How the Boston Celtics Guarded Dallas Mavericks & Things We Can Learn from the March 1st Game

How the Boston Celtics Guarded Dallas Mavericks & Things We Can Learn from the March 1st Game

on today’s show are the Boston Celtics going to be okay with switching on Luca like they did in March 1st what else could we learn from that matchup that the Mavs played in the regular season against the Celtics talk about that in more today and lock M I’m luk and this is lock down Mavericks Mavericks the8 [Applause] Champions it’s good and the Mavericks have won the game you if you don’t believe you shouldn’t be here loyalty never Fades away and welcome here locked on at the Dallas Mavericks my name is Nick angad media member and your best friend covering the Dallas Mavericks from the locked on podcast Network your team every day thanks for being part of the show Making locked on maps your first listen every day where the best way you can help us grow the show is to listen every day sometimes twice a day leave a five star review on any podcast platform you listen to like the video on YouTube and comment anything below crossovers coming soon get get ready to go to lock on Celtics and comment over there the Celtics fans are starting to emerge over on some of these videos here for lockedown Mavs hello if you’re from Boston hello welcome let’s talk about March 1st the Mavs played the Boston Celtics and there’s something kind of interesting about this matchup because in most of the Mavs matchups against the other teams in the Western Conference you looked back at the games they played in the regular season and you go okay well all these matchups happened before the trades so no PJ no Gafford all these tra like a lot of the Timberwolves games there’s only one that involved Luka and Kyrie and that was before the trades so you’re like okay there’s a bunch of disqualifiers there’s a bunch of things you look at and go well that match up doesn’t matter the Thunder games none of them mattered at all in the regular season you go all right there’s the Mavs had that 30o run against the the Thunder but like there’s a bunch of guys missing in that game a bunch like the half the rotation for the Mavs but with this with the Celtics they only play two times a year and it’s interesting to me that one of the games they played everybody played this was after the trades all the Celtics players were healthy porzingis played in this game and started so this is one of those rare games where you go okay we can actually maybe learn some stuff from this game now it was a regular season game in March after the trade deadline this was in the middle of the Mavs running through there uh the Mavs were running through there losing five out of six games stretch and so they really were not as sharp as as they should be there’s a lot of things that you can take away negatively from the Mavericks but we can still look at this and say okay what can we learn from this first thing to me the map’s rotation is so different than it than it was on March 1st kid was still trying to figure out everything drik livley started Josh Green started D Derrick Jones Jr played Seven Minutes in this game it was one of the reasons why he wasn’t qualified for an all defensive team this year because he didn’t play enough games of over 20 minutes this was an example of one of them he’s not hurt he wasn’t dealing with an injury really just just played seven minutes and so you look at this game you go okay well dri Jones J played seven minutes off the bench Gafford played six minutes off the bench two starters for you that have been crucial in this playoff run did not play Big minutes Josh Green started he played 28 minutes that’s 10 more minutes than he’s normally playing in the playoffs right now Tim Hardway Jr played 20 minutes in this game Lively only played like 23 minutes in this game so there’s a lot of things that are different and this was what let’s see 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 this is the eighth game after the trades so the kid was still trying to figure everything out you know I’m not I’m not saying oh kid was such an idiot for this for this lineup blah blah blah I’m not saying that anymore he was still experimenting still trying to figure out what he had you know Hardy didn’t play at all in this game you had you know Dante xam was still getting some big minutes he was still playing lineups together things like that and so you look at that and you go okay well that that’s something that we can change the Mavericks are different the Celtics are not different at all the Celtics rotation is basically the same Jaylen Brown only played like 30 minutes and so that’s obviously different you know the amount of minutes are different for all these guys but pretty much everybody that played and the amount of minutes that they play is is about the same and so for the Celtics they’re kind of the the uh they’re kind of like the uh the control in an experiment you know in science when you do an experiment you got the control so you’ve got the one that that the one element that doesn’t change in your experiment that’s the Celtics right here because they are not going to change this is who they are I think the Celtics played who they are they’re going to be more intense there’s going to be more intentionality on defense there’s going to be you know they’re going to try harder they’re going to go their hustle more all that kind of stuff for sure being in the playoffs but they were who they were took 43 threes made 21 of them shot 49% from three there we’re absolutely insane made had 138 points garbage time started basically at the 4minute mark of the fourth quarter kid just threw it Al Horford hit a a three in transition and kid goes you know what screw it we’re done but they’re they were pretty much the same and so one of the first things I’m looking at is who guards who Jaylen Jaylen Brown guarded Luca first and he kind of stayed on him for most of the game we’ll talk about that in a second Drew holiday started on Kyrie but Dereck white got a chance to guard him as well Lively and Gafford were guarding the PJ or the KP Horford combo they were on those centers that’s something we’ll also get to here in a second Josh Green started on Tatum this is another big change I think something that we can learn it’s the Mavs figured out who needs to guard the best player on the other side that’s going to be PJ now in the second half kid figured it out and put PJ on Tatum and Tatum just hit a bunch of really tough threes over him he just he had a really good game he hit five of nine threes and just really tough shots that he hit and I’m kind of okay with that but that’s something that’ll change from the March one match up up to now is that PJ will guard him more than what Josh Green did PJ started on Brown in this game because PJ did start my first big kind of question though or statement after going back and watching the March 1st and by the way I went back and watched it I watched the entire game on on stream and I recorded it and I put send it all to everybody on subtext so subscribe to the subtext if you want to get that if you want to get contact like content like that I send text to everybody I answer questions I’ll do extra content like watching this game and everything so if you want to watch that whole game with me subscribe to subex and I’ll send you the link my first kind of big question though is are the Celtics going to be okay Switching everything versus Luca because they did in this game they switched everything Brown started guarding him and then the Mavs would come up and set a screen and all of a sudden PJ Payton PR I keep saying PJ pton Pritchard was guarding Luca if the Celtics are gonna do that that ain’t gonna work that ain’t going to work because Luca will take advantage of the smaller Derek white the smaller Drew holiday the smaller pton Pritchard the weaker than him and smaller than him Sam Hower Al Horford he’s going to go he’s going to blow by he’s gonna like it’s GNA be hard for the Celtics to get away with that this version of Luca that’s one of my first things I noticed in this in this game is are the Celtics going to continue to switch everything against Luca because he’s operating on a different level than he was in this game Luca had a pretty good game in this one 37 points 14 of 25 from the field he missed six threes he was three of nine from three went to the free throw line eight times got 11 assists in this one only two turnovers like he he did have a really good game so he he beat the switches pretty well in this one but he did also just miss some chippies at The Rim things that he normally wouldn’t do wasn’t as sharp and wasn’t as that aggressive either because it’s a regular season game it’s just not the same as a as a playoff atmosphere and so if they’re going to switch the way they did in the in the the regular season in this matchup from March 1st I think that I think it’s going to be a real bad day for the Celtics I think Luka will be able to dominate that and so he if he can do that and if he does do that which we think he will because he he did it against everybody that’s tried to switch on him before then all of a sudden can LCA play someone off the floor because the Timberwolves really didn’t want to switch they really didn’t like allow until the very last possession of game two where Luka hit the gamewinner over over go they really the timber rolls really did not try to switch at all on Luca they tried to keep whoever was on on him and then just hedge and recover they tried to really do that against Luca they didn’t want to give up the switches and allow him to just take cly off the dribble all the time or take goar off the dribble all the time or get cat in foul trouble they really tried to not do that but if the Celtics do that the way they did March 1 can Luca hunt anyone off the floor can he make it so that uh you know Al Horford has a hard harder time playing in this series can he make it so that you’ve got to youve got to change things up and then they’ve got to send help if Dereck white is stuck on him or if you know porzingis is on him does porzingis get in some kind of foul trouble trying to guard Luca can pton Pritchard even play if Luca is GNA be on the floor can pton Pritchard even play if Luca is goingon to be able to hunt him every single time it’s a question they switched everything on Kyrie too can Kyrie do some of that I think because we saw Kyrie hunt some of the some of the guys in the Timberwolf Series where all right col’s on him he’s gonna go ahead and post up on him okay he’s got cat on him he’s gonna try to blow by him all right Jaden Jaden McDaniels is on him all right he’s gonna try to get real quick and run by him and he was successful in some of those things and so that’s one of my big questions after watching that game back the Celtics switched everything on Luca if they’re going to do that again I think the Mavericks have a real opportunity there to take advantage of that because Luca just will beat that into the ground and I think that he will hunt the matchup that he wants and be able to get that instead of having to fight through some of the other defenses that they’ll throw at him that’s the first thing coming up let’s talk about the MAV defensive side of it because the MAV defense was not good in this game and I think that they’re much better than they were on March 1st I’ll tell you why coming up today’s episode is brought to you by LinkedIn jobs LinkedIn jobs helps you find the qualified candidates you want to talk to faster post your job for free at linkedin.com lockon MBA all you have to do is go to LinkedIn and they know that small businesses are wearing so many different hats if you own a small business you run a small business for somebody everything like that you know that you probably don’t have the time and the resources to be able to get the right person but hiring is one of the most important things for a business you’ve got to bring in the right people people that you can trust people that you know are qualified to run your section of your 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this game the Mavs defense was not crisp PJ Washington did not look comfortable in this MAV defense again he’s eight games into his Mavs career and now what he’s he’s much deeper into his into his M’s career now he played 29 regular season games and he’s played 17 playoff games he’s much deeper into his Mavs career than he was eight games into it playing against the number one offense in the NBA and I’ll touch on the Boston Celtics offense because if you’re here because you’re a Celtics fan I’m going to be very complimentary of them a little bit later but the map’s defense is going to be very different than what we saw um drik Jones Jr played seven minutes Gafford played six minutes Josh green star and played 28 minutes and his defense was not very good on on Jason Tatum in this game Tim hard junr played 20 minutes and he looked lost on defense a lot of the time in this game the rotations were confused they’re giving up open looks it just it just wasn’t a very good defensive game again this is in the middle of the Mavs losing five of six game stretch where the defense was so bad that I thought they needed a change in voice I thought they needed a change in coach this was one of those games that made me think that you’re just seeing them the same problems over and over again giving up wide open threes because two guys are trying to you know two are helping on the ball instead of one guy coming over to help on the ball it was just too much mixed up stuff MAV defense is night and day different compared to this game on March 1st compared to what they’re playing right now and so I think that’s something that that’s interesting that I think the Mavs uh will it will be better for them one of the questions I have for their defense though after watching this game is what do Gafford and Lively do when Boston plays Five out which they do always unless they have Luke cornette in and that only really happens if KP or out what do what do those two do because Dallas has not faced a five out offense quite like the Celtics OKC was kind of close with Chad when giddy wasn’t playing and Chad was out there and even Jaylen Williams the other Jaylen Williams the the big Jaylen Williams they did play five out like they did play this so the maps have like been introduced to this style but the Celtics one is just on a very different level you look at all these Celtics guys they are all taking threes they’re they’re top eight all take at least three threes a game that’s a lot all of them the BS have multiple guys that don’t shoot threes and they’re their top eight Celtics don’t have anybody that doesn’t take less than three threes and everybody’s shooting well in the playoffs Tatum is 29% you don’t expect him to shoot 29% from three the you know for the rest of the playoffs here Sam Hower known for three-point shooting shooting 33% those are their two worst three-point Shooters in the playoffs so far I don’t think that’s going to last those guys are very good Shooters but what the Mavs did against the Thunder is they were able to put PJ Washington on Chad Homen and then they were able to have somebody roam off of a an Aaron Wiggins or roam off of the of of giddy or roam off of Lou Dort and allow them to take those open shots when the Mavs tried to do that a little bit in the Celtics game there’s there’s like three or four maybe five possessions I note them in the watchback that I did for subtext there are three or four maybe five possessions where the Mavs had Lively as sort of the RoR and it they just left like Drew holiday open to the corner Drew holiday shot like 58% in left corner this year I think he shot 58 and one and 60 in the other Corner that’s not going to work another one I think he left uh Jaylen Brown wide open in the left corner and Tatum just took a mid-range shot you’re like that they just they cannot sustain that that that’s not going to work and so what do the Mavs bigs do when they’re playing this five out offense and then when Lively or Gafford were guarding KP at the three-point line then all of a sudden the help is not the same behind so it’s all of a sudden the low man you can’t really send a low man on defense the low man is like the guy that’s closest to the Baseline basically and is the uh the guy closest to the rim and that guy comes over and helps when somebody gets beat off the dribble because it happens all the time so Jaylen Brown beats Josh Green off the dribble somebody’s got to come over and help and it it has been Lively or gaffer because the Timberwolves play with a center they either play with with Rudy goar or you know they send or they send in cat who will play you know bigger two and that had really benefited the Mavericks Celtics don’t do that they’ve got KP out on the three-point line they’ve got Horford out on the three-point line there’s not really a low man to send because you’re helping off of a corner at that point and if your player helping off of a corner all of a sudden it’s a wideopen corner three and the Celtics will just Eat You Alive with those and also in the OKC Series the Mavs have kind of seen this five out Chad only shot 20 2 6% so like unless KP is the guy that comes in and shoots 28% and he’s shot really well from three this year unless he’s that guy that just doesn’t hit it knock down his open threes and he took a bunch of deep threes in this this game from March 1 but unless he’s that guy that the maps can’t play the same kind of defense that they played against the Thunder it’ll be a different matchup the one thing though that I am very interested in and that I do think is a good thing for the Mavericks is I think Lively has grown so much especially since this game but in this game even even when I saw Lively in this game which by the way he played this game in the mask when he had broken his nose in three places Lively said that was the most um the most painful injury he’s gone through even more painful than the next drain I think Lively can switch credibly against anyone on the Celtics except for maybe Tatum and brown and even Tatum and brown I think he could hold his own for for a couple seconds to allow somebody to come over and help or to allow something else but like I think Lively is going to be so big in this match up after watching this game because what you because the the the Mavs need the centers on offense because they need to be able to take advantage of KP not being as big he’s tall guy but we know he’s not big Horford not being as big they played Xavier Tillman in this game they’re not going to play him in in the finals but they need to take advantage of those guys and be able to take advantage of luuk on the pick and roll if Luka is going to get switches then they’ve got to be then somebody else is switching onto the the center and so maybe it’s Dereck white maybe it’s Drew holiday maybe it’s brown or Tatum and they’ve got to be able to take advantage of those alopops to those guys but then they need them for the the Mavs need those centers for offense but what do they do on defense that’s been my big question and if Lively can switch on pretty much anybody then he’s playable Gaff this may not be a good series for this is probably not gonna be a good series for Gafford that’s not very good that’s not great for the Mavericks I think Gafford may be like a ceremonial starter in this series because what’s he gonna do what’s he going to do on defense because he can’t really switch out as well as Lively can and I think it’s going to be a big Lively series the other thing talking about offense is Dallas cannot try to match Boston three for three and spreading the floor for spreading the floor Boston always spreads the floor Boston always takes threes the Mavericks cannot just try to match that in the second half of this game on March 1st they just tried to match Boston by playing Maxi at the five and for like five whole minutes in the third in the fourth quarter they basically their last ditch effort was to just go spread the floor with maxi and Tim and Luca and Kyrie and PJ and just be like all right let’s just try to take as many threes as possible they cannot match the Celtics doing that they played 20 minutes of Maxine he basically played all of his minutes at the five in this game on March 1 because they only played Gafford six minutes and Lively only played 23 minutes so there and there was five minutes of garbage time so Maxi almost played all of his minutes at the five I don’t think that that’s good for the Maverick it’s good that they have Maxi as an option but I don’t think they just need to go to him every single time my last thing and this is where I’m going to be real complimentary of the Celtics is that uh the Celtics three-point shooting is next level compared to what the Mavericks have seen they they Bas the floor better than what the Mavericks have seen even against the Thunder even against the Clippers because the Clippers don’t play five out really anymore they used to but they don’t now with zubot and they played zubot and plumbley and Ty and like they they’re not spacing the floor and so the Celtics in this game especially this is a huge magnets game and when I talk about magnets I talk about the the fake conspiracy that they’re are magnets in the rim and so when it turns on for one team and they hit all their shots and it turns off for the other team and all of a sudden that team misses all their shots and so this is a big magnets game where the Celtics shot 49% from three the Mavs only shot 26% Celtics made what uh 12 more threes in the Mavericks you don’t win those games nobody wins those games in the NBA the Celtics shot or hit 11 less threes than the heat in their F first round series and that’s when they lost that game like even the Celtics against the Heat without Jimmy Butler they don’t win that game if you shoot that many less threes and so like what happens when Dallas runs the Celtics off the three-point line because that’s what they really tried to do with the Thunder can they do that can they run him off the line Tatum Brown KP were all taking pretty deep threes will you live with those will you be okay with those deep threes I think with KP I think you’d be okay with letting him take some of those deep threes I mean he’s just taking 28 27 28 foot threes I don’t know about you but if you’re a Mavs fan you remember KP breaking a bunch of bunch of those threes at times he’s he’s definitely been better with the Celtics on those he’s coming back from injury calf injury that affects your lift and all that kind of stuff I think they’d be okay with KP taking those deep threes but if they run everybody else off the three-point line then what happens what happened in the Thunder series is they ran them off the line they ran jayen Williams and uh and SGA and they ran some of those guys off the floor it just became a mid-range battle where SGA was just dealing in the mid-range just over and over again just mid-range shot mid-range shot mid-range he would hit a bunch of them are they okay with Tatum doing exactly what SGA had to do in that series he’s gonna he’s gonna he’s GNA eat for sure he’s GNA eat on those if you’re just going to go one-on-one with him and PJ Washington and let Tatum try and beat you doing what SGA did where you just break him down off the dribble and take a mid-range shot I think you might be okay with that the alternative is them just taking a bunch of thre so so that’s the alternative I mean it’s not like this is a great option but then I think that if the MS run them off the three-point line I think they’re cool with Drew holiday Derek white and Jaylen Brown trying to do that trying to beat them in mid-range there’s a couple shots where in this in this game on March 1 where Drew holiday is trying to take a mid-range shot like I’m cool with that if that’s the if that’s the end goal if that’s the end result of a defensive possession for the Mavs and Drew holiday is taking like a kind of contested mid-range shot I think I’m all right with that Derek white same kind of thing Jaylen Brown It’s you know he’s a different level than those two other guys but I think you’re okay with those guys just taking some mid-range shots and trying to beat you from the mid-range so what happens if Dallas does run him off the three-point line they tried to do that against the Thunder but they have not played a three-point offense like this one so what I Come Away with from March 1 is that the Mavs played them pretty even throughout most of the game and then the the threes just really were not falling for the Mavs nine of 3 four I mean just brutal and then for the Celtics they hit a bunch of their threes and they hit contested threes they hit deep threes and all that they can do that they’re very good they’re a very good three-point shooting team but the Mavs defense was also just not excellent and not even good I would say and so what happens when the Mavs defense is better now and tries to run them off the three-point line in a way that they just couldn’t back on March first that’s going to be kind of the problem and kind of the issue there thanks for hanging out with me today just you know kind of bonus episode we’re doing a crossover with John kis we ask him all the questions I have about the Celtics he’ll ask me questions about the MBS we’ll do that I’ve got Isaac on Deck this week I’ve got Dana Larson on Deck this week regie atat Tula on Deck this week thanks for hanging out with me on locked on Ms we’ll have more stuff all throughout the week guys thanks much for listening to locked on Mavs peace out boom

The Dallas Mavericks will take on the Boston Celtics in the 2024 NBA Finals, what are the biggest questions around Luka Doncic, Kyrie Irving, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Kristaps Porzingis, the Celtics, and the Mavs?

Nick Angstadt shares what he learned rewatching the Dallas Mavericks vs Boston Celtics game from March 1st. Will the Celtics switch everything against Luka Doncic again? What will the Mavs Centers (Daniel Gafford & Dereck Lively II) do against Boston’s 5-Out Offense? Could Dallas run the Celtics off the 3P line like they did to OKC? (Probably Not!)

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