Luka’s gotta be more active rotating to shooters if he gets blown by, dude can’t just stand there and watch like the play is over
Maydietoday
He’s gotten better at on ball defense but is still a big time ball watcher when off ball
deenee2000
Boston has many players involved and moved the ball well and it showed that a lot more assists than Dallas.
Ok_Acanthaceae6057
I’m just gonna say I don’t think this will be there after game 1.
I think they got shown how quickly it can avalanche when you give Boston open 3’s
dmavs11
I could probably make a 40 second clip of him slowing people down last game 1 on 1 as well. They targeted him all game and he’s not a great defender, there were so many posessions, you can make it look worse or better than it was.
The lack of rotations afterwards on his bad possessions was the issue imo more than the 1 on 1 defense itself. I also don’t think defense was anywhere near the main problem for us compared to offense. We scored 89 points and Kyrie was 6 of 19. Role players took some stupid shots at the rim with multiple rim protectors there.
We need guys to step up as secondary creators and keep the ball moving instead of taking those forced shots against Porzingis. and Even defensively, the smalls or Porzingis was the most exploited thing.
AllTimeBallKnower
Nope this can’t be, Mavs fans told me he was above average at defense this season.
WooNoto
Celtics fan here and obviously this is to highlight Luka getting actually getting beat. But Luka more than held his own, he was attacked A LOT and caused multiple turnovers. He isn’t an elite defender but I think it’d be better to show EVERY time the Celtics tried to go at him to paint a fair picture.
Normal_Bird521
Noticed this and fucking loved it after the narrative this past week.
BananaStandBaller
This is your best player in the world??? Dude is running a layup line, and will be all series.
Ilikesporks_
aight now show when he locked up tatum
Unable-Chair7975
Celtics happily let Luka get 30 if it goes like this every game. No playmaking for teammates (only 1 assist off of 6 shot attempts from Luka passes), no defense and 30 points on 26 shots. They take that every time.
quetambienese
b…b…but I thought luka improved at defense??? i thought he wasn’t useless on defense anymore???
IceJeyD
This would be a much longer video if you add the great looks they missed
TheLeoMessiah
This was honestly a poor defensive performance from Dallas as a collective, even watching these clips there’s a few plays where JB takes the inside shot but there’s still options on the perimeter as well, for example on the JB dunk not only does he have a relatively open lane to the hoop but 40% shooters Al Horford and Sam Hauser were both wide open.
This next game I guarantee Dallas will tighten shit up and Boston’s decision making on those drives will matter more, last night it felt like whatever option they took would work, but imo Dallas will commit harder to either blocking the kick out or the drive next game and JB/Tatum will have to continue to make the right decision every single time
loving-father-69
I love Sam Hauser pick and pop. I will never not love Sam Hauser pick and pop.
Jack_M_Steel
He never switches once he’s beat nor does he fully help on the double. It’s why he’s a horrendous defender
tomzi9999
Luka need to look at this 24 hours a day for next few days.
PapaSheev7
This compilation doesn’t show it, but Luka actually did a decent job on defense for good stretches of the game. I’ll be honest, Luka’s gotten better on defense than I thought he had. He’s still far from a lockdown defender, but he’s a solid, serviceable defender now which is a great improvement from where he was a few years ago. Although Luka’s decent, even a good defender on occasion now, I like Boston’s strat of running it at him, even if only to tire him out some and(hopefully) reduce his production on the offensive end.
cgriff03
Why couldn’t the wolves do this man
GuestBadge
I think he held up his own. He’s better now than 2 years ago. It takes Brown physically pushing him to blow by him, and Brown is a big dude. But his rotations are what makes him a lazy defender. He needs to at least try to rotate and just show and not wait for the defensive rebounds out there.
JoJonesy
this isn’t even really an indictment on his defense specifically, it just makes sense to wear him down as much as possible by running action through his man
jetpack_operation
I’m sure a lot of people did, but I definitely called it as soon as I saw every fucking Western team just letting Luka catch his breath in the corner on every defensive possession. Best defense against Luka is offense directly at him. Luka’s too good to contain completely, but he’s not immune to fatigue.
BigHornLamb
Luka really got exposed last night. Sure Tatum has consistency issues on offense but I think the gap between them is a lot smaller than a lot people give credit considering Tatum is always a positive on the defensive side while Luka likes to ball watch and that puts a lot of pressure on his teammates defensively
planj07
Luka doesn’t want to play defense.
themrwaynos
Luka is a fucking killer and I love watching him play, but he is a defensive liability. There was some thread here a couple weeks ago highlighting his “amazing” one on one defense. I pointed out that there was help defenders both to his left and right side waiting to help out, which is why the players weren’t driving on Luka, but I got downvoted to oblivion by Luka dickriders or maybe his PR team.
So weird now this is ok to show on this sub with so many upvotes. I guess it depends on who the opponent is and who the powers of be are feeling like pushing at the moment. Or maybe Celtic fans just wake up earlier?
Who knows.
Mavs need to counter this by hiding the fuck out of Luka on defense. Not sure how they can do this against the celts but the only way they win a game this series without that kind of adjustment is if boston has one of those rare games where they can’t buy a bucket.
Dgwdum
Went from abusing a fat euro to being the fat euro getting abused
stickied
4 plays in a game? I’m not a Luka apologist, but this looks more like normal plays within an NBA offense…..with Luka being an average to below average defender…..than Boston targeting Luka.
kanjikluub
Dang we really do live in North Korea
chief1555
The most striking thing to me in these clips is his lack of lateral quickness, it’s like he’s struggling to move from side to side
mnight84
They did “target” him and they will continue to like every team who plays Dallas. But that wasn’t the reason they got their ass kicked. Because you can put clips together of Luka defense holding up against being “targeted” . This game was more about Boston’s defense, dallas missing wide open 3s and porzingis impact on both sides of the ball.
ClmrThnUR
he went to the Trae Young school of lockdown defense.
ElWierdo
ATTN: Chris Finch, 2 weeks ago
TreyMcnally
Five plays…wow
nicklovin508
More than anything just keep going at him so he can’t rest the knee
Yerison109
It ain’t McDaniels , Conley or Anderson attacking him this series I’ll tell you that
JesseJamesGames449
This doesnt even show all the times he was the weak side corner defender and was cheating into the paint to boost his rebounding stats and give up wide open corner threes to the best shooting team in the nba…
buffbobsaget1
You know it’s bad when Jaylen goes left on you.
Confident_Pear_8303
Whhhaaaattt? I thought he was a good defender now too.
bcory44
If you’re a white player in a basketball game you know they are going to try and cook you 😂.
FranksGun
I guess just sit Luka?
ImS33
Honestly the thing that surprises me the most is how often JB could give whoever is standing in the dunkers spot the easiest layup of their lives and he instead tries to draw the foul or tries to dunk with two people trying to contest. I’m pretty sure that guy is standing right there specifically for the scenario where his defender decides to help defend whoever is driving to the basket and leaves him open for the free layup/dunk. Someone is there and open in almost every clip
You see an example with Jrue to White but that could’ve happened *a lot* more
Dunkaholic9
If the Mavs want to have a chance, they’re going to have to figure out this switch. This is the Celtics’ bread and butter, and they’ll be leaning on it until Luka can figure it out.
sutroheights
His knee being banged up, plus not being great at defense to begin with, plus having to work his ass off in one on one isos, dude is just going to be more and more of a target as the series goes on.
PomfAndCircvmstance
The way some people wanna fight about superstars who aren’t good defenders actually being good defenders is so silly. It’s okay that guys like Jokic and Luka and Curry are poor defenders who get targeted because they make up for it with their offense. It’s a weakness like Giannis’ shooting and SGA being Canadian.
Noi89
There it is, expected luka defense compilation after loss
DonovanMcTigerWoods
He was getting in the way on a few possessions. He wasn’t just getting blown by the whole game. But this is probably the Celtics plan for the whole series, hunt him on defense to make him expend more energy, and we saw his efficiency on offense wasn’t good. They’re gonna try to make him give an effort on both sides of the ball
46 Comments
Credit: https://twitter.com/eric_shap/status/1798922457002267056
Luka’s gotta be more active rotating to shooters if he gets blown by, dude can’t just stand there and watch like the play is over
He’s gotten better at on ball defense but is still a big time ball watcher when off ball
Boston has many players involved and moved the ball well and it showed that a lot more assists than Dallas.
I’m just gonna say I don’t think this will be there after game 1.
I think they got shown how quickly it can avalanche when you give Boston open 3’s
I could probably make a 40 second clip of him slowing people down last game 1 on 1 as well. They targeted him all game and he’s not a great defender, there were so many posessions, you can make it look worse or better than it was.
The lack of rotations afterwards on his bad possessions was the issue imo more than the 1 on 1 defense itself. I also don’t think defense was anywhere near the main problem for us compared to offense. We scored 89 points and Kyrie was 6 of 19. Role players took some stupid shots at the rim with multiple rim protectors there.
We need guys to step up as secondary creators and keep the ball moving instead of taking those forced shots against Porzingis. and Even defensively, the smalls or Porzingis was the most exploited thing.
Nope this can’t be, Mavs fans told me he was above average at defense this season.
Celtics fan here and obviously this is to highlight Luka getting actually getting beat. But Luka more than held his own, he was attacked A LOT and caused multiple turnovers. He isn’t an elite defender but I think it’d be better to show EVERY time the Celtics tried to go at him to paint a fair picture.
Noticed this and fucking loved it after the narrative this past week.
This is your best player in the world??? Dude is running a layup line, and will be all series.
aight now show when he locked up tatum
Celtics happily let Luka get 30 if it goes like this every game. No playmaking for teammates (only 1 assist off of 6 shot attempts from Luka passes), no defense and 30 points on 26 shots. They take that every time.
b…b…but I thought luka improved at defense??? i thought he wasn’t useless on defense anymore???
This would be a much longer video if you add the great looks they missed
This was honestly a poor defensive performance from Dallas as a collective, even watching these clips there’s a few plays where JB takes the inside shot but there’s still options on the perimeter as well, for example on the JB dunk not only does he have a relatively open lane to the hoop but 40% shooters Al Horford and Sam Hauser were both wide open.
This next game I guarantee Dallas will tighten shit up and Boston’s decision making on those drives will matter more, last night it felt like whatever option they took would work, but imo Dallas will commit harder to either blocking the kick out or the drive next game and JB/Tatum will have to continue to make the right decision every single time
I love Sam Hauser pick and pop. I will never not love Sam Hauser pick and pop.
He never switches once he’s beat nor does he fully help on the double. It’s why he’s a horrendous defender
Luka need to look at this 24 hours a day for next few days.
This compilation doesn’t show it, but Luka actually did a decent job on defense for good stretches of the game. I’ll be honest, Luka’s gotten better on defense than I thought he had. He’s still far from a lockdown defender, but he’s a solid, serviceable defender now which is a great improvement from where he was a few years ago. Although Luka’s decent, even a good defender on occasion now, I like Boston’s strat of running it at him, even if only to tire him out some and(hopefully) reduce his production on the offensive end.
Why couldn’t the wolves do this man
I think he held up his own. He’s better now than 2 years ago. It takes Brown physically pushing him to blow by him, and Brown is a big dude. But his rotations are what makes him a lazy defender. He needs to at least try to rotate and just show and not wait for the defensive rebounds out there.
this isn’t even really an indictment on his defense specifically, it just makes sense to wear him down as much as possible by running action through his man
I’m sure a lot of people did, but I definitely called it as soon as I saw every fucking Western team just letting Luka catch his breath in the corner on every defensive possession. Best defense against Luka is offense directly at him. Luka’s too good to contain completely, but he’s not immune to fatigue.
Luka really got exposed last night. Sure Tatum has consistency issues on offense but I think the gap between them is a lot smaller than a lot people give credit considering Tatum is always a positive on the defensive side while Luka likes to ball watch and that puts a lot of pressure on his teammates defensively
Luka doesn’t want to play defense.
Luka is a fucking killer and I love watching him play, but he is a defensive liability. There was some thread here a couple weeks ago highlighting his “amazing” one on one defense. I pointed out that there was help defenders both to his left and right side waiting to help out, which is why the players weren’t driving on Luka, but I got downvoted to oblivion by Luka dickriders or maybe his PR team.
So weird now this is ok to show on this sub with so many upvotes. I guess it depends on who the opponent is and who the powers of be are feeling like pushing at the moment. Or maybe Celtic fans just wake up earlier?
Who knows.
Mavs need to counter this by hiding the fuck out of Luka on defense. Not sure how they can do this against the celts but the only way they win a game this series without that kind of adjustment is if boston has one of those rare games where they can’t buy a bucket.
Went from abusing a fat euro to being the fat euro getting abused
4 plays in a game? I’m not a Luka apologist, but this looks more like normal plays within an NBA offense…..with Luka being an average to below average defender…..than Boston targeting Luka.
Dang we really do live in North Korea
The most striking thing to me in these clips is his lack of lateral quickness, it’s like he’s struggling to move from side to side
They did “target” him and they will continue to like every team who plays Dallas. But that wasn’t the reason they got their ass kicked. Because you can put clips together of Luka defense holding up against being “targeted” . This game was more about Boston’s defense, dallas missing wide open 3s and porzingis impact on both sides of the ball.
he went to the Trae Young school of lockdown defense.
ATTN: Chris Finch, 2 weeks ago
Five plays…wow
More than anything just keep going at him so he can’t rest the knee
It ain’t McDaniels , Conley or Anderson attacking him this series I’ll tell you that
This doesnt even show all the times he was the weak side corner defender and was cheating into the paint to boost his rebounding stats and give up wide open corner threes to the best shooting team in the nba…
You know it’s bad when Jaylen goes left on you.
Whhhaaaattt? I thought he was a good defender now too.
If you’re a white player in a basketball game you know they are going to try and cook you 😂.
I guess just sit Luka?
Honestly the thing that surprises me the most is how often JB could give whoever is standing in the dunkers spot the easiest layup of their lives and he instead tries to draw the foul or tries to dunk with two people trying to contest. I’m pretty sure that guy is standing right there specifically for the scenario where his defender decides to help defend whoever is driving to the basket and leaves him open for the free layup/dunk. Someone is there and open in almost every clip
You see an example with Jrue to White but that could’ve happened *a lot* more
If the Mavs want to have a chance, they’re going to have to figure out this switch. This is the Celtics’ bread and butter, and they’ll be leaning on it until Luka can figure it out.
His knee being banged up, plus not being great at defense to begin with, plus having to work his ass off in one on one isos, dude is just going to be more and more of a target as the series goes on.
The way some people wanna fight about superstars who aren’t good defenders actually being good defenders is so silly. It’s okay that guys like Jokic and Luka and Curry are poor defenders who get targeted because they make up for it with their offense. It’s a weakness like Giannis’ shooting and SGA being Canadian.
There it is, expected luka defense compilation after loss
He was getting in the way on a few possessions. He wasn’t just getting blown by the whole game. But this is probably the Celtics plan for the whole series, hunt him on defense to make him expend more energy, and we saw his efficiency on offense wasn’t good. They’re gonna try to make him give an effort on both sides of the ball