Has Luka Doncic Solved The Defense? | Mavericks Timberwolves Game 1 2024 Western Conference Finals

Has Luka Doncic Solved The Defense? | Mavericks Timberwolves Game 1 2024 Western Conference Finals

game one between the Mavericks and the Timberwolves was like being in a glass case of emotion a roller coaster of a ride with ups and downs side to sides and Every Which Way but Loose so let’s examine what went right for both sides and why Dallas was able to ride Kyrie in the first half then Luca in the second to a huge Road wind to stun the wolves and take early control of the Western Conference Finals [Music] one glance of the game flow chart in the fourth quarter and you get a sense of the Seesaw nature of the whole game Lucas starts the Mavs 130 run with a simple pick and roll to the left with Rudy playing in drop coverage that means he wants to lure the mid-range shot while also not letting the rle man get behind him for a LV Nas Reed doesn’t want to bump down to Derek Lively and potentially leave PJ Washington open in the corner and Rudy has to break off to Lively at this point the problem is McDaniels isn’t playing with enough urg to regain his position to challenge the 14-footer as Luca gets the nice roll playing Rudy and drop coverage was killing the Wolves defense all game long as Rudy just couldn’t navigate the space between him and Luca while also minding the rle man and even when McDaniels did a better job to reclaim his position in front of the ball Luca was too clever with ball fakes and finishes when they did try to have Rudy step up closer to Luca donit has got the size to see the floor and make this type of overhead pass despite the pressure on time and on tget Target when Mike Conley disengages from Gafford for reasons unknown Luca is just too good to allow him to get into the paint like this if Defenders are going to chase around watch gaffer try to set the Gortat screen on Rudy it’s not even an effective screen but it serves to lure Rudy to challenge the shot so Luca turns it into a lob at the last second and on the next play down it’s just too easy to force McDaniels behind him and despite Conley showing in the lane McDaniels takes a bad angle getting around and allows Luca to step back into an open 7even footer at this point you had to question why the coaching staff wouldn’t change his coverage on the first play of the game McDaniels goes underneath the screen allowing him to stay in front and then contest a step back three for a good stop here’s McDaniels going underneath and the Spain pick and roll action and it allows him to be in position to contest the one thing you’re worried about giving up the three-pointer while this ball screen was set on the wing and not out top straight blitzing Luca and getting it out of his hands has to be a win for the defense no matter what the result is meanwhile the Wolves went ice cold for eight straight possessions as Rudy tries to do way too much on this short role at this point in your season your role players should know exactly what they can and can’t do yet Rudy still burps up this one watch the Mavericks Defense work like a beating heart expanding and Contracting in unison to handle the curl by Edwards and the swing to cat we’ve seen talents take this shot before the one-footed runner to the Baseline while drifting out of bounds and I think he’s got to come up with something better and this leads to a mistaken transition as Nas Reed should have recognized Mike Conley had two players to guard and sprinted over to help and while McDaniels does tell Reed to stay with Washington he himself doesn’t Sprint over fast enough as Derrick Jones Jr is almost at The Rim before meeting any resistance McDaniels makes another mistake by trying to be a dribble Drive artist his role is to spot up and shoot Corner threes not Euro Step into a double team as Luca promptly seals the ball and now Luca is heading downhill he doesn’t give up his Advantage all the way towards that left block and while I know this isn’t the pass by any stretch I can’t help but wonder if maybe he did mean to hit it hard off the backboard than the rim so Lively could easily tip slam it in notice the fist pump while Edwards only had three turnovers there was a definite theme as he draws help from Lively Washington bumps down to take away the corner pass so cat is wide open on the wing in ant’s defense cat could have slid over to his left to give him a better angle as the ball sails into the crowd this was similar to his turnover in the first watch how Kyrie will ignore Anderson to Shadow Edwards just outside the lane and then steps up to strip the ball causing Edwards to pass this ball into the stands this time Kyrie ignores Conley to Shadow him at the top of the key and instead of engaging the defense to create something ant just throws this ball several feet too high I know ant will play a lot better in game two but I’m not quite sure if he’ll score as many as 28 points which is why you want to choose the under at sleeper the ultimate fantasy sports app what’s cool is that you can set your over under picks before the game or do it live while it’s happening just pick at least two players and whether they’ll get more or less from a host of different stats and you can win up to 100 times your money interesting game tonight how will the Pacers bounce back from that last loss I think halberton will get over 19 and a half points I’m also thinking that Drew holiday will continue to score a lot of points and get over 15 and a half uh nard assists not so much and then I don’t think Tatum’s going to go crazy tonight on the points and look with a little bit of money you can over 10x your return so why not play have a lot of fun out there and if you use my code bball 100 they’ll match your first deposit dollar for dooll up to 500 bucks there are so many ways to win it raises the stakes when you watch it so what are you waiting for terms and conditions apply see sleepers terms of Ed for details currently operational in over 25 States check out sleeper today the Mavs finish off their 13-0 run with you guessed it a pick and roll against drop coverage you simply cannot Chase Luca into the restricted area and hope to get good results as he earns another trip to the free throw line but the Timberwolves showed great resilience blasting right back with a 13-1 run of their own unlike Denver Dallas didn’t throw double teams at Edwards playing a very traditional hedge against him here knowing he’s a little reluctant to throw the short roll pass to Rudy now check Lucas’s excellent footwork to stop Conley’s two initial attacks he should have shot this layup and in the wild scramble of good defense it finds ant spotting up and he hits it in two defenders’ faces more good team defense by the Mavericks is the wolv strangely set this ball screen to the side where there are two Defenders standing there waiting Edwards has to pick up his dribble and skip it and on the reset Jones Jr does a nice job keeping it front and deflecting the ball it happens to go to cat and I’m not ecstatic about this move as he overly lowers his shoulder into Defender that is not drifting into his space before leaning back for the one-footed fadeaway watch how Rudy Flair screens for cat to get him an open catch on the swing pass they turn it into a pick and roll and there’s not much gapper can do on a lob that high and a finisher that long this action was something they were using the most in their half court often out of horns when cat would ball screen first then cut off the Rudy flare screen it catches Washington on the high side of Rudy and stuck in no man’s land as Lively has to guard a potential cat shot leaving Rudy a free run to the the rim but remember this play as it will come back to haunt Minnesota the Timberwolves offense stalled out several times in the fourth quarter perhaps because they were waiting for a double team that never came as Lucas Shadows from the mid post but isn’t full-on doubling and tip your cap to cat for absolutely nailing this 38f footer from near the circle and it wasn’t like Rudy wasn’t making his presence felt on defense you can always find several possessions where he literally stops the shot from even being taken as Luca shockingly turns this one down and Jones Junior FS around with the shot fake and finds out up one the wol try a similar concept to that Rudy flare screen for cat after the initial ball screen he snaps back around the Rudy pin down Washington tries to shoot the gap on the left side leading to an open side step three that towns just can’t hit and once they were convinced the double wasn’t coming and that Jones Jr isn’t the guy Edwards will just blow by they attack Lively in the ball screen catching him too low as ant gets a wide open triple to increase the lead to four but in an answer to that scramble and kickout three by ant a few possessions ago the same thing happens here as Kyrie does his best to draw a foul on Rudy but it does clear him out of the lane to allow Lely to snag the board and find Luca for an extremely well-contested side step three that somehow goes in watch for the Edwards go be picking rolls I suspect the Mavs also know that Edwards won’t throw Rudy the ball on the roll so they’re able to keep Lively a lot closer in support of Jones’s defense impressive way to go for the shot fake but avoid contact and still contests the poor decision by ant it was PJ Washington’s turn to demonstrate why role players need to well know their role I’m not comfortable seeing him jab step tween jump stop into the lane as he promptly gets ripped by cat into a costly turnover but then McDaniels forgets his role again trying to attack underneath the hoop when none of his teammates are in good position and he turns it over again leaving him so far behind the play that the Mavs can run a 75% speed fast break find PJ Washington wide open in the corner and The crucial three-point shot that puts Dallas on the path to Victory they run pistol action for Conley who flips it back to the right for a ball screen this gets him a great look from three he’s an inch off on the in andout PJ goes to box out Rudy while his man flies in for the tip dunk but wait using the Hawkeye system like we see in tennis the call and subsequent review shows he touched the ball while it was in the imaginary cylinder that extends Above the Rim no bucket maybe the Wolves were just saving the best for last finally blasting Luca again and getting it out of his hands where Lively travels when he establishes a left foot as his pivot because it’s the first foot to touch after catching in the air then stepping with that foot before releasing the ball into the dribble here’s that flare screen for cat that was working so well for Minnesota Rudy makes a great decision to kick it out to the hottest guy in the gym but he doesn’t do the one thing he’s supposed to do out there credit Conley for the good shot faking penetration but instead of shooting the aesthetically unpleasing right-handed floater of his or kick it out to an open Edwards behind the ark he tries to lob it to Rudy and Luca makes the play of the game to knock it away into a steal I was surprised they didn’t go back to the ball screen with Rudy but I’m sure Luca was worried about getting blasted again and having to give it up since he was intent on ending this game right here with a little step back 15-footer for the fourpoint lead Minnie was in a decent position a natural two for one situation and Cat gets a great look on this pinned down when Washington can’t get around the Conley screen one more chance with a sideline out of bounds that not only had the Curious Case of slow-mo inbounding he’s a good passer so it kind of makes sense but it also allows his man Luca to ignore him since Dallas doesn’t care too much about giving up a two and Anderson’s three ball is suboptimal but check the actual play design Edwards was supposed to slice screen for Conley but then somehow snake back to the weak side of the court and then come around the pin down for cat that doesn’t make a lot of sense and then doesn’t even use the screen forcing cat to cut to get open and by this time they have to take their last time out there’s really no excuse for something like this happening at the end of a Conference Finals game then watch slow-mo tell his guys to start running the set before he’s handed the ball okay it might buy him an extra half second on the 5sec count but the point of this set was to get cat the ball on the midline so Edwards could be sprinting right by him at the same time and get a handoff going downhill fast because liely is late recognizing the switch it actually helps the defense taking away the Easy Pass to cat who now has to come all the way to the ball forcing ant to Veer way off his course for the handoff and they end up with a heavily contested three that almost goes in credit re for the tip in but then they promptly screw up the full court press as Conley and Anderson are totally confused as to who they should be guarding and Conley cannot be telling Reed to go guard Jones at half court on the other side of the floor there isn’t time and this allows the long UPC Court pass they have the foul and the game is now over if the Wolves want any chance of winning the series after giving up homecourt Advantage they have to do some serious adjustments not just to their defensive strategies but getting their players on the right page and playing within their roles and they have to cut down on some of the coaching mistakes late in the game I bet this series goes seven games but in the end it’s hard to pick against Luca and Kyrie when these games go down to the wire [Music]

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Coach Nick focused on the 4th quarter of this epic game to explain how the Mavericks were able to take home court advantage from the Timberwolves in Game 1.
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