Luka vs. the Celtics Made One Thing Very Clear…

Luka vs. the Celtics Made One Thing Very Clear…

In the NBA’s most recent MVP ladder Jason Tatum moved ahead of Luca donic for spot number four and that little change has sparked quite the debate you’ve got the Boston fans who rightfully point to the historic season that the Celtics are having highlighting Tatum’s ability to drive the ship

Forward as a two-way Superstar but then on the other side you have those who point to Luca’s individual Brilliance as an offensive Mastermind making a Mavs team competitive despite struggling with injury role players consistently not showing up whatever the case may be last night we

Got to see these two square off and in a weird way it sort of feels like both won the argument the Mavs opened the game with a high pick and roll and it was clear that porzingis would be in deep drop coverage which Luca uses to his

Advantage by playing the in between game and slowly working his way to the rim with Chris staps in a drop that means the pick and pop is easily accessible this time it’s Kyrie with the ball and he hits PJ Washington who’s wide open up top but that three just rims out deep

Drop coverage also means that Kyrie can get to the mid-range pretty much whenever he wants he s side steps into space near the elbow creating a great look that once again doesn’t drop if you’re starting to sense a theme yeah the Mavs were missing a ton of open

Looks Luca puts the defense in rotation with a beautiful skip pass and Washington could shoot this he instead chooses to attack the closeout and create an even better opportunity on a wideopen Kyrie 3 non luuka MAV shot two of 10 from outside in the first quarter

Not exactly ideal as a result he decided to take matters into his own hands first it was with an open side post up against Derek white backing his way in before turning over his right shoulder for a fade away off the glass next time down it’s a perimeter isolation in early

Offense he threatens a drive before pulling back into a three and he just so happens to be feeling it the vast amount of different ways in which he can create offense is absurd this one starts with a high pick and roll where he’s still being played in drop coverage and

Instead of playing in between he fakes a drive into another step back creating a ton of space for an outside jumper of course as soon as he did drive and the Celtics threw an extra Defender at him he found the open man but like I said his teammates were not able to

Capitalize it also doesn’t help that on the other side of things Boston was busy showing exactly why they’re the League’s number one offense first you’ve got some two-man game between Drew holiday and porzingis which leaves the 7 foot3 sniper with a quality look from Deep anyone in their starting five is capable

Of handling the ball in these actions this time it’s Derek white who applies some pressure before hitting Chris ABS on a pop and there’s just no way to contest that release on this next one it’s Jason Tatum who initiates he starts a drive before hitting the pop but this

Time a third Defender comes over to take away that space so instead of shooting he swings it to who else but Derek white for an open three while porzingis tends to prefer the pop he can also screen and roll with white as the ball handler I

Want you to focus on how much space they have three highle Shooters surround them so the m can’t really bring much extra help the overall point I’m trying to make is that quite literally every single player in the rotation can both handle the ball and knock down shots in

Transition you’ve got white getting downhill and kicking it out to Holiday for a moving Corner three oh and by the way Drew is shooting 68% on Corner threes this season so if your defense lets him catch the ball in that spot without a smothering contest you better

Get to praying another thing you’ll see with the Celtics is that they are a walking matchup problem you obviously don’t want Luca defending Brown in isolation but by clearing an entire side of the floor and spacing those other four Shooters they don’t really have anyone who can step over and help this

Time it’s Kyrie who has to defend Brown and he attacks the Middle where the Mavs do send help and all that does is leave porzingis open for his third three-pointer he had 13 first quarter points and he himself is a big time mismatch because in addition to the

Shooting he’s a great scorer in the low post here he fumbles the first attempt but easily puts it back up at one point the Mavs actually tried throwing out a Zone and the Celtics have no shortage of ways to break it this time they go to Drew in the Middle with Chris stap

Spacing up top and a second Big Al Horford in the dunker spot leaving holiday with room to attack Luca oneon-one in just a possession later they put both of of their bigs in the corners as they’re both shooters with two guards spaced deep on the wings

Leaving Jaylen brown with a ton of room to operate as he gets to a mid-range jumper Boston checked every single box offensively in this quarter they had 10 assists to the Mavericks to shot Seven of 13 from three and had an offensive rating of 131 all while their best

Player didn’t even make a single shot do you know how ridiculous that is is so despite Luca going on an absolute tear of 16 points on 60% shooting in just 8 minutes Boston was heading into the second with a six-point lead from there Luca continued to do his thing it

Started with one of those open side isolations as he attacks the smaller Pritchard for a bucket but for the most part he was surgically picking apart Boston’s coverages as a ball handler in the pick and roll on this one you’re going to see holiday show to the ball

For just a brief moment moment which is all it takes for him to hit Lively for a big time dunk when christs checked in instead of dropping back they had him coming out in a hedge this time creating a small window to shovel in an absolutely ridiculous dime here’s

Another example he comes off a screen Christ staps is there to meet him early and instead of making a quick find he takes an extra dribble as he pulls back to create a passing angle over the top after about 8 minutes of this Luca sat down and right away you could see the

Difference in the quality of shots Dallas was getting he was only out for 2 minutes but in that time the MAV scored once on a pretty botched possession where exom floats it off glass for two when Luca checked back in it was right back to cooking with porzingis switched

On to him he attacks one-on-one and gets to that signature step back three and in the closing seconds he makes a full court chest pass right on the money to create some more easy offense for his teammates the Mavs had a 125 offensive rating in Lucas’s 10 second quarter

Minutes as he recorded seven points and six assists on 60% shooting but it’s like no matter what he does or how perfectly he plays offensively as a team they’re simply outgunned by that Boston offense as a unit they continue to torch the Mavs and everything I said about quarter number one applies the

Transition game the outside shooting the screening actions with no shortage of ball handlers the only real difference was that this time around they added the wrinkle of running some mid poost isolations for Jason Tatum again you see the space Dallas is forced to leave him in single coverage because everyone else

Is a threat to make plays and he actually went on a mini flurry scoring nine straight points for the Celtics all that’s to say despite Luca having 23 points six rebounds and six assists on on 70% true shooting at halftime Dallas still found themselves trailing by seven

Most of the third quarter felt like a back and forth you had the Celtics of course doing Celtics things and Tatum really started to heat up from three isolating from a stand still and just Rising right over PJ Washington on the other side Luca continued to dissect

Them as a playmaker this time it’s one of those post-ups and as he spins into what looks like a jumper he instead throws a no look P to Washington for a highquality jumper just like as a scorer the versatility in Luca’s passing is just off the charts here’s one in

Transition where he stares to the left side of the court to move Tatum before bouncing it to a running Kyrie for a free bucket Boston really couldn’t stop him from getting the ball to an open guy every time down the floor this one’s a classic drive and kick that leaves exom

With a practice jumper only to get all air reminiscent of the first this is when Luca tried to take matters into his own hands as a one-on-one scorer only one problem that step back three stopped falling so even though he was creating space and these are good looks with him

Missing things started to look not so good for the Mavs luckily Kyrie finally decided to show up right on time and started making plays and as a team they did a very good job of winning The Possession game grabbing multiple offensive rebounds without turning the ball over once so they were still

Producing good offense at one point even cutting the lead down to two with that said it didn’t matter what the Mavs did because the Celtics in this case Jason Tatum always had an answer he had 16 third quarter points on 90% true shooting and those buckets came in a

Variety of ways you’ve got one of those mid-post isolations against a smaller Defender a double comes from the Baseline so he attacks the middle and easily gets to a floater then when it’s a bigger Maxi kleba switched onto him he’s going to take it outside creating some space with an exaggerated sidestep

As he fires off his fourth three of the quarter a couple chaotic possessions later we were looking at a 12-point game not yet a blowout But continuing to build that lead with each passing quarter and when we arrived in the fourth that’s when it became very clear

That this was not not at all an even match the Celtics blew the game wide open everyone was getting involved making plays making shots I mean this was Boston at their best on the other end it truly felt like Luca was playing one versus five at times he still

Getting whatever he wants as a scorer and creating open shots for teammates but those teammates shot five of 14 including 0 of three from three in the quarter just a complete disaster and by the time All 48 minutes were up we were looking at a near 30o win for the

Celtics even though it felt close for most of the game matchups like these always make one thing very clear a lot of people want basketball to be about the individual it’s fascinating to have MVP or goat debates which have become a huge driving factor in sports media but

In reality sometimes one individual can do everything possible and still come up short Luca had 37 12 and 11 on 65% true shooting while only turning the ball over twice yet the MAV still had just a measly 110 offensive rating because of everyone else’s struggles Kyrie was 9 of

23 PJ Washington 7 of 16 and the team as a whole outside of Luca shot a putrid six of 25 or 24% from three on the other side of things you have a Celtics team that’s putting together a season only rivaled by the greatest teams ever three

Guys with at least 24 points seven in double digits 21 of 43 from three as a team not only surviving the Luca surge but completely dominating on both ends of the floor they’ve now won 10 games in a row on Pace to finish the season with

A record of 65 and 17 in this game against the Mavs was just any other night in this T to force of a season if you enjoyed this breakdown make sure to drop a like subscribe and turn my post notifications on to be first on more content if you’re interested in my more

In-depth research make sure to check out my website and social media profiles you can find those links in the description feel free to let me know down in the comments what you thought of this matchup as always I hope you all have a great day and I’ll catch you guys in the next

One

Luka Doncic is having a historic season individually, while the Celtics are having a historic season as a team, leading to quite the interesting matchup.

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