Is Game 5 a Kyrie Irving or Luka Doncic game?! JWill & Brian Windhorst ASSESS 🍿 | Get Up

Is Game 5 a Kyrie Irving or Luka Doncic game?! JWill & Brian Windhorst ASSESS 🍿 | Get Up

we get this ball rolling Drea what are you watching for right out of the gate tonight in Boston Luca’s defensive energy and his defensive effort I was on fire when it came to Luca and the lack of his defensive effort when it came to game three game four he responded he played hard he sat in his stance he wasn’t the best defender on the floor but he showed effort I want to see if he can take that defense to Boston Allan your first impression also involves LCA yes it does because you want to see his composure continue like we saw in game four where he’s just simply focusing on shot hunting not foul hunting not worrying about the officiating on the road a little bit different but keep looking for Jason Tatum Because by the way look he can’t guard you they’re talking about your defense what about tatums on you not very good we’ll get to some stats on that as we continue but Jay will what’s one thing you’re looking for early tonight will there be a pregame ritual of incense occurring before the game five tonight for Mr Kyrie Irving one of the biggest games in his career now look obviously he struggled playing in Boston he’s been very reflective over the last several days about his time there and it sets up where Luca will perform offensively I think he will be engaged defensively but what will his counterpart bring to the table this evening let’s hear from Kyrie because that that obviously is a huge factor in all this he spoke on his Celtics tenure as the series shifts back to Boston tonight I think that’s what I struggled with initially was figuring out how I’m going to be a great player here while winning championships while also leading a team and uh selfless ly joining uh the Celtics organization or the cult that they have here um you know and that’s what they expect you to do as as a player they expect you to seamlessly buy into the Celtics Pride buy into everything Celtics and if you don’t then you’ll be outed and uh I’m one of the people that’s on the outs I’m perfectly fine with that you know what I mean I did it to myself well that was tough to follow uh so when man that was a lot of words there and and one of them in particular I have a feeling we’re going to see up on the Jumbotron tonight which would be the word cult what what what did what what so Kyrie has been a sea of passivity throughout this season we’ve been very impressed it has led to him to have some of the best play of his career when it comes to Boston I think he’s still seething just below the surface and we’ve seen it seep out a little bit with the fans in this series and even though he’s trying there to be respectful he can’t help it and it’s been it’s been combined with the fact he just hasn’t been good in Boston since he left there he’s pretty much lost every time he’s come for a while he was finding all kinds of different ways and he just wasn’t playing there he was 13 to 37 the two games in one and two it’s just something he’s got to get over he’s gotten over almost everything that was plaguing him earlier in his career he’s not quite over this this is the last turn so so Jay is this tonight here’s the way I want to frame this because the Mavericks are still playing for their you know for their for their lives if you will and trying to keep this thing alive if they win tonight then all the pressure shifts to the other side but for the moment all the pressure remains on the Mavericks is this a is this tonight is this a Kyrie game or is this a LCA game I I I don’t think it’s fair to make them one of I think it has to be a collective game to get a a game five win on the road I think both have to be elite both need to be engaged we talked about it before we I said this on your radio show if you have Team a where your best offensive players are also your team’s best defensive players and you have Team B and their best offensive players are the two worst defensive players going to choose team a all the time so I think the functionality and a defensive level needs to be engaged and you vote you need those two to be Superstars to win game five when I think Boston’s going to be desperate tonight that Boston was not desperate in game four I think we will match the intensity from Boston in game five so so it’s interesting the way this Series has gone from a Dallas perspective Kyrie struggling in games one and two and became sort of the central focus of most of the criticism and then Luca he said hold my beer in game three don’t take it away this time that’s well played um and then of course they come back with the big performance in game four but you’ve got some tape of Luca and the difference that we saw from him the other night as we look forward to this the difference was night and day and I’m going to keep the same energy when I was calling Luca out for his defense as I praise him for his defense because he responded defensively we’ve said he doesn’t have to be the best defensive player in the league he just has to function on the defensive side he has to give e he has to give a little bit of resistance and again he’s going to take some bad angles at times that’s okay like this is a bad angle you shouldn’t jump that pass now your feet are in the wrong position but when you give effort you can make up for some of those mental mistakes some of those bad angles and then look here those same low knees that we see on offense all the time we saw that on the defensive possession leading to this offensive play this is what we didn’t see in game three now here Jaylen Brown is getting ahead of steam he has momentum look at Luca his feet are wide his hips are a little lower than we saw in game three and he’s able to create resistance for a kick out that’s fine you don’t want Jaylen Brown to take that shot now if you’re pton Pritchard you need to hit that shot but at least Luca gave a stance defensively and same thing here this is a lot of time for Jaylen Brown to try and get into his bag and Luca again sits in a stance drops his hips his hands are low his hands are active and he makes Jaylen Brown give up the ball how many times did we talk about in game one and two Jaylen Brown getting downhill Jaylen Brown creating off the bounds Jaylen Brown getting to the rim slam dunk plays energy plays Luca’s effort defensively took some of that momentum away from Jaylen Brown and from the Celtics it feels like that both of these guys as we’re talking about it Luca and Kyrie are both facing mental challenges in this game for Kyrie obviously it’s The Crucible playing in Boston that we’ve talked about he’s got to get over that somehow some way this might that’s what it is I mean this for him this is for him might be the toughest game he’s ever played if you think about it the level where he’s at in the finals where it is and he’s openly talking about it as you said Wendy this he’s openly talking about is definitely still in the back of his mind and then from Luca it is okay now that we’ve seen the game that we’ve been expecting out of you in game four where you are more paying attention defensively you’re doing it everything offensively is still there but now at least you’re giving the effort on defense now you got to do it on the road now you got to continue to do it you showed us you can you got to keep doing it and don’t let the officiating everything else get in the back of your mind both of them facing different mental challenges in this game look a game four in a 3 nothing series it’s such a complicated phenomenon right you have one team that knows they have all of the they they have they have room to play with right they and the other team that is desperate they don’t want to be humiliated in the case of Friday night they’re playing on their home floor so to your eye Jay was it a simple case of that on Friday night or was there something we saw in that game that is repeatable that could actually mean no wait a minute here come the Mavericks they’re in this thing I look I I thought the Celtics played hard I thought Dallas played desperate I think Boston’s going to play desperate tonight I I I think it’s going to be a completely different game it’s going to take an outof body performance by both Luca and Kyrie to extend this to game six what was the sense there again Wendy has been at all these games at every practice been covering everything for us what was the sense afterwards relative to something that was so completely different from what the first three games were I think there was relief from the Mavericks that they weren’t going to have to have a sweep hanging around their neck great great uh energy from the crowd in that game sometimes you don’t know sometimes they all sell their tickets there were some Celtics fans there but it was mostly Mavs great energy from that crowd I think that made a difference and I think the thing about this is we’ll never know what the last four minutes of game three would have been if Luka didn’t foul out you can’t you have no idea how game four would have gone to me the way Luca played in this game while it was very impressive it just rammed home how frustrating the end of game three was and so to me from where I sit which is not as a Mavs fan or a Celtics fan it just increased the regret on game three this series is not in that place because now honestly Boston has to win one out of three games two of which are home I would give any team in the league a good chance of that situation and they’re in this because Luca in my view took them out of game three it is certainly possible however as I said before tonight all the heat is on the Mavericks yes if the Mavericks win tonight then that I don’t care who you are but especially in the case of these Celtics who have had all of these ghosts and these demons and they’ve got to go up against luuka Dage let me show you two separate full screens if I can here Cindy we’ll start with one and then we’ll do two number one and then number two because Luca when facing elimination has been spectacular this includes the other night you’re going to see the numbers that Luca has put up and you’ll see the company that he keeps when facing elimination Luca donic had is the number one all-time scorer in postseason history when facing elimination ahead of LeBron James ahead of Michael Jordan that’s pretty fancy company to keep speaking of which let’s go to the other one he has scored at least 25 points now in 11 consecutive playoff games so for all the criticism of Luca and it was completely warranted no one suggesting otherwise 11 consecutive playoff games of at least 25 points I mean this is royalty on this screen that we are seeing you’re sharing a screen with Michael Jordan Leon James and Kobe Bryant so he has been he has been good we just ask him to be way way better than good he can he can be angry at every single self fan he can be angry at every single Celtics player there’s three guys he’s not allowed to be angry with they we gray leave him alone and if you do that you’re going to have a great opportunity to pull something off that’s extremely well said you think all the pressure is on Dallas yes tonight tonight well I mean if they lose they they lose the championship I think there I mean I think there’s a lot of pressure on the Celtics too have been known to give up really big leads and closing things out and also they’re at home everybody expects them to close out game five I think that’s very under undervalued thing that we’re not discussing yet we’ve also seen Boston shoot very poorly on their own home court they shot poorly in game two the maps just couldn’t take advantage of it they’ve shot poorly in multiple series at home [Music]

On Get Up, Andraya Carter, Brian Windhorst, Jay Williams and Alan Hahn join Mike Greenberg to preview Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks.
0:00 Game 5 first impressions
1:30 Kyrie Irving’s comments
4:00 Tale of the tape for Luka
7:00 Relief from the Mavs
8:45 What if the Mavs win Game 5?

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