The Mavericks Are 1 Game Away From The Finals…
what’s the word y’all the Dallas Mavericks are one game away from being in the NBA finals and since no team has ever come back down 03 let’s let’s just start doing the preview of Boston Celtics yeah I’m sorry Indiana Boston Celtics Dallas starting June 6 you feel me the the porzingis Luca donic game for the Larry O’Brien um we had this conversation on the podcast like in our life if you’ve been around basketball for let’s say 15 years you’ve seen so many different things you got to see Kobe you got to see Braun you got to see Tim Duncan Kevin Durant Steph Curry you got to see the greatest regular season team in the NBA history you got to see that same team lose a 3-1 lead and one of the questions that was posed is in our lifetime will we ever see a team come back down from 03 and with the three the three-point shooting nowadays I guess it’s possible I don’t know if it’s this series but I guess it’s possible um one of my favorite things we talked about at plenty of times through these Recaps is the best thing about playoff basketball is watching coaches try to play this chess match right and game number one the the s timos almost exclusively played drop drop coverage they got killed and in game number two they brought Rudy go up to the point of attack a lot of times still ended up getting killed and in game number three I don’t know I don’t have a stats to prove this because the game just end it and there’s no Advanced stats to Showcase this I feel as though they may have W run the most Zone we’ve ever seen from the Minnesota Tim wolves so they’re just trying to adjust and no matter what they decide to do it is not just not working um but I’ve mentioned this even though the defense has not been great I don’t think that’s their main problem in the series right now like yes Luka donic is looking like the best player in the world yes kri Irv continuously to give you Quarters at a time where he is Unstoppable but the thing that’s really holding the timber wolves back is that they’re looking like the regular season version of themselves Kenny what do you mean by that I have posed this question just just just talking just just shooting the stuff on the Kenny Beach podcast about three to four weeks ago and I said and it was really based on the Minnesota timbles I don’t know why we watched the regular season because this playoff run the 2024 playoff run we SE so many different teams play out of their body play differently than what they did in the first 82 games of the year for example the Minnesota Timol were the 17th ranked offense in basketball in the regular season and then the first two series they were the number one ranked offense so why did I just watch 82 games of this team if they was just going to play completely different come playoff time well in this round they look like the regular season version of themselves on offensive side of the ball in the regular season theyve a 27th rank basketball team and the first two two series they were number one but now so far in this series they look like the 27th rank clutch team in basketball so it’s all c for a circle so we can’t we can’t care about regular season again ladies and gentlemen because the regular season said hey the Dallas Mavericks are TW 20 well this is regular season and postseason 25 or 26 and five when they start the starting lineup that they do we should have probably saw this coming I know Die Hard Mass fans did there was not a lot of them not a not a lot lot of people outside of Ms fandom that thought that this team was going to be one game away from the finals again I thought this team could make a finals appearance but I ain’t have my money on it my money was on Denver and you saw you saw how that went so let let’s talk about this game at large let’s talk about this game at large um there was a stretch in this game with the defense that I said has not been great but it hasn’t been terrible um was getting picked to park by of course Luca DS and Carrie Irving a lot of the times what I raised my eyebrows was watching Carrie Irving um as the primary ball handler where there was really nothing the Timberwolves could have done right when they decided to Blitz it um Kyrie Irv was going right around Rudy goar when they decided to play Drop coverage it was either Carrie Irving on a pull-up jump shot or live to Lively who we need to talk about um a live to Daniel gaffer who had a messy messy game into that last couple minutes where he was phenomenal um and then when they had one of the wing Defenders tag Kyrie Irving what did krie Irving do just swing it to Luca Luca hit two catch and shoot three today LCA donic we did Luka donic I know needs to put the ball on the floor one time before he take his shots today just catch and shoot two different times so you got three different options if you Carrie Irving and the best thing about the Dallas Mavericks is that they have the both of those guys are so cerebral and so very smart at picking apart defenses that they were going to make the right decision like 99% of the time and of course sometimes you make the right decision and you still miss a shot or your teammate miss a shot and so on and so forth but man in the first two games of the series the Minnesota Tim was like Hey we’re going to neutralize the others no PJ Washington no darl Jones Jr Dar Jones Jr PJ Wason got more open looks in this game than they have in the entire series and darrk Jones Jr is perfect from the three-point line today not ideal so this is just man again chess I think Jason kid again has been coaching a phenomenal phenomenal Series so far um one way I try to determine part of this and this is maybe just a old way of thinking I probably should should put this in the can but when you call a timeout after team is on the run and you immediately get a bucket on your atto I see that as good coaching right we settled some things down you know what I think is some bad coaching when you come out of half time halftime and the first thing you do out of halftime is get a Rudy go bear post touch I should have turned the game off right there I should have turned the game off right there Rudy Gober post touch the first thing you do out of halftime again at of halftime out of timeouts that should be good look SL buckets a 90% of the time turnover because Rudy goer is um in this one the main story for me is n9ine minutes into this game or nine minutes G minutes play Derek gy goes down with an injury first of all he got hit in this in his uh lower area by carony town to One play he fought through it and he stayed on the court and then two minutes later he hit his head on carony Tales I think pretty sure Caron towns his knee and that was one of the scarier things I’ve seen just because not only did he stay down for a long time when he got up I mean he was probably seeing stars and he wobbled his ass off the court and they’re seeing it’s the next strain I pray that that’s the truth I Sports in general just have this history of putting things under the rug the man again I don’t know what he looked like three minutes after he got hit but it looked as though he’s mildly concussed again I hope that it’s just a next next strain and they not sweeping something the rug but um but that didn’t look good and the the Minnesota timle start to take advantage of that it’s night and day from when it is Lively versus Gafford or goddamn Dwight power play playoff minutes today that was Luca Don’s stting Center for like three seasons I cannot believe that look at what Lively and Gafford has done and compare that to the the time that we saw of the white power um and then you just saw the Minnesota T was take advantage where you had that stretch where Anthony Edward scor went nine points by himself because he was getting to the basket he had the huge dunk on Daniel Gafford just because in this series it’s been hard for him to get to the basket and finish at the basket cuz Lively has been phenomenal down there and when Lively was out of the game it was like okay boom boom boom we’re still in this one the offense though down a stretch for the Minnesota timbles again completely completely Dreadful and that’s where you lose this game I I thought that they played some solid defense there were a couple possessions late in this one where uh Luca dones probably should have got a a foul um but they didn’t call the whistle and Luca was is just one of the Great shot makers in basketball so it didn’t matter whether or not they blew the whistle or not and to watch to watch Ant stand in that corner was was was a little bit disappointed for me you know who’s also disappointed goddamn Carl Anthony towns I ain’t even right in my notes cuz I didn’t need to be reminded of this because it was one of the things that stood out for me a minute and 40 seconds left on the clock it is a very close game in this one I think they’re down by one down by two points it’s 18 shot 18 seconds on the shot clock and and Carl Anthony towns takes a pullup 27 foot three-point shot and bricked it and the awareness in that situ the lack of awareness in that situation is why this team was the 27th ranked clutch team in basketball I it it blows my mind five of 18 from the field 0 for eight from three and he carony towns is one of those players that I’m rooting for individually the brother has been through so much over the last three years he needs these he needs wins and I honestly if if they get swept in the series I still see this as an absolute win of a run for carony towns but the end of end of this is going to leave a bad taste in people’s mouths last series he was phenomenal game seven he held them down late in it and they ended up winning that game but the NBA sports in general is like a what have you done for me lately thing so what you did in those first two rounds are kind of gone and really people are just going to talk about what you’ve done now and today in last game and the game before that he’s been Dreadful on both sides of the floor we praised him so much for his defense on Nico jic and the end of that series all of that is gone out the door well I think he’s looking as slow footed as I’ve ever seen him before on the defensive side of the ball and if the offense is not matching in hell I was surprised to see him check back into the game with two minutes to go I’m sorry I was surprised to see Rudy Gober check in for Nas Reed instead of carony towns cuz Nas Reed was the better player again tonight rud go bear defensively last game I don’t think he had a bad defensive game I know we going to talk about him getting ISO on on Luka D I don’t think he had a bad offensive game a defensive game today this was some of the worst defense I’ve seen for Rudy goar and again this is a four time Defensive Player of the Year this was some of the worst defense I’ve seen for him well I thought the the the one thing about Rudy goar that that made me a fan of him and and and defensively is that he was so fast on making the the right lead today he felt like he was a second behind and when you a second behind when it’s Kyrie Irving and Luca donic you’re CED it’s over and today all I was waiting for the time I was waiting for the time where he started to make the right and sometimes making the right decision where you’re a center and a drop doesn’t matter sometimes it doesn’t matter you can make the right decision it still ends up in two points because you’re playing one versus two is LCA Don in front of you it’s it’s Daniel Gafford or Daniel Derrick live on the backside you can make the right decision to still get scored on I thought today he didn’t make any of the right decision well maybe that’s a stretch but it it’s not the DPO it wasn’t the DPO and that was disappointing uh because they they needed him down the stretch and for him to get ISO again um and this time it was Jaden Hardy on that one play it’s got to be it’s Luca is in that man’s head he has to be Luca gave um Hardy the ball this is third quarter from maybe late second quarter early third quarter I don’t remember Hardy gets the ball he looks at Luca and Luca does one of these because he’s being guarded by Rudy goar’s face and what did Hardy do T up fake draws the foul he’s got to be in his ha out out of that halftime Luca donic GS the switch on on Rudy go and LCA just just just removes the tear and Rudy Falls oh man shout out to the Dallas Mavericks um this again I say this when you’re up by two it is so very easy for you to let off they did not do that even though the Wolves went in their run they fought back every single time PJ Wason hit a timely three down the stretch and again I mentioned this a couple minutes ago but but the Daniel gafford’s impact in that last two minutes makes up for the first 30 27 minutes that he played that he wasn’t very good because you look in the close out a game and you get the possessions that he did on both sides of the floor and that does it that’s all that really matters hell he’s been interviewed by Inside the NBA he had five points today but in that last two minutes that’s all that really mattered the box score does not matter let me know what you think about this um I have a lot more to say I’m going to go downstairs to film The Kenny be podcast and dive more into it uh that’s coming out tomorrow Kenny be podcast it’s in the description I think whatever
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24 Comments
Luka should be carrying the Kings rn 😭…. Mavs are playing beautiful hoops right now though. Celtics about to be exposed again??
Best part about NBA basketball in 2024 is the fact that legends are competing in the same league at the same time, they're all young and there's no undisputed best player in the league. Yes, Bron has the best career resume, yes, Joker is the placeholder as the best, but it changes often enough
Daniel Gafford may be the biggest winner in terms of players’ situations starting from the start of the season. Traded from the 2nd worst team in basketball to a quality piece of a team going to the Finals
Danm wish kleber was back for lively
Nooooo lively been my favorite player 🥲
can't believe they won against suns and Denver nuggets.
1 win away kenny
They can play 1 or 2 or 3 games without a win
You and P got the same exact Thumbnail 😂
let's go mavs. these guys deserve the chip way more than any other team.
Remember. AD would never
I knew the game was over as soon was I saw this man Jaden Hardy call himself an iso on Gobert and cook him LMAO
the shot at the back of the head is very dangerous, no wonder why in mma and boxing shots to the back of the head banned. My guy is probably concussed
Celtics vs Mavericks is crazy. Luka 1st ring? 💍
Its just unfortunate man, i was hoping for a 6, 7 games series, Minnesota was just built to beat the Nuggies, but this goes to show how much matchups are the tale of the tape in sports. If the Nuggets advanced instead the definitely win this series in like 6 games. I believe Boston will nail the Mavs in 6 too, its just the matchups they are not favorable for the Mavs going forward.
This series is about players stepping up (entire MAVS team) and those who don't (partly Edwards but mainly KAT).
It's also about coaches who adjust their game plan and those who don't. What adjustment has MIN done? They're just repeating the same things they've been doing in Game 1.
Twolves deserves to be swept, this is G league level of play.
Luka was a much improved catch and shoot player this season. Those 3s off the catch were not an anomaly
Can’t wait to see Kyrie go back to Boston. Hopefully he breaks their hearts one more time. For symmetry.
Kenny u actually a bitch for spoiling it every time that ego going to ur head
Honestly I feel like the twolves got lucky with how close the game was, derek lively’s absence was felt until that last stretch like with 3 minutes left in the game. He has without a doubt been the Mavs 3rd best player in this series. The Mavs have really shown their depth in this play off run. PJ was big in the okc series and honestly the entire team took turns contributing against the clippers.
Bruh
Kenny u talking too much big dawg, series end when one team wins 4 times ain't no jumping to the finals as of now.
People. Luka is shooting 40+ % catch and shoot 3s this season. Pay attention. This isnt the same player he was 3 years ago.
i mean the wolves played 1 horrible defense in the first round(suns) a just above average one in the second round(yes the nuggets defense is mediocre) thats their first time playing a top 5 defense in the leauge(yes the mavs defense have been that good for the past 3 months) so no surprise that their offense has struggled