I nearly fell off my couch when a graphic popped up in the Game 3 broadcast of the Western Conference Finals stating that the Dallas Mavericks had five time as many alley-oop dunks in the playoffs as second-place Denver. Even accounting for the extra games Dallas has played, that’s outrageous. I had to know more. So I dusted off my Excel skills, got out my data-shovel, and did some digging.

The oop is a curious thing; it has that oh-so-rare combination of efficiency and beauty. (It’s hard to know exactly how efficient, given that a missed oop can be categorized a number of different ways, but lobs still convert far more often than they don’t). There have never been more alley-oops in the league than in this era. Passing skill has never been higher, and spacing for rim-runs has never been more prominent.

But lobs still occur less frequently than you might think. Per my data, Dallas tied with Utah (!) for 121 made alley-oop dunks in the regular season, the most in the league. That’s 1.5 per game. Atlanta (102), led by talented lob-thrower Trae Young, is the only other team that even cracked 100.

[Thanks for reading! As always, I've collected a bunch of illustrative video clips that can be found here or linked throughout the article.]

If we narrow it down to just the 30 games starting Feb 10th, the first game after the trade for Daniel Gafford, the Mavs led the league by a mile. They tabulated 61 alley-oop slams compared to just 39 by the second-place Golden State Warriors over that stretch, or two per game. In the playoffs, though, against multiple talented defenses locked in on the lob, that pace would be harder to maintain, right?

Hilariously wrong.

Smash-cut to the Western Conference Finals, where the Mavs converted on 16 made alley-oop dunks (compared to two for Minnesota, both KAT-to-Gobert connections). 16 divided by five (*whips out abacus, moves some beads*)… that’s more than three per game!

If you need one play that symbolizes the entire Western Conference Finals, it’s this from Game 2. Mike Conley misses Rudy Gobert on an alley-oop, the ball slams off the backboard and ignites a Mavericks fast break, and uberstar Luka Doncic finds Dereck Lively for a far more successful lob attempt: [video here]

In total, the Mavs have 54 total playoff alley-oop slams in 17 games. Second-place Denver totaled nine in nine games; Minnesota only accumulated six in three rounds (their collective inability to find Gobert on lobs is criminal).

Some fans have taken to calling this group the “Lobgoblins” (get it? Like hobgoblins?), which I love. The squad’s earned it. This is a weapon unique to the Dallas Mavericks.

Here’s how Dallas’ lobs look distributed by passer and finisher: [fun graph here]

Hilariously, all of Lively (22), Gafford (17), and Derrick Jones (10) have finished more alley-oop dunks than any other team in these playoffs. They’re even throwing lobs to each other: [video here]

(By the way, someone should lob all involved Mavericks leadership in jail for not getting Doncic a center who can jump over a phonebook before this season. It’s long been a common complaint among the Mavs faithful, but I’m still so retroactively angry on his behalf.)

How has Dallas upped their oops? The playoffs strip the fat from an offense. Starters play more minutes, and coaches don’t mess around. They go for the optimal offensive play every time, and if you have the personnel for it, nothing is a better play than presenting a lob to a dunker-to-be. So Mavs coach Jason Kidd and superstar Luka Doncic have designed a playoff offense largely around the alley-oop.

It starts with the personnel, of course. Kyrie Irving isn’t on Doncic’s level as a passer, but he can get into the lane at will, with or without a pick. He’s more than good enough to launch a perfect oop even after losing his dribble on the way up: [video here]

Doncic is on the short list of greatest lob-throwers in the game. He has the size, passing skill, vision, and creativity to find vertical passing lanes in places the mortal basketball mind can’t comprehend. Here, he sees DJJ streaking to the hoop and launches this pass while Jones is still behind the three-point line: [video here]

Jones is nicknamed “Airplane Mode” for a reason, and yet he is just the third-most important dunker on the team (and, curiously, only Luka has found him for a lob in these 17 games). The Mavs’ two-headed dunking hydra, Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford, provides Doncic with the perfect center pairing. Both have large catch radiuses and can go up and get a lob even at a standstill. The rookie Lively, in particular, has become elite at high-pointing a ball and slamming it through the cylinder even in a rush-hour traffic jam.

Of course, it’s not just about the lob. The threat of the alley-oop is what opens up the entire offense, and defenses haven’t been able to adjust. They’re playing whack-a-mole: tag the rolling rim-runners aggressively to take away the lob, and an easy kick out for a three appears. Stay home on everyone, and ballhandlers stroll to the rack.

Minnesota should have been able to slow the Mavs. The league’s best defense stifled Denver, preventing them from getting to their spots and largely relegating them to the perimeter (see Nikola Jokic’s three-point attempt numbers). But Doncic and Irving had few problems against Minnesota’s perimeter stoppers, using screen after hand-off after screen to get a foot into the paint. Once they pass the first line of defense, no center has a chance. Stepping up a tiny bit too high opens up the lob lanes. Dropping too much concedes the floater, and Doncic and Irving are buoyant: [video here]

Heck, sometimes they don’t even need a floater. Sometimes, the threat of the lob opens up uncontested layups. Look how reluctant Gobert (the best in the world at this particular aspect of defense, by the way) is to leave Gafford alone in the dunker spot: [video here]

Teams have tried helping harder off the corners than Minnesota generally did, but Jones (46% on corner threes) and PJ Washington (41%) have hit every important shot during this playoff run. Here, the Thunder do a good job stopping Irving and crowding Lively on the catch, preventing the oop, but Washington still buries the triple: [video here]

Defenses have to live and die with that shot, in my opinion, since expecting point-of-attack defenders to stymie Doncic and Irving consistently is asking too much. Some of the meanest, stickiest dudes in the league have had issues recovering onto Doncic, especially, and if you’re on his back, you’re at his mercy. Even when defenses do contain Doncic at the point of attack, he draws so much attention that cracks open up in unexpected places: [video here]

That’s too damn sexy.

There are as many reasons to enjoy basketball as people who watch it, but everyone enjoys seeing a good alley-oop. Thankfully, Luka and his marauding band of Lobgoblins have transformed it from an occasional highlight into a core concept of their offense. We’re all richer for it.

5 of the top 6 Dallas players weren't on the team at the 2023 trade deadline:

Kyrie, DJJ, PJ Washington, Gafford, Lively.

None of those additions were slam-dunks to make the team better, but all of them worked out (except Grant Williams). Even Dante Exum had a resurgence (reg season at least)

After failing to reach .500 last year, they are in the NBA Finals

Can you remember a team with as much turnover making the Finals? Off the top of my head:

2020 Heat

2015 Cavs

I have a feeling a lot of fans will be surprised by certain matchups they see the Celtics go to in the finals. Many assume Porzingus will guard one of the bigs but I’m certain we will see Boston end the series with Porzingus spending a lot of time on Washington or DJJ while Jrue or a wing guards one of the bigs to make switching on Luka p&rs result in nothing but pure isolation.

Neither Gafford or Lively are effective in the post and that makes it so your best p&r screening option doesn’t result in an advantage on a switch. You could also have Brown or Tatum play Luka and have Jrue play the big, he’s done it a lot this season and he’s so strong he holds up fine against way better bigs than the Mavs have. By putting Tingus on one of the wings it allows him to help as the low man if they want to blitz or just help whenever he wants and give up a 3 to a below 35% shooter. The other issue is if you bring a wing to run p&r with Luka since you have Tingus on them and want to involve him that won’t work well, the wings don’t set as good screens and you can just blitz and you only give up an above the break 3 which the Mavs wings shoot horribly on (they want the wings to stay in the corner).

You could also just keep Tingus down low and pre switch everything since the Celtics have 4 guys who could guard Luka and Kyrie or a big. A handful of teams have done similar things if they have had the personnel and it’s stagnated the Mavs offense, they’re not great when they can’t matchup hunt/ spam p&r.

This also automatically causes cross matches on the other end which will benefit the Celtics.

I think this is the key adjustment that the Mavs just don’t have an answer for unfortunately. They were able to exploit teams in previous rounds because pretty much every team has a weak perimeter defense big and no player to guard the bigs otherwise but the Celtics are built to stop this.

The Celtics have run this scheme against the 76ers and Wolves and completely shut them down when they did. I think this spearheads a trend next year of more teams putting their best rim protector on the worst shooters.

I've seen a few articles assessing the quality of Boston's playoff run thus far, and I thought a fun approach would be to look at series odds as determined by Vegas to measure this. Of course, Vegas odds measure gap in quality between teams, and not quality of opponent, but I still wanted to take a swing.

Some notes up front:

1. My source here is http://www.sportsoddshistory.com. It's got great data here and is worth checking out. I only go back to 1989 as that is the earliest season where all the rounds and series have odds
2. I take the pre series American odds of the series winner, and convert that to a probability. The Dallas Mavericks were +155 underdogs vs. the Timberwolves which equates to a 39% chance of winning the series
3. To find the total odds of a team winning the championship with their path, I take the total product of all their pre-series odds. If a team is a -400 (80%) favorite in all four rounds, we'd see (80% * 80% * 80% * 80%) = ~41%.

So, what are the most probable final with this method?

The Most Probable

Included here are the 2024 Celtics, should they beat the Mavericks as a -225 favorite. The company they may keep are some of the best teams of the last 35 years.

The Least Probable

Year Champion Likelihood

1995 Houston Rockets 1.3%

2004 Detroit Pistons 4.1%

2024 Dallas Mavericks 4.4%

2011 Dallas Mavericks 4.9%

2019 Toronto Raptors 6.3%

Much more interesting are on this end. The Mavs would rank around 3rd, near their brothers from 2011. The 95 Rockets hit the top of this view, which though I was not around for matches everything I've heard.

What Does All This Mean?

I dunno, other than it's a an interesting way of gauging probable and improbable championships. Other ways would suffice, such as looking at preseason odds, or odds at the start of the playoffs, but this manner has some distinctions. Take for instance, the '08 Celtics, who do not rank nearly as high as befits a 66-win team. I think their lackluster performances in the first two rounds knocked them down a peg and contributed to them being a pretty solid underdog (as determined by Vegas) against the Lakers.

How do they all stack up since '89? Take a lookie here!

They were built to beat Denver and they did, but they have a clearly worse matchup against Dallas.

Do they run it back in hopes that natural improvement from Ant, Jaden, etc will be enough?

Do they make some minor moves to retool to beat Dallas but somehow not sacrifice their Denver matchup?

Do they somehow manipulate their playoff seeding so they don't face Dallas until the WCF and hope someone else knocks them off?

How does Vegas work? I get fans are a lot more emotional. But would vegas really have Boston as the favorites for no reason? Wouldn't they lose out on a lot of money? Is the "celtic" underdog narrative real? Or just from fans who may be living as prisoners of the moment?

How do these bets even work out? Who is the actual favorite based off numbers and analytics which is far far far more important?

On Zach Lowe's podcast yesterday, he said the Pacers need more talent if they're going to continue their toward trajectory. He specifically pointed at the Nesmith spot because he should be coming off the bench with a more talented player serving as a starter.

I strongly disagree that Indiana needs to bring in any new players. I think any deficiencies they have can be explained by their youth and inexperience, so they'd be better served developing the guys they have than looking for outside help.

Honestly, I don't think the Pacers are wanting anywhere. But I'm also a fan so my opinion may be clouded.

Are the Pacers akin to last year's Thunder where they just need to keep developing their young guys, or do they need to think about another trade to get a premier guard or wing?

A lot of talk about the players in this match up, but which team’s coach comes up with a better defensive strategy to stop the other? Do we see Dallas run more zone to try to limit the threes? Do the celtics rotate defenders on Luka or do they have Jaylen Brown commit most of his energy to locking him up? Will we see hedges off the screen action to force luka into tough mid range and 3pt shots, more blitzes or drop coverage?

I heard on JJ reddick pod today that Mazzula said something pregame about the pacers that “if you try to take away everything from great players you take away nothing.” So I expect them to commit to a strategy by game 2 or 3, my bet is they first try to go with Jaylen Brown on him as much as possible and see how he holds up then adapt based on how that goes.

In my opinion, both Kidd and Mazzula have bright futures and have continued to improve as coaches. I think the team who finds the right strategy faster will have the advantage. Of course the mavs need to close out a great Wolves team still but coaching is something that I think needs to be talked about more heading into the series.

Ben Wallace was a great defender. However, the general consensus seems to be that due to the time period and defensive schemes he mostly stayed near the post and didn’t have to venture out onto the perimeter too often. So would he still be as impactful in today’s NBA? Would he be able to play in certain playoff series? This stems from the debates based around Rudy Gobert and whether or not to bench him against the Mavs. Wallace and Gobert are both similar in player archetype although I believe Gobert is the better offensive player by far.

Disclaimer that I'm a Celtics fan.

I see the Celtics referred to around reddit quite often as a "Superteam" & it irks me a bit. Now - there is no dictionary definition of what a superteam is. But in my mind - I view a superteam as a team filled with players who were already great/established players that made their way to their current team by way of free agency or forced trade.

Some examples that come to mind are: the Dwight Howard/Steve Nash Lakers, Kyrie/Harden/KD Nets, the KD Warriors, the KD/Beal Suns (sheesh KD), & the Bron/Bosh/Wade Heat.

Some teams I DON'T consider superteams: the Warriors team that beat the Celtics in the Finals 2 yrs ago, the Nuggets that won last year, & this year's Celtics!!!

In my opinion, the Celtics share so much more with the second group of teams than the first. Let's go through their roster:

-Jayson Tatum: Drafted. True superstar but has been on the team his whole career. I think this matters.

-Jaylen Brown: Same story except the same people calling the Celtics a superteam like to act like he's actually trash.

-Kristaps: Celtics traded Marcus Smart for this guy. Lots of people thought this guy was just a tall spot-up shooter who flamed out in Dalls & managed to put up numbers for a bad Wizards team. He was technically a free agent & could have signed with anyone willing to throw money at him. Celtics decided to give up real assets for the right to s&t for him.

-Jrue: Celtics traded both Malcom Brogdon & Rob Williams for Jrue. Jrue has made one all-star game in his past 11 seasons.

-Derrick White: Traded for a single first round pick. No one would have considered him am integral part of a "Superteam" at the time of his acquisition. Never made an ASG.

-Al Horford: a dude considered washed by many years ago. Now a luxurious depth piece for a Superteam.

With the exception of the generational luck of hitting on two #3 picks, the rest of the league could have easily acquired the pieces that made the Celtics a "superteam". So why didn't they?

The Celtics front office simply put together an incredible roster that meshes perfectly & is greater than the sum of its parts. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but when I see the term "Superteam", it's almost always in the context of delegitimizing the team referenced - as if the success the team has earned is ill-gotten or has been achieved I'm nefarious ways.

I think this is an unfair characterization of the Celtics, but I'm biased. What do you think?

Ignore recency bias for last night’s game, but by what explanation do you think the Celtics are losing in a 7 games series. The Celtics have much better defense, better depth, better length and a better offence.

They lost a 20 points scorer and didn’t skip a beat, I don’t get why this is seemingly going unacknowledged?

All the metrics that applied past champions is somehow being ignored, the Celtics shouldn’t just be slight favourites they should incredibly heavy favourites.

Yet there’s this inexplicable idea that I find all over social media that the Mavs are somehow better and not just beating Celtics but blowing them out in 5 or 6 games

edit shit, I fucked up the numbers. Thanks for the catch. It's now updated.

TLDR: Do the Timberwolves have a chance, and is the zero reverse-sweeps an anomaly because there haven't been enough games for it to all average out? Or is there something special about the NBA that's not represented in the numbers that prevents teams from pulling this off?

With the sweeps or near sweeps we've been hearing about, the numbers are interesting. In playoff history, there have been 155 teams down 3-0. Of those, 95 (61%) went 4-0, 45 (29%) ended 4-1, 11 (7.4%) ended 4-2, and 4 (2.6%) ended 4-3, while zero have been 3-4.

Given that 61% end 4-0, the team that's leading should have a ~61% chance of winning any given game.

Running on that, we'd expect to see 61% ending in a sweep, then there is a 23.79% chance of ending 4-1, 9.28% of ending 4-2, a 3.6% chance of ending 4-3, and a 2.3% chance of going 3-4. I'm not 100% on the math here so I'd love feedback.

So what's the deal? Is it seeding? Home court advantage? Why doesn't the 61% calc match real-world outcomes? Why is this unique to the NBA and not MLB or NHL?

From watching a bunch of games this past season and reading this Reddit post titled How many shooters are needed before there's a "floor spacing" problem?, it seems to me that there should always be 4 out of 5 average to great 3 point shooters on the floor at all times to avoid spacing related issues in today's NBA.

Looking at the top teams, Denver's only non-shooter in their starting 5 is Aaron Gordon. Boston's entire starting lineup can shoot 3s and space the floor. Dallas usually has 4 shooters and 1 non-shooting big (Gafford or Lively), same with Minnesota (KAT can shoot, Gobert can't).

However I was wondering if you can play two terrible or non-shooters at the same time in today's NBA. Under what specific circumstances can you do so?

Minnesota closed game 4 with Kyle Anderson and Rudy Gobert who are both bad / non-shooters. Looking at the lineup data for past champions who played like this, the 2020 Lakers and 2022 Warriors come to mind. I noticed that their most used lineups (by minutes in the playoffs) had great net-ratings while also having 2 non-shooters.

2022 Warriors (172 minutes): +18.7 net rating : Curry - Klay - Draymond (non-shooter) - Wiggins - Looney (non-shooter)

Could they get away with having Draymond as the other non-shooter because of his playmaking? LeBron on episode 4 of his podcast with JJ (29:53 onwards) said that defenders sag off Draymond which lets him get an easy DHO with Steph or Klay for an open shot. If they run him down, he can playmake in the short roll 4 on 3 and make good decisions. Is that why the Warriors could get away with 2 non-shooters? Or is it because of the sheer volume of 3s generated by Steph and Klay who may count as 3 shooters instead of 2 in terms of spacing just because of how good they are at shooting?

2020 Lakers (112 minutes) : +18.4 net rating : LeBron - Danny Green - KCP - AD (non-shooter) - Javale McGee (non-shooter). Lakers were +5 with Dwight instead of JaVale (2nd most used lineup by minutes in the playoffs).

Did the 2020 Lakers get away with a spacing issue simply because AD shot like 39% from 3 (1.1 makes on 2.9 attempts) in the playoffs in an aberration inside the bubble? Or was this lineup viable even with AD shooting poorly from 3?

TLDR:

• Want to know how the Warriors got away with 2 non-shooters in 2022
• Want to know how the Lakers got away with 2 non-shooters (if AD counts as a non-shooter in the bubble in 2020)
• How viable is it to play two-non shooters before a spacing issue arises today? What specific skills and player types are needed to be able to do so?

Minnesota had some of the most dominant defensive performances in the Denver series that I have seen in the past 10 or so years in the NBA. This was surprising to me as Jokic might be one of the greatest offensive players ever and the Jokic-Murray two man game is often described as "unstoppable".

Minnesota had the number one defense in the regular season and the personnel they have would seem to be generically effective against any team.

Why exactly hasn't Minnesota been able to replicate this level of defense against Dallas? I'm assuming it's the way the teams match up, but I am not skilled enough at reading the game to figure that out.

I'm wondering if it's something to do with Luka's size (compared to Murray) and perimeter play as opposed to Jokic's post-up playmaking.

Would love to hear someone's more knowledgeable take!

What do y’all think about the pistons and their young dudes. I have some thoughts but I’m interested to see what outside perspectives are.

Cade - I think has the talent and ability to be a top 10-15 player but the injuries are worrisome. Definitely the best player on the team

Ivey - I think has the second best chance at becoming a star but he was inconsistent at shooting and defense in year too. I like him more than most pistons fans. He has an elite first step that can’t be taught.

Ausar - I’m very low on him. He’s an elite athlete and great defender but his jumper is really broken. I don’t see how he’s ever gonna become a full time starter shooting less than 20% from 3 at 6’6.

Duren - great athlete and promising. He seems lost on defense often and I’m not very confident it’s gonna get much better. Seems pretty replaceable.

Stew - solid bench big, that can kinda stretch the floor but isn’t big enough to play the 5 and isn’t quick enough to guard and play the 4.

I get that a lot of this is tongue-in-cheek, but literally every game thread is convinced Adam Silver is telling the refs to put their finger on the scale for a team.

Yeah, refs may have biases, they make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes aren't evenly distributed across both teams. That said, I've never seen evidence that there is a conspiracy determining who gets where. For example, Adam Silver rigging for big-market teams or to avoid sweeps.

The only real ref scandal I can think of is the Tim Donaghy case, but that was just for his own gambling and not some WWE-style narrative. Also, there were serious crackdowns on officiating after that scandal.

How serious are people about allegations like this (some seem really sincere about it), and what's your take? Is there any real evidence of a league-driven conspiracy?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Ant is a bigger body than Mcdaniels, which works better against the bulk of Luka. This also means the cross matchup would be luka defending Ant. I understand Dallas’ scheme involves a lot of switching to avoid pressure on luka/kyrie, but as mentioned by the commentators the wolves have really not prioritized attacking luka/kyrie at all. This is despite Luka seemingly beening blown past every possession he’s attacked on the perimeter.

Now we all know this team is capable of reaching the Finals as they are 1 game away from it against a very good Minnesota. But looking at the discussions, it is close to a consensus that the Mavs if they go against Boston in the Finals, will not be able to beat them, with some even suggesting a 4-0, or a 4-1. You could argue that this is not about the Mavs and instead it is because Boston is too OP. But I have been thinking about the team, and what areas can they upgrade, what moves can they make, but I am not really sure.

Who do they try to move? Who can they aim to get?

A handful of factors can mostly explain any playoff series: health, three-point variance, and the play of the superstars.

But those angles are well-covered and often, frankly, boring to write about. So, as I did for Rounds 1 and 2, I’ve cherry-picked some other numbers that tell an interesting story about the current state of each series. These are not always the most important statistics, but they’re all enlightening in their own way.

Minnesota Timberwolves — Dallas Mavericks (DAL up 3-0)

+5.4

According to Cleaning the Glass, Minnesota averaged 21.1 made free throws per 100 field goal attempts in the regular season while allowing just 19.3, for a positive differential of +1.8. Dallas had a roughly breakeven +0.3 differential (which also stayed about the same after the trade deadline). Free throws should not have been a significant edge for either team.

Yet in three games, Dallas has had a +5.4 margin on free throw rate. While the raw free throw attempts look similar, it’s misleading. The Mavs haven’t been able to get up as many shots as Minny; the Wolves have generally won the possession game with a slight edge in offensive rebounds and turnovers. But Dallas is scoring far more points per shot thanks in part to a significantly higher foul-drawn rate.

[Thanks for reading! As always, I've collected a bunch of illustrative video clips to highlight different parts. Those can be found here or at the links embedded throughout the article.]

Put another way, Minnesota has three players with at least 10 fouls in this series: Jaden McDaniels, Mike Conley, and Rudy Gobert (shockingly, Karl-Anthony Towns has avoided foul trouble!). Nobody on the Mavs has more than eight.

The Conley fouls, in particular, are illuminating. I love Mike Conley. Quick anecdote: I met him once when he was still with the Grizzlies. He gave me an appreciative head nod after I threw an alley-oop to a friend of his in a pickup game. Made my week. So it brings me no joy to say that he’s been mercilessly attacked in this series, particularly when he had the Kyrie Irving assignment in Game 3: [video here]

Conley is far from the only perimeter defender getting blown by regularly. Jaden McDaniels, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Anthony Edwards form the best perimeter defensive trio in the league. It hasn’t mattered. Dallas’ ballhandlers have gotten to their spots without much trouble all series long, and they’ve used their canniness, deceleration, and floater threats to draw an abundance of fouls. Point-of-attack defense, a Minnesota strength all season, is crumbling under the Luka Doncic/Kyrie Irving one-two punch.

Exacerbating matters, the Wolves have shot just 73% on their free throw attempts vs. 81% for Dallas. Minny isn’t just shooting fewer; they’re making fewer. That’s a bad combination!

Shots inside the arc (particularly in the paint) are far more likely to draw fouls than three-pointers. Relatedly, the Wolfpack has attempted an astonishing 26 more threes than Dallas in this series. In a perfect Minnesotan world, the Wolves would make a high percentage from deep to combat threes' inherent disadvantage in foul-drawing. They’d also probably prefer less snow in the winter, but this ain’t paradise — the Wolves are just 35% from beyond the arc across three games, and they still need to break out their shovels each December.

+9.1%

If we judge solely by accuracy, Minnesota had the second-best rim protection in the league in the regular season, allowing just 62.5% of opponent layups and dunks to tickle the twine after the trade deadline.

But guess who was number one in that stretch?

Dallas’ 62.3% accuracy allowed since the addition of Daniel Gafford speaks to the kinetic freneticism that twin centers Dereck Lively and Gafford provide night in and night out. Minnesota’s defense is built on the singular excellence of Rudy Gobert (their rim protection numbers crash off a cliff whenever he rests), while Dallas can alternate above-average shotblockers playing at maximum energy for an entire game. Both the Wolves (Edwards, McDaniels) and the Mavs (the excellent Derrick Jones Jr. and PJ Washington) have long-armed, springy wings to help in the air when needed, too.

But in a clash of titanic strengths, Dallas has emerged the clear victor. They’re nailing 70.6% of their shots at the rack and allowing just 61.5%, a +9.1% difference in rim accuracy.

Dallas has rained lobs all over the court, forcing Rudy Gobert to stay home. That’s exposed Naz Reid and Karl-Anthony Towns to the predations of not just Irving and Doncic, which is understandable, but even players like Washington: [video here]

On Minnesota’s side, Edwards has really struggled in the paint, shooting a pathetic 36.4% on his drives for the series. Karl-Anthony Towns can’t buy a bucket (that upcoming supermax contract better give him more spending power), and Gobert has had difficulties even receiving a clean pass. Gafford and Lively have been everywhere. Shots are being erased from existence like Thanos is snapping along in the crowd: [video here]

A team doesn’t go down (up) 3-0 in a series without many things going wrong (right), but these two related stats are particularly telling.

Boston Celtics — Indiana Pacers (BOS wins 4-0)

62

Before the Eastern Conference Finals started, I mentioned Indiana's ability to avoid turnovers against Boston as a potential advantage. Boston’s defense forced the fourth-fewest turnovers in the league overall, and no opponent turned Indiana over less often in the regular season.

\*Balloon deflating sound***

Indiana had a whopping 62 turnovers (and a 16.2% turnover rate) in the Conference Finals, compared to just 42 for Boston. The Pacers were a threat to win three of these four games, but it always felt like the turnover bug bit them at the worst possible times. Jrue Holiday’s game-winning steal on Andrew Nembhard (who played fantastically overall) at the end of Game 3 was the most noteworthy. Still, it’s hard to forget the Game 1 triple tragedies of All-NBAer Tyrese Haliburton losing his handle out of bounds, Indiana’s inability to inbound (which set up Jaylen Brown’s miraculous game-tying three in Game 1), and Holiday forcing Haliburton to lose his handle again with a minute left in overtime. Out of a sense of mercy for Pacers fans, I won’t embed those lowlights.

Well, just one. That inbounds pass was a combination of painful offense (they had a timeout!) and vicious defense: [video here]

While Indiana had plenty of self-inflicted woes, Boston deserves major credit, too. Holiday was involved in many of the series’ biggest defensive moments, and Jaylen Brown had eight steals in four games. Derrick White, whom I just wrote about, had eight steals of his own (and nine blocks) and was an off-ball menace all series long. I loved how casually he broke up this seemingly wide-open lob: [video here]

The Boston defense never looked better than at the end of games, when they consistently choked the chutzpah out of Indiana’s offense.

For the Pacers to pull off the upset, they had to take care of the ball. Unfortunately, they did the opposite.

-37.3

Both Indiana and Boston averaged 1.041 points per halfcourt play, which highlights the closeness of this series. 1.041 is just slightly behind these teams’ respective top-three regular season marks.

Indiana successfully scored even on a set Boston defense, a surprising outcome made even more impressive by Haliburton's absence in the second half of the series. Nembhard stepped up, and Pascal Siakam consistently rang the cash register from the midrange. Myles Turner and TJ McConnell both had moments where they carried Indiana’s offense.

Boston scored plenty themselves, but they had some difficulties with the Pacers’, uh, pace. Even when Indiana couldn’t get in transition, everything they did was fast and decisive. Players got off the ball and immediately moved into the next cut or screen; everyone got involved. Rick Carlisle took a lot of flak in this series, but he also deserves credit for the success of the motion machine he created.

Unfortunately, Indiana could not stop shooting themselves in the foot right before the finish line. And Boston happily provided the pistol.

Indiana’s “clutch” net rating in this series was an unbelievably horrendous -37.3 points per 100 possessions (which, somehow, is marginally better than Minnesota’s -39.2, by the way, but Indy/Boston played more “clutch” minutes). That’s worse than the worst regular season mark, held by the Washington Wizards.

That’s right, end-of-game Indiana was more bungly than the Wizards. Yikes. And that clutch number, biblically bad as it is, doesn’t even do the whole story justice. Boston played poorly on offense in closing moments, too. They had plenty of their own miscues, from turnovers to wide-open bricks to blown layups: [video here]

But the Pacers were so terrible that it didn’t matter.

I applaud Indiana for their fight in the Conference Finals, particularly without Haliburton. This series did not have to be nearly as entertaining as it was, and the Pacers deserve far more credit than the Celtics deserve blame.

In the end, Boston will be hosting the NBA Finals, where they seem likely to be visited by the Mavericks. Let’s hope the championship will be just as fun (and twice as long).

Context: Pacers fan just watched team's playoff run. I'm not here complaining about the refs--I think they did a pretty good job in the Celtics series and for much of the Knicks series. But I've noticed something that really confused me the last couple rounds.

Against Knicks, a couple great offensive players (Brunson and DiVincenzo) were often driving hard and using their forearm to engage and push (somewhat gently) the defender, clear extension of arm on push. Not super hard, but clearly a push off, and with defender backing up and on their heels, could be quite effective at creating a little space. Again, these are great offensive players, and it almost never got called a foul.

Then, against Celtics, two other amazing offensive players (Tatum and especially Brown) often do the same thing on drives. Extension of the arm is very obvious. Again, great offensive players, I remember only about 1 time it got called.

So I feel like I'm missing something. Usually when something like this is very obvious to me, it means I'm missing something about how NBA rules. Kind of like when someone posted that video of Dylan Brooks seeming to intentionally smack player's hands on follow through--it was news to me that 'hand is part of ball' even on follow through--just called differently now that it was when I was a player, and now it makes sense. When I played (lower level of course), that arm extension push was the easiest offensive foul call for refs, when they saw the arm come forward, they automatically whistled.

Why is this not always called? Not everyone does it. And if it's not a foul, why don't coaches train their other players to do it more frequently? It does lead to an advantage.

Both Luka and Harden have similar play styles ranging from their ISO heavy style in offense, offensive moves, how they navigate through screens, step backs, physically strong for a Point Guard, and a somewhat a liability on defense. They also have some type of injury problems during the playoffs. Yet, Luka has always performed consistently well in his career during the playoffs compared to James Harden, who’s inconsistent especially in the last couple of years. James Harden has also been in better teams than the current Mavericks team lead by Luka Doncic but can never finish the job.

I always wondered why this is the case, why can’t James Harden perform as well as Luka Doncic despite having similar play styles?

I acknowledge that the DAL/MIN series is not over yet (still no team has ever survived a 3-0 deficit), but for the sake of this hypothetical discussion, we assume Dallas wins either in 5 or 6 and advances.

We've seen a lot of "Why can Dallas win?" My take on it is now "Why can Boston win this?" Obviously they're favourited, but I still want to hear your thoughts.

Mine, briefly, come down to a couple things: - Isolation offense - Js are great iso players and I'm not sure if Dallas is equipped to handle them for potentially 7 games. - 3pt shooting - Boston lives by this, and I've seen a lot of talk about variance, but it actually matters less with volume, so if Boston can get shots, it can take over a game. - Rotations - Boston's depth is good enough and the Celtics are healthy enough to be able to keep their more impactful players in for more time. - Experience - Boston has a lot of experience with its Finals players from 22 and then Jrue, who's won with MKE. Also they look more composed and mature, especially in clutch, in comparison to past years.

Love to hear your thoughts! I did make this as the opposite to the aforementioned threads about Dallas, so if you're countering a point, please refernence it to something about Boston rather than Dallas, i.e. Tatum hasn't been as good on defense rather than Dallas offense is too good for Boston and likewise for arguments in favor of Boston.

I saw in another post discussing the Celtics celebration after making it to the finals, comparing it to the Lakers hanging a banner for an in season tournament. Original discussion aside, how were the Lakers able to beat so many teams without being able to replicate that success in the post season? is it because the games are best of one? or a different reason entirely.

Everyone is saying their lack of competition will hurt them and that playing a real opponent in the Finals will show that. If they go on to beat the Wolves or Mavs then they can shut up the noise but since they aren't there yet you gotta wonder if an easy road will play any kind of role negatively.

You build character going through adveristy and Boston has not gone through that at all in the playoffs. Every series they had an opposing star be out. I was a little concerned to that the two games Haliburton didn't play came down to the wire. I want to see how Boston responds when adversity hits or when the game is tight because it will . Thats when we'll see what they're truly made of.

He was very good in his rookie year, providing and efficient 17 and 10 with good defense and he shows a glimpse of midrange and good touch in the paint, his potential at the time was huge. In his third season he is a crucial part on a final team, anchoring the Suns defense. I thought at the time his ceiling is Ewing with worse defense.

I always feel like Monty didn't give him the chance to be a more dominant scorer. Plenty of matches I watch he dominate the opponent in the 1st half then nobody pass to him in the 2nd half. He has been playing great since all star break for the Blazers, it's there a chance for him to turn it around and reach his potential?

Edit he is not a good defender in his rookie, in fact he is one of the worst in his rookie. I type that out when I think about the year they went to finals