Wolves vs Mavericks Will Be Legendary

Wolves vs Mavericks Will Be Legendary

Minnesota just went from having to game plan for niika yic to now having to game plan for Luca donic neither of those are exactly easy tasks but if there’s one defense I’d trust to make it happen well that’s the one however the Mavs may have some counters and they too have a really good defense of their own so trying to preview the series becomes incredibly interesting the first question the wolves are going to have to ask is how they plan to slow down Luca the Mavs don’t have some complex motion offense sort of relying on their Superstar to create advantages so stalling their offense starts at the point of attack they’ve got one of the best point of attack defenders in the league with Jaden McDaniels who was as disruptive As It Gets in rounds 1 and two through immense ball pressure he’s lengthy quick enough to step in front of Luca’s drives there’s just one problem the significant Gap in strength Luca is a huge guard who likes to play with contact and McDaniels isn’t super sturdy which creates some issues not only out in space but with how Luca will operate out of the post the same goes for Alexander Walker Off the Bench an awesome point of attack Defender who’s a nuisance but simply not big enough to really stop Luca from getting to his spots to make up for the size difference they tried going to Kyle Anderson in the regular season only for it to be made abundantly clear that he isn’t quick enough to stay in front of the ball and all that’s to say I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the series we see Edwards getting that match up of course he’s not just going to outright stop him but he’s the one guy with the combination of agility and strength that you really need to alter Lucas’s attack either way there isn’t any one individual Defender who can confidently say they’ve shut him down Terren man was absolutely awesome in the first round as was Lou Dort in round two but like joic Luca is one of those rare offensive talents that requires an entire team and a specific scheme tailored to his strengths against jic that meant figuring out the best way to defend him as a screener and how to approach his post-ups against Luca it’ll be more about how they choose to defend spread pick and roll with goar in the action I fully expect him to primarily play in drop coverage whoever they decide to go with at the point of attack all of their options can navigate screens and stick with Luca to run him off the line which would mean that the in between game is the key I’d argue that in the past he’s shown to be one of the best in between players not just in the league today but in NBA history using his frame to put defenders in jail and getting to his spots this all hinges on Luca being Luca though he’s been dealing with that knee injury and doesn’t seem to have the same pop and against Minnesota’s defense that will really be tested I don’t think Luca can get by just playmaking in the way he has in rounds 1 and two against the Wolves he’ll have to be a volume scorer who then passes to counter certain rotations like here ant sinks from the weak side corner that’s a standard read although Jones doesn’t knock it down gobear is arguably the best drop Defender ever so the coverage makes sense but when he’s not on the floor and either cat or Reed is instead in the action they don’t have nearly the same effect so in those situations I’d expect them to jump out to the level of the screen this is where that paint starts to become more vulnerable and the coverage behind the play has to be razor sharp if Luca draws two and that weak side help is even a fraction of a second late either Lively or gaffard is turning into highquality offense at The Rim and another interesting wrinkle is that through the first two rounds Minnesota hasn’t played a true vertical threat at the five Dallas has two of the best so we’ll have to see how they handle lobs if they can execute the coverage to get the ball out of Luca’s hands while bringing that third guy over early they’ll be able to force Dallas’s bigs into making decisions out of the short rle and those bigs are going to be tested so we’ll have to wait and see if they can consistently take advantage of these situations or if the Mavs have to come up with an adjustment of course by bringing a third Defender over the wolves are making a choice to concede something else and I’d fully expect that to be Derek Jones on the three-point line that’s exactly what OKC did whoever was defending him in the corner for the most part Shay would aggressively roam towards the paint almost abandoning his man and making it clear that they wanted Jones to shoot the only problem is that in games five and six he shot a combined seven of 11 from three on his way to a 20 point per game average the playoffs are all about getting hot at the right time especially in the case of role players and it’s worth noting that over the last three seasons he’s made just 37% of his wide openen threes below the league average so can he sustain that hot shooting does he come back to earth does he regress even more these are the unanswerable questions but I’d expect the Wolves to take some of the same gamble that the Thunder did just not as blatantly with that said I don’t think the Mavs will be able to rely on role players scoring as much as they could in the last round Minnesota’s defensive Personnel is just on another level especially in terms of size and athleticism which is why I’d argue that the biggest X Factor in this series is the scoring of Kyrie Irving same thing the wolves have to choose their matchup and if McDaniel starts on Luca I’d bet it’s Edwards on Kyrie who has shown to be capable one-on-one so what Dallas did in the regular season is they threw him in every single screening action you can think of giving Kyrie space to get wherever it is he wants to go and this is tough to scheme for because he has that quick hitting pull-up jumper which at times is the ultimate counter to go Bear’s drop how the Thunder tackle this was by simply not playing a drop they had Chet coming up to the level of most screens often times they’d trap Kyrie in isolation before he could even start his attack and that led to a much different Irving than we’d ever seen he was in a playmaking mode initiating offense with the intention of drawing help and finding the open man then when absolutely needed he’d take over as a score scorer that’s not a bad thing I just don’t think it’s an option in this series he has to be the aggressor taking advantage of even the smallest Windows like here where the switch is a touch late and he’s got some space to step into a three he needs to be especially aggressive when he sees a matchup he likes every time he got the switch onto Mike connley in the regular season he took him straight to the post for some back to the basket work and it’ll be really interesting to see how Minnesota handles the Conley problem in general he’s their one small guard but you Absol abolutely don’t want him guarding Kyrie so it creates sort of a dilemma in the OKC Series PJ Washington consistently took advantage of mismatches either shooting right over the top of them when spotting up or taking them into the post where he showed off another layer to his game I wouldn’t want connley having to defend that so the only other option is Derek Jones Jr the thing with that is the Mavs love using Jones as a screener which would mean that Conley is having to defend in the primary action you absolutely don’t want him switching on to Luca because that’s a disaster waiting to happen which means he’ll be forced into coverages such as a show and recover or a trap and that’s a good way for the Mavs to create advantages like I said with the bigs it’ll come down to whether or not Jones can maximize those situations and I’d argue he did a very good job against the Thunder overall though I think there are several keys to this series when it comes to the Mavs offense what version of Luca are we seeing and can he give you a semi- efficient 30o average average out of pick and roll will The Bigs be able to make decisions out of the short roll when needed if they’re leaving Derrik Jones Josh green or whoever it may be alone on the perimeter can those guys knock down crucial shots can Kyrie enter a scoring mode and be the aggressor and finally will they be able to attack Conley’s lack of size as for the other side of the ball the Mavs don’t have anyone who can stay in front of ant shout out to Dereck Jones shout out to PJ none of these guys can contain ant off the dribble well that also applied to sheay and they did a good job of slowing that offense down so can’t they do the same here well against the Thunder they could completely pack the paint playing off of Shooters like giddy Dort Wiggins who couldn’t make the defense pay for leaving them open the thing with Minnesota is they don’t have that weak link who are you going to leave open McDaniels Reed Conley literally every player in the rotation is an above average spot up shooter so I’m not sure they can apply the same Concepts rather I think it’ll be a lot more dribble penetration late help than forcing ant to be a decision maker and in these spots the Wolves will be tested in a way that they haven’t in this run just think about their first two opponents and who they started at center now look at Gafford and Lively the verticality and overall athleticism is simply on another level giving them significantly better resistance at the rim and I’m not exclusively talking about the Fives Guys Like Jones and Washington have shown to be more than capable of rotating down as well so Edwards and towns won’t be walking into layups anymore another thing the Mavs really like to do is go zone so it’ll be interesting to see how the Wolves counter those looks because again it just isn’t something they’ve had to deal with yet I wonder if they can force ant into being more of a jump shooter than he wants to be and whether or not he can sustain high enough pull-up shooting numbers to keep the offense aoat I also think he’ll be seeing a lot more drop coverage than in previous rounds and I’d expect the Wolves to adjust by using cat or Reed as the screen due to their threats on the pop Conley will have to attack the drop as well using his pull-up jumper and his floater most of Minnesota’s offense starts with these perimeter actions and from there they play off the catch if ant is making the right reads to create those rotations not only do these guys get long Closeouts to attack a scramble often results in mismatches like here cat gets Kyrie and pressures the rim before lobbing it to go bear as for cat’s matchup I think it’ll be PJ Washington and that’s a strong forward so I don’t think we’ll be seeing nearly as many post-ups as we saw nearing the end of the Denver series there’s really only one other thing that comes to mind remember I mentioned how this is the Wolves first time facing true verticality at the five well on the MAV side this is their first time facing an elite rebounding team Minnesota has absolutely cleaned the glass on both ends of the floor which is one way Dallas was taking advantage of their opponents that is completely nullified if not turned into a weakness which will be something to track over the course of this series in totality I wish we had more of a sample to go off of between these two teams they only faced twice with Luca in the lineup both of which were before the Mavs made those big trades one of them was played Without Kyrie the other without Lively so basically what I’m getting at is this may as well be a blank slate with that said we have to do a lot of projecting I worked through some of the matchups but we truly don’t know what will happen maybe McD Dan is able to throw Luca off with his ball pressure maybe Jason kid finds a way to get Conley switched onto Kyrie consistently maybe ant has some surprise counters for us when dealing with verticality in my mind it comes down to those keys I talked about earlier I’m expecting both offenses to be slowed below their normal production making it a more of a grinded out type of battle and it just simply comes down to who I trust more I think Dallas has the star power that you can’t Overlook but what versions of Luca and K will we see and top to bottom I just feel Minnesota’s roster is more talented and well put together especially with the absence of Maxi kleba now that’ll change as if Conley’s injury turns out to be more serious than we thought but if I were forced to make a pick it’d be a tight series with the Wolves coming out in six or seven games 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 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 think of this matchup as always I hope you all have a great day and I’ll catch you guys in the next one

The Mavericks and Timberwolves have both looked like worthy finals teams through the 2024 playoffs… but who has the advantage in this matchup?

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