The Brilliant Strategy That Shut Down The Mavericks

The Brilliant Strategy That Shut Down The Mavericks

nine days ago the Mavs closed out a series where their offense looked completely Unstoppable against the number one defense and it all started with how Luca completely dissected them in the pick and roll more times than not Rudy gobear is going to sit back in a deep drop and Luca countered by turning the corner to get Jaden McDaniels on his back from there he’d play in between and hunt out space for mid-range buckets so he got to his spots over and over again at will just absolutely torching the Wolves inside of 10 ft what makes this so impossible to defend is his patience because if that big even thinks about committing to the ball he’s lobbing it up to one of his bigs typically in a drop like this it’s the low man’s job to sink in and take away the lob but the Mavs countered that by putting their best shooter Kyrie in the weak side corner and having him clear out whenever the action started so essentially the pick and roll was played in a two on two once the screen hit it was a two-on-one and the Mavs got whatever they wanted so the Wolves adjusted their coverage in an effort to keep Luca away from the paint they blitzed him as far out as half court to which he calmly made the right read to create a 4 on three Advantage for his team to attack and although Gafford isn’t particularly great at executing in the short rle when given that much time and space to read the defense the decision making is so simple that the team is likely going to end with a good shot to prevent the spaced out four on threes and the downhill attacks at bigs they found a middle ground with the Hedge but that didn’t exactly work either and that’s because this created a new two-on-one Talent has to cover both the roller and a shooter in the corner to which Luca made sure that he always made the wrong choice it all comes back to numbers advantages drops and hedges created a 2on one blitzes created a 4 on3 if only there was an option that prevented this Al together this is where Personnel makes all the difference goar is very much like porzingis a giant rim protector who you can squeeze the most value from if they’re near the paint but when they get pulled into actions 30 or 35 ft away from the basket or have to switch onto guards that presence isn’t at all the same however there are two huge differences in Personnel between the wolves and Celtics that completely change the dynamic of what’s possible first is the versatility of Al Horford even at 38 years old he’s mobile and skilled enough as a perimeter Defender to hold up on switches more importantly though is the massive disparity between who’s playing the four towns is not a good drop Defender and he also can’t consistently switch onto guards meaning that every single time he was pulled into screening action he was either in a blitz or a hedge to which the Mavs had an automatic numbers Advantage those sort of limitations do not exist with the Celtics and that’s because Tatum is one of the most versatile defenders in the NBA in game one they put him on whoever Dallas had at the five and then they’d switch all screens involving Luca instead of a numbers Advantage going downhill the play is turned into a one-on-one against an elite Defender which isn’t quite as easy don’t get me wrong Luca’s probably the best isolation scorer in the NBA right now so regardless of who you put in front of him there’s a pretty good chance he’ll be able to create decent shots at volume and that stood out against his primary matchup Jaylen Brown who he hit a few tough shots over but for the most part Jaylen clearly took him out of his comfort zone he met him with constant ball pressure forcing action to start at the logo and this time he picks his pocket while fighting over a screen then leaks out in the open floor which leads to a free2 points that wasn’t the only time he did that later in the game he again meets Luca with immediate pressure pokes the ball right out of his hands with nobody to stop him from jogging into a dunk as for Kyrie Irving he had to deal with Drew holiday like I said with Luca sometimes these guys are just going to create and make shots that you have to live with but with a defender of holidays caliber hounding you all over the court it’ll definitely do a number on your ability to generate quality looks for yourself the natural response is to hunt for a switch onto someone else and so that’s what Kyrie did the thing is anytime he got a matchup he wanted and cleared out for an isolation he was playing right into the hands of Boston’s defensive strategy Sam Hower might not be an ideal Defender for Kyrie but the goal was to freeze out the rest of the offense nobody’s moving nobody else is touching the ball and Kyrie gets to a tough bucket that wasn’t always the case though these weaker Defenders Off the Bench were supposed to be food and instead they held up impressively well the same applies against Luke he’s got Sam Hower on an island and notice how he positions his body to lead him into help at the nail Luca tries to force his way to the open corner and ends up turning it over then when there isn’t nail help because they clear the top of the key yes Luca’s probably going to create a good look but the diet of shots is what’s important here against the Wolves they were getting a ton of lobs in corner 3es assisted baskets against the Celtics it was all about herob ball tough off the dribble jumpers less space to operate and that brand of basketball just isn’t nearly as efficient if they wanted to get back to creating an advantage with numbers they’d have to use one of their forwards as the screener that way instead of a wing switching on to Luca it’s christs who has to execute an actual pick and roll coverage and from there Luca can do what he does best well not quite for one with a traditional five on the floor such as Lively or Gafford whoever the low man is can sink in on the lob which allows kristaps to sit back in a deep drop and there are very few better at completely shutting off the paint one way the Mavs tried to counter was by having that screener pop the Celtics made it clear right away though that they do not respect these guys as Shooters so these are the opportunities that are going to have to start falling because if not the advantage of forcing kristaps to defend screens is almost nullified he can just park himself near the basket while they let Washington or Jones Shoot practice jumpers from outside another problem is that these forwards do not have the same interior scoring presence that The Bigs do so that only makes things easier for Christ staps as a rim protector really there’s only one drawback to having Chris apps drop like this and that’s the fact that both Luca and Kyrie are Elite off the dribble three-point Shooters so a few times he actually did find himself switched onto the ball and as I briefly mentioned earlier that’s not exactly the idea situation for his skill set one way they countered was by pre-s switching instead of stepping up to defend a screen he calls for white to take his place then they can switch like they want and sometimes Luca’s just going to Luca however when it’s Horford who’s playing the five instead of kristaps we’re talking about a completely different story because he will switch on to Luca every single time and I can’t believe how well he held up in space tactically he did everything right he’d Park himself on Luca’s left hip completely taking away the step back jumper and funneling him inside the Ark in a double big lineup that means running right into the Giant and later in that game Luca tried to make an adjustment because Horford takes away the step back to his left he decides to step back to his right which the big man denies between Kyrie and Luca Horford defended the two on 13 different shots matchup data of course isn’t perfect but Kyrie shot two of five while Luca shot a measly one of eight that’s a combined three of 13 with Al as the primary Defender and the amount of Versatility Within These lineups just gives them Endless Possibilities they can change matchups this time it’s holiday who’s on Gafford and that’s so Horford can stay on the Baseline for some added Rim protection but this time Horford’s up in the action as his man screens with Jaylen Brown on Gafford meaning it’s his job to protect the rim which he does with emphasis there was also one possession in the second where Horford called for a pre-switch Kyrie is getting ready to come off a screen so he sends Derek white to go switch with holiday and kba ends up setting any legal in addition to changing matchups they also mixed up coverages against ball screens this time instead of switching Horford decides to sit back in a deep Drop Like I said with Tatum in the middle of the paint there’s no lob and all Kyrie has is a really tough shot Horford also did a decent bit of hedging stepping up to the ball while he waits for Drew to recover and the play resets with no Advantage this time he Hedges against Luca and that once again makes Jaylen the low man as he rotates down to blow up a lob the play doesn’t end there though with a few extra passes the ball finds Jones down low and remember I said that he doesn’t have the same sort of interior presence basically what I’m getting at is the fact that the Celtics were able to take away almost everything the Mavs want to do I started this video talking about how the Wolves had no answer for lobs there wasn’t a single lob in game one of the finals well if there’s no lob that means they’re over indexing to take away the paint right wrong outside of Luca the Mavs attempted 13 threes and made three of them so the perimeter was also a complete non-factor what does that leave the one-on-one game Luca got his 30 points but it took him 26 shots to get there and he only had seven potential assists in the Conference Finals he averaged just under 14 meaning those opportunities were sliced in half and the same goes for Kyrie he only had three potential assists after averaging over seven in the previous round the difference for him is that he didn’t have the same scoring presence that Luca did he shot just six of 19 from the field meaning that basically their only source of offense was whatever Luca could create one-on-one as a result they recorded their lowest offensive rating of the entire postseason scoring less than 97 points per 100 possessions as far as adjustments go I’m not quite sure what to expect for one it’s going to take much better shooting across the board when Christ staps is sitting back and drop those wings need to hit shots or they need to be replaced with someone who can more importantly is the shot making of Kyrie if he and luk are forced to beat the Celtics with one-on-one scoring both have to be firing on all cylinders and scoring an efficient 30 points what I’m anticipating most though is whether or not kid and his staff can find a way to attack kristaps if they can force him to match up with Lively or Gafford they can run spread pick and roll like they did against the wolves and get back to creating those numbers advantages if they can’t find a way to attack Christ taps with their rolling bigs they might be forced to play more five out with kba on the floor with all of that said the bottom line here is how well the Celtics approached this game their combination of defensive versatility and Brilliant strategy completely shut down a Mavs offense that looked Unstoppable just 9 days ago 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 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 thought of this matchup as always I hope you all have a great day and I’ll catch you guys in the next one

Just 9 days ago the Mavs offense looked unstoppable against the #1 defense, but the Celtics completely shut them down in game 1.

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