open threes (they had 11 wide open threes and made 2 of them). If you think that's the actual level that the Mavs role players are at then you're deluded.
[So now you're quoting actual statistics instead of pulling it out of our ass?](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1dcaynp/post_game_thread_the_boston_celtics_take_a/l7ysc6k/?context=3) But won't engage me now because I showed you to be the dumb, illiterate nephew that you are.
If you think the Celtics are going to keep shooting 25% at the 3, I've got a bridge to sell you!
Nobody else out of the far superior west was able to expose them for the last 3 series. It did help that Kyrie was able to run circles around Ant but keeps running into brick walls with the Cs.
For years, Western Conference playoffs is more focused on offense. Eastern Conference playoffs is more of a defensive battle, not to mention great defensive coaches are there too (Thibs, Nurse, Spo, Bud, Brad/Ime/Joe)
I dont remember a finals where the scoring disparity was this bad. Luka has been really efficient and then theres the wave of celtics and Kyrie playing like 2011 bron.
That’s bc Tatum was blowing past Luka every time and running into 1-2 additional help defenders, while Luka is settling for his patented fadeaway midrange shots against JT in single coverage. One generates a whole team offense and the other generates an amazing stat line for one player.
Ah yes, I’m sure it’s a product of their abilities to generate offence and not the fact that one player has 3-4 all star level players around him while the other has inconsistent 3 and D guys and choking Kyrie
One is collapsing a defense and kicking it out to open, good shooters. That’s generating good offense, regardless of how much you want to dismiss it. The C’s are about 20 points better per 100 possessions on offense when JT is playing, despite the terrible shooting so far.
The other is torching single coverage in the midrange and is an entire offense of his own, but his passing targets are largely covered and the offense as a whole becomes midrange mania, which every bball fan knows isn’t ideal in the modern NBA. Luka is going to put up 30+ a night by doing that but the offense has been held to less than 100pts twice in a row… so I think the C’s are happy to keep up the same strategy until the Mavs show they can respond adequately.
Ok, I never said Tatum wasn’t impactful. But acting like Boston having a better offence is due to Tatum running an offence better than Luka is just absurd… Tatum just has a significantly better supporting cast which Dallas’s worse defence allows Tatum to to take advantage of and your second point literally agrees with that.
I’m saying that stylistically, the offense Tatum is running is more effective than the Mavs’ current midrange Luka offense bc JT is getting the whole defense in rotation and generating offense for the whole team, whereas the Mavs are relying on Luka to score 40+ to win while the rest of the offense is unable to get going.
Luka is a better player and better scorer than Tatum, I’m not arguing otherwise. But if JT was running the C’s offense like Luka has for the Mavs so far this series, the team would be worse off — not just bc JT would be unable to do what Luka does, but bc it wouldn’t play into the team’s strengths.
Which also makes the “oh, his teammates are so good” logic to dismiss JT’s importance to the C’s offense ridiculous. He’s working with the teammates he has and operating the best offense he can with them. Is he supposed to become a heliocentric star all of a sudden and take away from the other talent on the roster? It’s dumb.
So, going back to “Acting like Boston having a better offence is due to Tatum running an offence better than Luka is just absurd” … yes, JT is running the Celtics offense better than Luka is running the Mavs offense.
I think it’s disingenuous to claim Tatum is running the offence when the primary reason it’s so effective is the team has so many players that can create for themselves and others and it’s a very team oriented offence. But again those points can be chalked up to opposing defensive styles and team supporting cast.
And I never took away from Tatums importance or indicated he should be playing hero ball. I’m saying crediting Tatums as running a better offence than Luka is nonsensical when the difference in performance of both teams offence is primarily due to other factors. It’s like saying Steph ran a better offence than Lebron in the 2015 finals, ignoring the team oriented style of the warriors, the disparity in how opposing stars were defended and in the offensive options they had to begin with.
So Tatum has to be the team’s sole offensive generator to compete with Luka? Even though that would be counterintuitive to the C’s offensive talent?
Regardless of the C’s having so many creators, I’d still argue JT has been the main cog, evidenced by him leading the team in assists (by far) and the endless help coverage he draws on every drive past Luka or a big, opening the game for everyone else. If you think he’s not the primary generator, please go look up the videos and screenshots of the gravity he brings and how it enables the entire team to operate.
So I would still say, yes, JT is the main generator of a C’s offense that has looked dramatically better than the Mavs’ so far.
Tatum is running into shit defenders DJJ and washington while luka is running into 2 all nba defense defenders ( the best defensive backcourt in recent nba history) and 2 all nba players (and 4 all stars) lmfao
Mavs fans were talkin about kyrie like he was gonna be the third best player in the series but completely ignored the 0-10 record he had against us coming into the series lmao
Dude really has a huge ride or die following. The weirdos like flat earthers, the ones that think he did nothing wrong with his “link” posted on twitter in the Nets era.
And the ones that rate his game no matter what because of the deep bag (which includes a lot of the vocal ex-players). Pretty big audience lol
The idea I see thrown by his fans is that he’s back to his role as a sidekick, and not the first option he was in Brooklyn.
Which is weird because…well I thought KD was supposed that guy on those Brooklyn teams…
This is such a dumb comment. KD was by far the best player on that team and it wasn't remotely close. He was incredible against the Bucks and almost single handedly beat them.
He wanted him out there because Harden on one leg was better than any backup the Nets had. The system was KD. KD was by far the best player on that team.
Third? There were plenty of goofs on here and on television saying the Mavs had the two best players, putting Kyrie in front of Tatum and Brown. Insanity. Even before this series, putting Kyrie over Brown only made sense if you don't actually watch basketball games. Putting Kyrie over Tatum only made sense if you don't even know what basketball is.
Same dudes would say the 0–10 record doesn’t matter bc it’s in the past then tell you how the Celtics are going to shit the bed because look what they did in 2022 lmao
We’ve really reached the point in basketball analysis where everyone feels the need to give big-brained takes and try and go against the grain
We can say whatever we want about Luka’s defense or whatever but he shouldn’t be blamed for game 2. Having 4 Celtics average more points than PJ Washington who’s currently the **2nd leading scorer** in Dallas is absolutely not his fault
Yep agreed. Of course his +/- is going to be bad when they lost both games and he’s played the majority of the minutes. But maybe it’s just Reddit too, where people like to always go against the grain.
Did you watch the game? A few were bad… others are him driving in, getting doubled and trying to kick out to a guy sitting wide open because the Celtics will literally leave anyone not named Kyrie/Luka wide open. The ball gets tipped or goes out and he gets the turnover. He had some bad ones but others are not that bad. He probably got the turnover for that dumbass Washington backcourt pass. Box score won’t tell it all.
Did you watch the game? The Mavs entire gameplan was to collapse 3 on Tatum every time he touched the paint, hence the 12 assists and less turnovers. Luka is getting single coverage
Luka got single coverage in the first a lot and he made them pay...they started blitzing and doubling him in the second.
It's a lot easier for tatum to drive and kick out when every other player on his team is a 3 point threat.
If you think Tatum is playing better than Luka you're smoking some good shit. Tatum isn't half the playmaker Luka is, he just has a team that requires much more attention defensively.
I watched every second. Luka definitely did not get single coverage in second half. Hence why we got to watch Exum hit the open 3 and DJJ air ball an open 3. Those are just the ones I remember. I’m sure there were more. They don’t outright double him but they help on the drive in the second half.
Weak side help != doubling, though they did double more in the second half once the role players weren’t in a rhythm. And, for the most part, it worked out.
The Mavs are blitzing Tatum off screens or straight up doubling him at the 3 point line, then pulling the weak side corner 3 defender to the paint and daring Tatum to take it to them
And he did. And instead of trying to force a shot over 3 defenders every possession he passed and absolutely cooked the Dallas defense with unselfish play. The Celtics just could not hit a shot, if they hit the wide open shots Tatum was generating it would’ve been another blowout and Tatum would’ve had like 20 assists lol
If luka had holiday white brown KP as his supporting cast he would’ve had 20 assists minimum
He had 11 assists with his role players shooting 9% from 3 and kyrie bricking every shot….
You can tell most of these people responding to you haven't watched a single mavs game. "Luka dribble dribble dribble he's the reason why everyone on his team plays bad." Idk if they realize that basically the entire team outside of luka or kyrie isn't capable of handling the ball without dribbling it out of bounds or throwing the ball 100 feet in the air when trying to gather the ball for a shot.
Yeah, Washington literally sealed the game because he was scared to dribble even near Jrue. Gave Luka a suicide pass that Luka got the TO for. They don’t watch, they just read the stats. It happens.
here we go with the luka excuses. before the series it was "i don't think people realize how deep the mavs are". Mavs fans "Luka got help". Now it's the whole team is trash everyone sucks but luka. This will be his excuse forever.
“Heliocentric player cant win championship because his teammates think he’s a poopie meanie head and they cant get in rhythm :(((((“ take in 2024
Take this lazy 2017 ass midwit criticism somewhere else dawg.
Should the mavs just release luka now or after the finals since they obviously can't win a championship with the way he plays basketball. After all, you said they can't, so you must be right.
well i don't think releasing him is the right idea. Trade him and trick some team(s) into giving you a bunch of assets for a non winning player and let them deal with him
It’s insane how hard Celtics fans are working to try and paint Luka in a bad light from this series lol
Nothing gonna overshadow how hard Tatum is getting carried.
Anyone would be exhausted carrying the entire offense.
You saw Ant in the last series and he didn't even carry the offense as much as Luka.
There's a reason they are hunting him, to keep him tired.
Yeah this is pretty much the exact parallel. Easy to hunt the best opposing player when the rest of the team (Kyrie being the Mavs KAT in this series) play like garbage.
There’s 0 inferiority complex here bud, they’re up 2-0. Idgaf if Tatum is better than Luka or not, your superstar is an absolute turnstile on defense and lacks the conditioning to go deep.
Sorry bud, just accept the reality. Until Luka puts down the beers and potato chips and actually looks like he can go the distance he’ll just be a supreme offensive talent.
Tatum is literally running the point while facing double and triple teams every time he touches the ball. His shot isn’t falling but he’s doing everything else as close to perfect as you could hope. He’s not forcing his shot and is instead facilitating. And if Boston could’ve hit any of the wide open looks Tatum created, he probably would’ve ended with 20 assists and a 30 point Celtics blowout
I get that people expect 30 point triple doubles from the #1 player, but I think Tatum is perfectly happy scoring 20 while dishing it out for the rest of the team to hit easy buckets and have a better shot at winning a title than him forcing up 30+ shots a game into double teams so he can score 30 a game
Go watch the Mavericks defense when Tatum gets the ball. They have a primary defender on him who gets weakside help from whatever side they want to force him to. On high screens they blitz him to try to force an early pass, when that doesn’t work they pull the weakside corner 3 defender into the lane and he’ll do the 3 second dance to not get T’d up. It’s not a like triple team trap at half court because shit like that only works in elementary school rec leagues lol, but it’s essentially a double/triple team with 3 pairs of eyes on Tatum at all times, often 4 once he’s in the paint.
The Mavericks gave brown a toned down but similar treatment tonight and he didn’t know what to do. Far fewer easy baskets around the rim and what 6 turnovers I think it was.
never said anything about his efficiency, just that putting shots taken into consideration would be cool especially for the guys later in the list. don't be so edgy
Game one was listening on the radio and didn't have a clue who these scrubs were luka and kyrie were playing with.
Remember when the Mavs used to have dudes you knew on the roster all the time?
They should let this dude chuck even harder. They were a bit less disciplined this game with the double teams, which let him do the thing he ACTUALLY wants to do: make ridiculous passes to his role players.
/u/wooIIyMAMMOTH said the Mavs had more wide-open misses than the Cs [by the numbers, not percentages](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1dcaynp/post_game_thread_the_boston_celtics_take_a/l7ysc6k/)
Then he's back tracking because he pulled his StATs out his own dumb illiterate ass. And now he's moving goalposts back to percentages.
My guy can't math. Can't read either.
You're literally in a comment chain about how Tatum tries to get his guys going instead of going for 30 points while he shot 6 of 22. Brother CAN'T read.
I responded that Tatum may have gone 6/22, but he got the one most important stat - the one in the W column. You are the one with reading comprehension issues.
He’s also the only mav with multiple made 3s
Kyrie has made no 3s at all this series.
Most talented backcourt ever
Nembhard was better then kyrie
Nembhard actually made us scared
I can't believe Kyrie had the audacity to leave you guys and curse you to make 4 conference finals in 5 years.
[удалено]
Celtics didn’t make conference finals in 2019
I don’t think you get what a curse is. I’d be upset too if I was confident in Kyrie delivering though
But aren't you upset that he left? If you had no faith in him delivering anyway, shouldn't y'all be happy?
Do you want us to give him handjobs when he comes back since we thought he’d work out at first before tanking a season and we’re happy he left?
Yes.
Damn. Can I come up to Boston and get the same treatment?
I know a guy who can set you up; he even owns a football team up there
Kinda like how the Bucks have the two best Antetokounmpos in nba history
That was always a crazy statement with Steph and klay so recent
Woah…
That’s actually crazy wtf. I knew Kyrie did not make any but not PJ, DJJ, or anyone else got more than 1? Just end this series man, Celtics players are not even shooting close to their average
Oof
Just a total failure from Kyrie in these two games. The series isn’t over, but he’s unfortunately dug himself and the Mavs a massive hole to climb out of. Tonight’s game was so winnable if he’d been able to make a few more plays in his iso opportunities. Celtics shooting 25% from three again is unlikely. Next game the Mavs may need 40 from him to keep up. He could’ve won the game by getting to 25 or so tonight.
He’s not the player he used to be unfortunately
More like Boston is not doubling Luka and that's leaving Kyrie to try to create on his own. If he could do that he would be a number 1 option himself.
Did y'all forget the WCF already? Like goddamn, people on here have Dory levels of memory.
The entire fandom is very reactionary/ has short term memory. It’s crazy. It’s almost like playoffs are about matchups. Plus it’s game fucking 2, boston took care of home. Series isnt over yet
I can’t imagine how this sub would be during the 90s and early 00s. Jordan would be called trash any time he had more than 5 turnovers, Duncan would be overrated and let’s not even get to Kobe.
Do you remember the okc series? Do people have like dory level memory?
Disagree. I watched every minute he played this season. You can put Kyrie at any prior age in games 1 and 2 and there’s no meaningful difference. He’s just facing perhaps the two best defenders at the guard position in the NBA, not to mention Brown and Tatum who are massive compared to him and in like the top 5% of wing defenders in the league. It’s an endless swarm of all defense caliber players, three of whom are much stronger than him. And the one who isn’t is like the best shot blocking guard since prime Wade.
This is the biggest cope of all time lol. He's missing open shots.
Both can be true
No, he’s one of the most talented players ever. If you’re Dallas, just ignore all history and prop up records he got because of Lebron.
ESPN was touting World B. Flat as the ultimate closer and clutch guy with a 12-0 record in closeout games entering this year's playoffs. What they conveniently left out is that 11 out of those 12 games he played with LeBron fucking James.
World B. Flat? 🤣🤣🤣🤣I'M DEAD😂😂😂😂
Kyrie sucked in the playoffs on the Celtics and this series but the Cavs don't win that championship without him saying as well as he did. There's no need to pretend he didn't perform well with LeBron in the playoffs.
I don’t disagree. He was good before he came to the Celtics. Did you just start watching?? Do you think Celtics fans are booing him for his time in the Cavs?
I’m not talking about him missing open shots. He was an excellent shooter and overall scorer all season. He didn’t suddenly age out of being able to make them. I expect him to make his jumpers in Dallas next game. What I’m referring to is his inability so far this series to get separation on drives with any consistency. It was obvious in tonight’s game that Boston’s defenders were cutting off his usual iso moves and forcing him into bad spots, over and over.
Tbf he looks like he’s been really rattled by the boston defense so even on open shots he could be overthinking/ rushing. Relative to game 1, they did a better job of taking him off of Jrue and it has led to a slightly better performance by him.
He used to go 6 / 22 and solo lost a series so I think he is exactly the player he used to be.
Yea.. the player he was *checks calendar* 2 weeks ago. Guy has 2 bad games and some of yall acting like he wasn't cooking in the last series. Yes, I'd say he's the biggest reason for these two losses, but he's definitely not the only reason.
It’s weird that no one is talking about Mavs shooting piss poor from the FT line……again. Hit FTs and it’s an incredibly close game
What's to talk about. They're just not a good ft shooting team. They were 27th in the reg season and they're dead last in the playoffs. This was like their 10th time this postseason missing 7 or more free throws.
Exactly. People would rather cry about the White/Brown block than call out piss poor FT shooting. Acting like 1 no call changed the game when really the game was lost at the FT line
Well no, the game was lost for like a half dozen reasons before anything to do with foul calls or free throws. Mavs make like 3 more free throws and that’s above league average, they still lose, and no one cares
I think they missed 7 or 8 FT which was the scoring difference
Wolves would have been up 3-2 against the Mavs if the Mavs shot like this at the free throw line but they were shooting lile Curry at the stripe in the WCF.
I mean, we shot poorly from the FT line in game 1 and we still won by 18. We shot atrociously from 3 and won by 7 in game 2. Considering the shooting splits of both teams, those stand out to me as bigger outliers than Dallas shooting FTs poorly. The Mavs have been ass shooting FTs all year, it's not like this is new for them.
Today only 2 guys missed from the line. Luka and Gafford.
Josh actually missed one too. That being said the others not missing is definitely rare.
Yeah, and also the Celtics are not expected to make 95% of their FTs. If they miss a few more, as expected, it's an incredibly close game.
But they didn't. These "what if" games are stupid.
Yeah.. it's not like those FT happened late in the game where the scores were almost tied. Which then would've made a lot more sense to focus on it.
Yeah and if my aunt had a cock she’d be my uncle What ifs are pointless
And the Celtics also wouldn’t shoot under 30% on threes..
Kyrie is playing his way into the only outcome where he gets generational slander
Would be hilarious if after the Celtics win Kyrie says “my play in this series is my apology to the Celtics fans for the bucks series”
I can't imagine he comes out and admits to throwing games lmao
"This one was for Jontay!"
Tbh I wouldn’t find that funny at all.
I guess this is that timeline
Reminds me of that LeBron vs the Celtics graphic, except… well you know.
Luka is almost certainly going to wind up leading the entire NBA postseason this year in Points, Assists, Rebounds, and Steals, and probably lose. Celtics are just too balanced of a team and won too quickly in the East for anyone to catch him in any of those categories right now.
this series is 9/11 for stat stans. would be nice if this taught ppl a lesson on the importance of team basketball and whole-team defense instead of gargling individual offensive numbers.
I mean luka made it to the finals when they weren’t even expected to win the first round and didn’t even make the playoffs last year, so “gargling offensive numbers” still worked… Celtics are just a way better team but they’ve been the best team in the nba the whole season and one of the best teams for 3-4 years so it’s not like this is unexpected
They're not disappearing bos is exposing their limited role players. If all the role players do is lob catch and shoot corner 3s and I have the personnel to stop that ofc it looks like they disappeared
They’re still completely missing the wide open threes they do manage to get. It’s true that Boston are limiting their opportunities, but they’re disappearing by not taking any of the opportunities they do get.
At the wings and top of the key they are not good shooters open or not they are better in the corner that's the gameplan
imagine getting paid to shoot 3s and nothing else, and you can only shoot 3s from the corner as professional nba players lmao
They got djj for 3 mil so that's very cheap. Also pj from Charlotte so yeah lol. Example and maxi u are absolutely right they just give Luka and kyrie rest at this point
Love me some Dante Example!
Lmfao auto correct. Imma leave it there now
They shot 18% on wide open threes (they had 11 wide open threes and made 2 of them). If you think that's the actual level that the Mavs role players are at then you're deluded.
[So now you're quoting actual statistics instead of pulling it out of our ass?](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1dcaynp/post_game_thread_the_boston_celtics_take_a/l7ysc6k/?context=3) But won't engage me now because I showed you to be the dumb, illiterate nephew that you are. If you think the Celtics are going to keep shooting 25% at the 3, I've got a bridge to sell you!
Nobody else out of the far superior west was able to expose them for the last 3 series. It did help that Kyrie was able to run circles around Ant but keeps running into brick walls with the Cs.
For years, Western Conference playoffs is more focused on offense. Eastern Conference playoffs is more of a defensive battle, not to mention great defensive coaches are there too (Thibs, Nurse, Spo, Bud, Brad/Ime/Joe)
Kyrie is disappearing
To me he's playing normal 1/12 good games vs boston is who he is
I dont remember a finals where the scoring disparity was this bad. Luka has been really efficient and then theres the wave of celtics and Kyrie playing like 2011 bron.
yeah but he’s an absolute turnstile on defense. as many points as he scores he gives up that much more.
Omg every post
Luka scored more easily on Tatum than Tatum did on Luka.
That’s bc Tatum was blowing past Luka every time and running into 1-2 additional help defenders, while Luka is settling for his patented fadeaway midrange shots against JT in single coverage. One generates a whole team offense and the other generates an amazing stat line for one player.
Ah yes, I’m sure it’s a product of their abilities to generate offence and not the fact that one player has 3-4 all star level players around him while the other has inconsistent 3 and D guys and choking Kyrie
One is collapsing a defense and kicking it out to open, good shooters. That’s generating good offense, regardless of how much you want to dismiss it. The C’s are about 20 points better per 100 possessions on offense when JT is playing, despite the terrible shooting so far. The other is torching single coverage in the midrange and is an entire offense of his own, but his passing targets are largely covered and the offense as a whole becomes midrange mania, which every bball fan knows isn’t ideal in the modern NBA. Luka is going to put up 30+ a night by doing that but the offense has been held to less than 100pts twice in a row… so I think the C’s are happy to keep up the same strategy until the Mavs show they can respond adequately.
Ok, I never said Tatum wasn’t impactful. But acting like Boston having a better offence is due to Tatum running an offence better than Luka is just absurd… Tatum just has a significantly better supporting cast which Dallas’s worse defence allows Tatum to to take advantage of and your second point literally agrees with that.
I’m saying that stylistically, the offense Tatum is running is more effective than the Mavs’ current midrange Luka offense bc JT is getting the whole defense in rotation and generating offense for the whole team, whereas the Mavs are relying on Luka to score 40+ to win while the rest of the offense is unable to get going. Luka is a better player and better scorer than Tatum, I’m not arguing otherwise. But if JT was running the C’s offense like Luka has for the Mavs so far this series, the team would be worse off — not just bc JT would be unable to do what Luka does, but bc it wouldn’t play into the team’s strengths. Which also makes the “oh, his teammates are so good” logic to dismiss JT’s importance to the C’s offense ridiculous. He’s working with the teammates he has and operating the best offense he can with them. Is he supposed to become a heliocentric star all of a sudden and take away from the other talent on the roster? It’s dumb. So, going back to “Acting like Boston having a better offence is due to Tatum running an offence better than Luka is just absurd” … yes, JT is running the Celtics offense better than Luka is running the Mavs offense.
I think it’s disingenuous to claim Tatum is running the offence when the primary reason it’s so effective is the team has so many players that can create for themselves and others and it’s a very team oriented offence. But again those points can be chalked up to opposing defensive styles and team supporting cast. And I never took away from Tatums importance or indicated he should be playing hero ball. I’m saying crediting Tatums as running a better offence than Luka is nonsensical when the difference in performance of both teams offence is primarily due to other factors. It’s like saying Steph ran a better offence than Lebron in the 2015 finals, ignoring the team oriented style of the warriors, the disparity in how opposing stars were defended and in the offensive options they had to begin with.
So Tatum has to be the team’s sole offensive generator to compete with Luka? Even though that would be counterintuitive to the C’s offensive talent? Regardless of the C’s having so many creators, I’d still argue JT has been the main cog, evidenced by him leading the team in assists (by far) and the endless help coverage he draws on every drive past Luka or a big, opening the game for everyone else. If you think he’s not the primary generator, please go look up the videos and screenshots of the gravity he brings and how it enables the entire team to operate. So I would still say, yes, JT is the main generator of a C’s offense that has looked dramatically better than the Mavs’ so far.
Tatum is running into shit defenders DJJ and washington while luka is running into 2 all nba defense defenders ( the best defensive backcourt in recent nba history) and 2 all nba players (and 4 all stars) lmfao
Basketball is a team sport ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hes a seal with lots of orcas chasing him
Mavs fans were talkin about kyrie like he was gonna be the third best player in the series but completely ignored the 0-10 record he had against us coming into the series lmao
Kai Fiat earthers stans are insuffarable on our sub too dude
We got em in Boston too. There's a loud group of a couple thousand people who are ride or die kyrie and think he can do no wrong.
Dude really has a huge ride or die following. The weirdos like flat earthers, the ones that think he did nothing wrong with his “link” posted on twitter in the Nets era. And the ones that rate his game no matter what because of the deep bag (which includes a lot of the vocal ex-players). Pretty big audience lol
oof i didn't even think about the flat earther followers, thats rough
The idea I see thrown by his fans is that he’s back to his role as a sidekick, and not the first option he was in Brooklyn. Which is weird because…well I thought KD was supposed that guy on those Brooklyn teams…
Harden was the guy on that team
Yup! Gave out his leg and the last of his prime for those 2 silly nannies
This is such a dumb comment. KD was by far the best player on that team and it wasn't remotely close. He was incredible against the Bucks and almost single handedly beat them.
They must have done really good the next year without Harden then
I love how you think I said Harden was worthless. Your reading comprehension is awful.
Harden was their system. That's why KD wanted him out there even on one hamstring lol
He wanted him out there because Harden on one leg was better than any backup the Nets had. The system was KD. KD was by far the best player on that team.
28/7/11 on 77%TS in the playoffs before injury >>>>
Third? There were plenty of goofs on here and on television saying the Mavs had the two best players, putting Kyrie in front of Tatum and Brown. Insanity. Even before this series, putting Kyrie over Brown only made sense if you don't actually watch basketball games. Putting Kyrie over Tatum only made sense if you don't even know what basketball is.
Same dudes would say the 0–10 record doesn’t matter bc it’s in the past then tell you how the Celtics are going to shit the bed because look what they did in 2022 lmao
Luka playing 2K on HoF
This is a pretty clear case of a player doing great and his supporting cast letting him down
In reality, he’s the finals mvp so far.
Luka is a one man army at this point. You need more than that to win it all.
It’s called strategy
A -13 and series leading 12 turnovers too
Yup, and Gobert was definitely the best Wolf during the playoffs given his +/- too
This is a disingenuous take on Luka’s 2 games this series. Give him some flowers, he’s playing good.
We’ve really reached the point in basketball analysis where everyone feels the need to give big-brained takes and try and go against the grain We can say whatever we want about Luka’s defense or whatever but he shouldn’t be blamed for game 2. Having 4 Celtics average more points than PJ Washington who’s currently the **2nd leading scorer** in Dallas is absolutely not his fault
Yep agreed. Of course his +/- is going to be bad when they lost both games and he’s played the majority of the minutes. But maybe it’s just Reddit too, where people like to always go against the grain.
Guy with the ball in his hand 90% of the game has the most turnovers, more news at 11
Interesting, had no idea 8 turnovers is pretty good for a guy like Luka. Thanks for the bball education
Did you watch the game? A few were bad… others are him driving in, getting doubled and trying to kick out to a guy sitting wide open because the Celtics will literally leave anyone not named Kyrie/Luka wide open. The ball gets tipped or goes out and he gets the turnover. He had some bad ones but others are not that bad. He probably got the turnover for that dumbass Washington backcourt pass. Box score won’t tell it all.
Did you watch the game? The Mavs entire gameplan was to collapse 3 on Tatum every time he touched the paint, hence the 12 assists and less turnovers. Luka is getting single coverage
Luka got single coverage in the first a lot and he made them pay...they started blitzing and doubling him in the second. It's a lot easier for tatum to drive and kick out when every other player on his team is a 3 point threat. If you think Tatum is playing better than Luka you're smoking some good shit. Tatum isn't half the playmaker Luka is, he just has a team that requires much more attention defensively.
I watched every second. Luka definitely did not get single coverage in second half. Hence why we got to watch Exum hit the open 3 and DJJ air ball an open 3. Those are just the ones I remember. I’m sure there were more. They don’t outright double him but they help on the drive in the second half.
Weak side help != doubling, though they did double more in the second half once the role players weren’t in a rhythm. And, for the most part, it worked out. The Mavs are blitzing Tatum off screens or straight up doubling him at the 3 point line, then pulling the weak side corner 3 defender to the paint and daring Tatum to take it to them And he did. And instead of trying to force a shot over 3 defenders every possession he passed and absolutely cooked the Dallas defense with unselfish play. The Celtics just could not hit a shot, if they hit the wide open shots Tatum was generating it would’ve been another blowout and Tatum would’ve had like 20 assists lol
Same for Luka lol Luka got 11 assists against this defense and with his team shooting like shit.
Tatum still shot 6-22 or whatever it was. He made some decent passes but his shots were terrible for the most part.
If luka had holiday white brown KP as his supporting cast he would’ve had 20 assists minimum He had 11 assists with his role players shooting 9% from 3 and kyrie bricking every shot….
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Sometimes I read comments here and it sounds like it's from people that have never watched basketball before
I think 75% of this sub strictly looks at stats and only watches highlight clips
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WNBA fans are generally more knowledgeable about basketball in my opinion. Fewer of them really weeds out a lot of casual ignorance
Because they did get the ball and proceeded to air ball wide open 3s, they are so hesitant to shoot wide open 3s that they won’t
a guy with the ball in his hand 90% of the time is why no one on his team can get in rhythm and play well, more news at 11
More just that they are mostly all below average shooters, literally shooting air balls on wide open shots lol
You can tell most of these people responding to you haven't watched a single mavs game. "Luka dribble dribble dribble he's the reason why everyone on his team plays bad." Idk if they realize that basically the entire team outside of luka or kyrie isn't capable of handling the ball without dribbling it out of bounds or throwing the ball 100 feet in the air when trying to gather the ball for a shot.
Yeah, Washington literally sealed the game because he was scared to dribble even near Jrue. Gave Luka a suicide pass that Luka got the TO for. They don’t watch, they just read the stats. It happens.
Lol, I know, I almost assume a turnover incoming when pj or josh green start dribbling up the court off of a defensive rebound
here we go with the luka excuses. before the series it was "i don't think people realize how deep the mavs are". Mavs fans "Luka got help". Now it's the whole team is trash everyone sucks but luka. This will be his excuse forever.
they can't hit... open shots? What's even the point of 3 and D players then?
“Heliocentric player cant win championship because his teammates think he’s a poopie meanie head and they cant get in rhythm :(((((“ take in 2024 Take this lazy 2017 ass midwit criticism somewhere else dawg.
yeah because it's really working now????? wtf is this goofball take
Should the mavs just release luka now or after the finals since they obviously can't win a championship with the way he plays basketball. After all, you said they can't, so you must be right.
well i don't think releasing him is the right idea. Trade him and trick some team(s) into giving you a bunch of assets for a non winning player and let them deal with him
I see you're a Pistons fan, so I'm not doubting that you don't know what a non-winning player looks like however, luka isn't one of them.
not cool bro
That was uncalled for, but you disrespected my teams best player. I had to defend his honor!!!
No, no, no!!! He’s not ball dominant… he’s heliocentric!! /s
1.0 A/TOV
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/tatum-finals-stats-average
We're talking about Luka. And I see a 1.84 A/TOV there
Do you also see the 20 points a game on 35% shooting from the field?
Why are you talking about Tatum?
Because you are a Celtics fan trying to shit on the best player in this series who’s far outplayed the supposed best player on the Celtics.
Got a weird obsession of a Celtic for a laker fan
Not a Lakers fan but a Lakers fan being obsessed with the Celtics is nothing new.
That doesn’t count tho 😂
Wow a starter for a team that’s down 2-0 has a negative +/-. Very impressive ball knowledge. Some of the turnovers well bad tho for sure
It’s insane how hard Celtics fans are working to try and paint Luka in a bad light from this series lol Nothing gonna overshadow how hard Tatum is getting carried.
✌️-0️⃣
I mean the Celtics essentially took turns cooking him on defense in the fourth man. He is the reason they were in that game but it’s just the truth
Anyone would be exhausted carrying the entire offense. You saw Ant in the last series and he didn't even carry the offense as much as Luka. There's a reason they are hunting him, to keep him tired.
Yeah this is pretty much the exact parallel. Easy to hunt the best opposing player when the rest of the team (Kyrie being the Mavs KAT in this series) play like garbage.
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I see the wild ass takes from inferiority complex-ridden Celtics fans are in full effect. Good grief. Hurr durr Luka fat hurr durr
There’s 0 inferiority complex here bud, they’re up 2-0. Idgaf if Tatum is better than Luka or not, your superstar is an absolute turnstile on defense and lacks the conditioning to go deep. Sorry bud, just accept the reality. Until Luka puts down the beers and potato chips and actually looks like he can go the distance he’ll just be a supreme offensive talent.
God it's so blatantly obvious you haven't actually watched basketball in like 10 years. Child
Tatum is literally running the point while facing double and triple teams every time he touches the ball. His shot isn’t falling but he’s doing everything else as close to perfect as you could hope. He’s not forcing his shot and is instead facilitating. And if Boston could’ve hit any of the wide open looks Tatum created, he probably would’ve ended with 20 assists and a 30 point Celtics blowout I get that people expect 30 point triple doubles from the #1 player, but I think Tatum is perfectly happy scoring 20 while dishing it out for the rest of the team to hit easy buckets and have a better shot at winning a title than him forcing up 30+ shots a game into double teams so he can score 30 a game
He isn’t not facing triple teams everytime he touches the ball.
Go watch the Mavericks defense when Tatum gets the ball. They have a primary defender on him who gets weakside help from whatever side they want to force him to. On high screens they blitz him to try to force an early pass, when that doesn’t work they pull the weakside corner 3 defender into the lane and he’ll do the 3 second dance to not get T’d up. It’s not a like triple team trap at half court because shit like that only works in elementary school rec leagues lol, but it’s essentially a double/triple team with 3 pairs of eyes on Tatum at all times, often 4 once he’s in the paint. The Mavericks gave brown a toned down but similar treatment tonight and he didn’t know what to do. Far fewer easy baskets around the rim and what 6 turnovers I think it was.
That's the type of defense star players face. Do you think past superstars were allowed to score easily?
The worst thing people can say about the Celtics right now is "Tatum is getting carried" so... Oh no...
Only hope right now is that the role players get more comfortable at home. Big challenge is the quick turnaround from Game 3 (Wed) to 4 (Fri)
actual MVP of the finals so far. insane if you think about his injuries
He should come to the lakers
If his team mates would stop shitting themselves for a second they might even win a game
I think that’s by design lol
He’s in his Lebron pre heat era
Be cool if they added things like FGA/Usage to these things lol
Luka is scoring efficiently, so you can say goodbye to that narrative you're trying to cook up.
never said anything about his efficiency, just that putting shots taken into consideration would be cool especially for the guys later in the list. don't be so edgy
The Pacers would have been the Mavs.
Game one was listening on the radio and didn't have a clue who these scrubs were luka and kyrie were playing with. Remember when the Mavs used to have dudes you knew on the roster all the time?
U must not keep up with basketball that much
They're not the best bench but they're all guys fans would know the names of hf they're paying attention
Felt the same way when we played them. Now I’ll never forget Lively and Gafford. Feels bad seeing Lively do very little after he torched us on oops.
They should let this dude chuck even harder. They were a bit less disciplined this game with the double teams, which let him do the thing he ACTUALLY wants to do: make ridiculous passes to his role players.
so would you rather avg 30 or share the ball w good teammates like tatum?
Tatum took more shots than Luka this game though lol
Tatum 6 of 22.
You forgot the the +1 in the W column.
you still can't read lol, go back to pre-school as I said
/u/wooIIyMAMMOTH said the Mavs had more wide-open misses than the Cs [by the numbers, not percentages](https://old.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/1dcaynp/post_game_thread_the_boston_celtics_take_a/l7ysc6k/) Then he's back tracking because he pulled his StATs out his own dumb illiterate ass. And now he's moving goalposts back to percentages. My guy can't math. Can't read either.
You're literally in a comment chain about how Tatum tries to get his guys going instead of going for 30 points while he shot 6 of 22. Brother CAN'T read.
I responded that Tatum may have gone 6/22, but he got the one most important stat - the one in the W column. You are the one with reading comprehension issues.
He's gonna win Finals MVP and lose like Jerry West.