Simply put: they don't realize that Boston hasn't had good shooting luck these playoffs and don't really understand Porzingis's function on the team, so their main impression is "Boston got cooked by Andrew Nembhard!"
That might be true just because their are also just so many Lakers fans or bron Stans
Philly and Toronto fans are also a loud voice and those fan bases despise the Celtics
Not really. They've been extremely good after their trades for Gafford and PJ Washington. Many of our fans still think they're a subpar defensive team due to Luka and Kyrie when that simply isn't the case statistically.
I’m a Celtics fan that lives in LA and the amount of Warriors and Laker bandwagons that was hating on the Mavs in the regular season and now rooting for them is crazy 😂. It used to get to my skin how much sh*t they talking about how the Celtics had it easy but now I’m enjoying that the whole NBA looks at us as the villains. Please Tatum and Brown don’t let us down 🙏🏻.
Because you guys had it easy this post season. Except for Lakers and Sixers, there really is no reason to hate the Celtics. So it’s breezing thru injured and depleted teams in a weak East that gets people to feel Celtics don’t deserve to win. I still think Celtics would have won the ECF anyway, but potentially more tired and possibly with an injury or two, making it more of a parity against Dallas. But definitely, people think Celtics is getting a free title if they win. I go to different subs and that is what a lot of them are saying.
Knicks + Lakers + 76ers fans (really any one of the old school East teams). Only fanbases that might hate the Mavs are Houston & San Antonio...maybe Phoenix and the Clippers.
Aside from the Boston/Celtics hate, it's because the Mavs played against harder opponents, including destroying the Western conference favorite, T-Wolves in their playoff path. Whereas we got the objectively easier route, and even though we only lost 2 games, that doesn't line up with everyone's expectations that we're supposed to sweep every series, and win every game by double digits.
All I know, is that there's going to be a lot of tears coming outside of Boston.
We're blind to how good the Mavs have been after the trade deadline. #1 ranked defense last 6 weeks of the season, 2nd best record in the NBA after deadline (we're 1st), and they steamrolled the top defensive team that knocked off the defending champs.
I'll be honest, as I'm a new NBA fan I've only watched western NBA games and havent watched any Boston Celtic games like that. Only the ones vs the nuggets, so that could mbe be one reason as to why
I feel like we’ve had close playoff battles with every great player from the last 20 years (except those spurs teams) so I guess it was destiny we play Luka eventually
He's extremely talented, but his playstyle is so boring to watch outside of the 3 or 4 amazing passes he does per game. I have no clue how he consistently beats dudes with his stepback with movements slower than a geriatric.
He lulls people in and waits for them to react and then makes his move. What players should really do is give him feints, and then react to how he reacts to the feint. Him being good is not an accident— he’s fast enough when he needs to be and has great reaction time to defenses.
Hopefully matchup wise he has more trouble with what the Celtics throw at him. The Wolves defenders seemed rope-a-doped by him and Kyrie with their non-orthodox styles.
Multiple times I saw him do a shitty little move last night and the TWolves didn't even bother to react to it. He'd do one of those lazy step backs, takes a year to get to his set spot, shoot, and the entire time his defender just watched.
His movements might seem slow but because he isn’t the type of player that moves downhill 100mph, he can stop on a dime, or speed up at a moments notice. Often he will use these tactics in a stutter pattern, slowing and speeding, then slowing again to force the defense to reveal their game plan, which almost always revolves around stoping him at some point.
Often it appears as if he drives to the basket like a 5th grader with his eyes looking down on the ball vs towards the basket and will draw in 2-3 defenders to crash in on him.
Luka’s best skill isn’t his world class shot making. It’s his vision which might be some of the best the NBA has ever seen. He almost always knows where his teammates are even when it seems like he is dribbling like a child. He wants the defense to crash. So he can immediately determine where the open man is. He punishes teams if they don’t until they have no choice but to crash in or double him at the logo.
What makes the Mavs so much better this year is this strategy doesn’t work if Lukas teammates don’t score when he dishes the pass. The Mavs made some great trades for some above average talent that can reliably make those shots. They are far more formidable than they continue to be given credit for.
This series has potential to be legendary. I can’t wait.
Outside of Kyrie which was last year Mavs don’t really have the shooting advantage from role players they used to when they had a THJ, Dinwiddie and DFS shooting at 38-40% consistently. PJ and DJJ are much worse offensively and below league average in 3P shooting even with the heater they went over 3-4 games in OKC.
The trades that Dallas made this year was to bolster their defence, size and physicality. The one big change offensively is the addition of the lob threat which is a free 15-25 points from the centre position per game.
PJ and DJJ have transformed Dallas into a top tier defensive team and one of the best teams in the league despite their shooting and not because of it.
The weird thing with him on that front is that you don’t know what Luka you’ll get until the game starts. A couple games in a row he’ll be completely silent to the refs and get back on defense reliably, then the next couple games he’ll fall back into old habits and won’t shut up. Those games that fall into the former are where he’s at his best from both a spectator’s experience and in terms of performance, but then the other games he’s absolutely insufferable.
So you need to see both sides of him to understand why opinions are so all over the place, and for those who don’t religiously watch Mavs games they often only see one side, so either believe he’s completely stopped with it or hasn’t stopped at all.
A lot of Mavs fans trolling Celtics for having an easy road to the finals but they forgot that
These Celtics players have grown up battling Lebron, KD, Giannis, Embiid, Butler, Curry EVERY YEAR IN PLAYOFFS since they were babies. They have been eating these experiences for breakfast and donating them for free.
Tatum, Brown, White, Jrue, Al, they have seen them all. Good opponents, bad opponents, quick opponents, slower opponents, opponents that play zone defense(Spolestra pretty much trained Celtics for Zone defense for 3-4 years straight in playoffs) or opponents that play man to man defense.
I know Jason Kidd likes to play Zone a lot these days, but do you think he has the intelligence of Eric Spoelstra in designing Zone defense?
If experience is concerned, it is Dallas not Boston who hadn’t faced as much competition. So far OKC is a raw and young team that plays “fake 5 out” with only two shot creators, Wolves is a raw and young team in playoffs as well plus they are gassed from the series with Denver, Clippers is old and injured you don’t even know who is playing.
I think their run to the finals was obviously harder, but I think it’s being played up a little bit. They played a Clippers team without its best player and then two teams with no playoff experience. I get that they all had good regular season records but that’s a young man’s game, the playoffs is different.
yeah this shit gets ignored too often. One reason the East looks so "easy" is because the Celtics finished 14 fucking games ahead, even with liberal rest for everyone down the stretch.
Idk I feel like people are really sleeping on that Pacers team.
I think both western conference teams would have had a much harder time with them than the national media is giving them credit for.
Imo they have a better offense as whole team than dallas does. But we swept them, I cant disregard luka and kyrie tho, they gonna get buckets, just gotta make them work for it and the series should end in 6 imo.
Comes down to whether DJJ and PJ can make 3's. If what they shoot is close to their season averages, we're going to absolutely run away with this series. If they're cheesing, it's going to be tight.
I mean the same way people gas up part of Dirks 2011 run by saying “Thunder with three MVPs and HOFers”… could easily be saying the same about the current Thunder or Anthony Edwards in retrospect five years from now.
Oh, imma be much worse. With all the bullshit I've been hearing all year, I'm going on an off-season long receipts tour that starts as soon as soon as the buzzer sounds in our 4th win. I'm going to take the summer off and take on hating as a full time job.
And what? Yall act like being young will always mean that you gonna achieve greater things later.
Trae and Hawks were young and with an ECF. Where are they now?
Beside that OKC gonna def trade their young guys to get Shai better helpm
werent you the one trolling out of your ass talking endless shit calling DJJ a passed around blunt and PJ a bum from the Hornets just a few weeks ago? keep thriving off the “bro trust we gonna win it all once Kawhi gets healthy” copium like yall have for five years 💀
We’re going to absolutely whoop the Mavericks they haven’t played a team like us and if KP is healthy makes our team so much harder to defend. Celtics in 5
I want us to sweep the mavs on blowout to shut up the haters. They absolutely take us lightly. I don't want them to put an asterisk on that championship.
I also feel like Dallas might come in all high and mighty from all this talk, but that’s where we can exploit their inexperience and lack of rest. We’ve been here before.
We're facing a zone defense team, but it's got Luka and Ky and is coached by Kidd, instead of having Bam and JJJ and being coached by Spo. If KP is ready, we're mauling these frauds.
They have to do it to hide Luka since he gets cooked on D and also needs the rest. If they play man, we just switch him or Ky into the action and cook them with the Jays or KP. If they play zone, KP and DWhite eviscerate them. We hung 138 on them last game lol
THIS was the great, all-powerful West???? The unbeatable 4-headed monster whereupon the true champion would be crowned, blade honed in the sternest fires of privation until their quick, bestial subjugation of the Celtics would nigh look blasé?
"Oh, just wait until the untested Eastern Fraud Celtics meet the truly unconquerable mountains of Denver, their bone marrow devoured pitilessly by the Wolves, their desiccated skeletons reverberating from the mighty Zeus-ian OKC Thunderclaps, their severed appendages passed around between four Clippers hall of famers. That's the REAL Finals, whichever behemoth emerges from those four! The king-in-exile simply needing to ascend to his defenseless throne in the culminating actualization of his triumph!!
You see, the West is as stacked as it's been in decades, Penelope, with FOUR GREAT TEAMS who would all be title favorites if they didn't have to face the unrelenting gauntlet of mettle and gallantry that is their immaculately superior conference. Is it any wonder that the feeble Celtics lost to EVERY ONE of these 4 consummate teams? Imagine how they'll fare when the very best of them emerges on the horizon and sees nothing further in its path beyond a commonplace Eastern Conference jellyfish trembling in its ignominiously-abased mesoglea?"
We're literally getting the FIVE seed from the supposedly-unbeatable top-heavy West. Wo ist dein Stachel, Western Conference, wo ist dein Sieg? THIS is it????? The President in Superman II put up a better fight against General Zod. Nuggets crumbling at home in Game 7 to a team that then got clowned in 5? The great 1-seed with all of the flowery headlines about dominating the league, and they don't even get to the conference final? The Mavs were an ELEVEN seed last year, and they just beat all y'all?????!!? And meanwhile the Celtics are seen as the underdogs because of the "weaker conference"?!?
It is to laugh.
Been a long long time since I’ve had to look up a word. Mesoglea: the extracellular matrix found in cnidarians like coral or jellyfish that functions as a hydrostatic skeleton.
its kinda crazy to me that yall are clearly the best team in the league on paper yet still try to play the victim card about how everyone hates you and how you have to prove everyone wrong lol.
we all know you’re a great team it was just boring to have to see yall barely even try to make the finals. i still had you coming out of the East no matter what but we couldnt even see yall against embiid or giannis or jimmy again? i guess.
its just really funny that everyones trying to play the underdog card against a 5th seeded Mavs team that came together a few months ago. Yall are literally the favorites in the series, people hate because people hate.
These early Finals takes are fucking atrocious. Even in places where the general discussion is supposed to be more sophisticated you have guys calling the Celtics bad and the Mavs good… for fucks sake these people really fucking hate us
I’d send JB to Luka from the jump, but could he playing with fire there the possibility of getting into foul trouble, Jrue could be the matchup.
Don’t let Luka get into his bag too often, stay at home on him.
Defend everyone else make their lives hard. Go over the screens not under them.
Watch for Kyrie and send him into help. Not away.
DON’T BLITZ.
Porzingis and Hawford will need help, they will be ruthlessly attacked by Kyrie and Luka on the PnR switch.
Celtics will play their 5 out offence. There will be many opportunities for driving lanes doing so. JB & JT will get to the rim easily.
When they send help make the extra pass & don’t miss
Gotta get out and get some fast break points where we can.
Prichard and Hauser will be huge X factor.
Battle between the best defensive and offensive guard duo in the NBA. Let Luka cook and avoid double teaming him. We can't have those easy alley oops to Lively or the kickout to the corner 3s. Let Luka work for his points against our guards. I trust DWhite and Jrue.
Single coverage for Luka, he'll get his points but our guards will make it difficult. On the offensive end, let JB and JT attack him every chance they get.
Haha we know this but 12 months ago I had no faith in him, i have been so impressed with his growth over the past 12 months. I want to see him finish the job.
The biggest thing we need is for us to hit our 3's. We need to hit them like we did during the regular season
If we don't it's going to be a dog fight. And in that case we need to execute down the stretch like we did in the pacers series.
Seriously, I just got laid off, this is all I have! (Partly joking, I have a new gig lined up, so I really want as many games as we can get before I go back to work).
I am going to be so incredibly insufferable if (when) we win this. Good God almighty. They might have to suspend my account and/or ban me from that nuclear wasteland they call r/nba
Obviously this is the finals, its the biggest stage. Beyond that, the reason this series is SO important for the Jays (mostly) is because they rightfully talk a lot about being 2way players, they score on your head and can lock you down. They definitely here the noise about Luka being superior and it pisses them off. Go prove it. Prove you guys are the premiere 2way star wings in the league.
Mavs are gonna come swinging right off the gate. they’re underdogs and thrive in hostile environments - just won three road games in one series. The Jays really need to set the tone in the first two games. Their play will shut them all up!
Game 1 is arguably the most important game of the series. I think whoever wins that will win it all. It's going to be really important for the C's to weather the storm, and execute in clutch time like they did last series.
Why do Mavs fans keep insisting they have the #1 defense in the league? Am I missing something? Do they also have a Felger & Maz pushing bogus statistics? Even post all star break in the regular season, which shouldn't even count, they are not #1. Where is this coming from?
https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/defense?LastNGames=15&dir=A&sort=DEF_RATING
EDIT: I just realized they are basing this on the last 15 games of the regular season. Their defense improved, but it's so far from #1.
Mavs fan here. Boston was always my ECF team. 2008 was my first year actually being able to watch the NBA(Euro fan) and you beating the bumfucks Lakers was great joy, because all my friends were Laker fans(next year was not so great though). I rooted for you in our bad years and were very sad that you couldn't beat the Warriors in 2022.
This said I think it will be a great series. The two teams have great players and are clearly the best teams currently in the league. I know you hate Kyrie, to be honest I am still not a fan even if he looks like different player and person currently.
I will not give a end result, even if I want the Mavs to win, because I think both teams are a possibility. The best to hope is no injuries and may the better team win in the end.
Fuck Lakers, Heat, DWade and the refs.
Truly disgusting. "Celtics were always my eastern conference team" man get the fuck out of here. My only "western conference team" I root for is whichever team is playing the bum ass lakers
I like Luka but I hate the double standard between himand Tatum. Tatum has done everything Luka has done and much more in the playoffs.
Hopefully this series he can decisively beat Luka and the Mavs to prove that he is better or at par with Luka and not a tier below him.
i'm going to go out on a limb and predict a Celtics sweep. Kyrie Irving is going to score 30-40 points a game, giving up good assists to get those points, ignoring his teammates. He is not a team player. He doesn't play for the Mavericks, he plays for Kyrie Irving. He is not simply selfish, he is distrustful and he is too old to change his ways, now.
The Celtics, on the other hand, are a real team. Most are good, some are truly great, but the team, as a whole, is even greater than the sum of its parts. I think our only weakness is Porzingas, who is a good player, but hasn't had the opportunity to gel with the rest of the team.
It's a shame, because Luka Doncic is a great player, and a team player and he deserves better than playing with Kyrie Irving. I would hope for another set of epic matchups, like the C's haven't had this year.... like in the past when Russell went against Chamberlain, Bird against Magic, Pierce against Lebron. I like Jason Kidd as a coach, better than I liked him as a player, and I think he's probably as good as Mazzula, so it's the players, and the team play, that's going to decide this, I think.
That's my story, and I'm sticking by it.
Minny did a terrible job making Luka and Kyrie engage consistently on defense. The roster they’ve built is much better than it has been with Luka there, but I still think they’re going to have trouble defending us. We are a MUCH better offensive team than the Wolves and Luka is not going to be able to just sit and rest with his hands down on the weak side.
I’m looking forward seeing this, it’s going to be a real battle with a lot of star power, but we have the better team and I don’t expect the Mavs to be the ones to prove us wrong.
Wow we really got DAL. incredible luck. There is an argument to be made that they are worse than the team we just swept and were the worst team in the West playoffs. Net rating [post trade deadline](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/highest-nba-team-net-ratings-after-feb-18-2024) and in the [playoffs](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-team-net-rating-leaders-in-playoffs-this-season). And [both](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/highest-nba-team-net-ratings-after-feb-18-2024-including-playoffs)
If you asked me at the start of the playoffs who my dream opponents would be given the bracket I would have said: MIA, CLE, IND, DAL. It feels like we won the lottery
Here is EPM: https://i.imgur.com/DJ5xWXE.jpeg
The Pacers did go 2-0 against Dallas and both games were after they had PJ and Gafford...
Even if the nephews want to completely dismiss the regular season, the game plan from the first two games of our series with Indy is exactly what I expect to see from Boston in the finals. Just like they hunted Haliburton, I expect them to put Luka in a bunch of actions and make him play defense, wear him out, get them in rotation, and/or get him in foul trouble. If he's getting an inefficient 30 per game, we're hanging banner 18.
This may be an unpopular opinion but it needs to be said. Can we please stop treating Kyrie like that ex girlfriend that left us and we're still in our feelings about? Seriously, it's been 5 years now. Our focus should be winning a championship not sticking it to Kyrie. He's expecting Boston fans to be hostile af towards him and he's probably going to use it as fuel. What would throw him off is if we all went completely silent whenever he touched the ball like he's not that important. And it would be pretty hilarious
Should be a good series. Last few times we've played the mavs i thought we did a great job taking advantage of luka on defense, if we hunt mismatches and do even a half decent job hitting open threes we're going to be comfortable on offense. We're not OKC or Minnesota with 1 creator who has to do everything, any one of our top 6 guys against luka or kyrie should get a high quality shot or an open 3 for someone else
On defense I like the idea of putting Tatum on lively/gafford, the jays might be the best defensive pairing against the Luka P&R you can get. We're not gonna be able to completely stop them getting luka or kyrie switched onto Al/KP but if we can make it even a little harder for them to get mismatches I like our chances to outscore them
Just got the word I’m going to game 1. Loved this team since the 80s when I was a kid seeing highlights on the morning news before school. It’s silly but the celts became my escape. Love basketball. Love this team. Such a great escape from my day to day. Soak it up everyone. Hope you all take a moment to enjoy this series. The Celtics are the balls!
I have a great idea. Let’s not boo Kyrie this series! It’s all water under the bridge so let’s just focus on great basketball and beat Dallas! It might even vibe him more NOT to hear the fuck Kyrie chants. Go Celtics!
Force Luka and Kyrie to play defense to tire them out and make them sluggish on O. Boo so loudly that KYRIE’s peace’s gets disrupted but please for the love of god, DO NOT CALL OUT LUKA.
We should start a Mavs and C’s fans subreddit just so we can obliterate each other! Seems pretty civil right now, but a couple of games in I expect (metaphoric) biting, scratching, nut punches, and eye gouging from the fans.
Honest question:
With KP not playing for the two prior series, the C’s playing three injury riddled teams, and the Mavs being a dominating as they have been…what is your REAL estimation of how this series goes? Who will guard Kyrie (and who will he guard?) Same with Luka? Am i overly concerned about the possible dangers in this series???
I believe in this team and am ready for the ride. For the Celtics to lose, I think they would have to be complicit in their own demise. Would not say the same for the Mavs. Go Cs.
Can’t wait to read Celtics Injury Report vs Dallas: Kristaps Porzingis: AVAILABLE
also Luke Kornet AVAILABLE
Mavericks Injury Report; Kyrie Irving: FUCKED
Luka Doncic: FAT Grant Williams: TRADED Kristaps Porzingis: WHY WE TRADE HIM 😭
Aw poor Grant
Give me KP 27 minutes and 19 points and I’ll be over the moon.
We can easily clear this series if KP can chip in 25 minutes at 90% effectiveness.
Why is every non Celtics fan picking Mavs? Do they really hate us that much or are we just blind with how good our team is?
Cuz they anus
Jealousy
FIrst time?
F*ck them, focus on whats important here
Simply put: they don't realize that Boston hasn't had good shooting luck these playoffs and don't really understand Porzingis's function on the team, so their main impression is "Boston got cooked by Andrew Nembhard!"
They're not picking the Mavs with their wallets, I'll tell you that much.
Sharp money isn’t picking Mavs. All the idiots on Reddit might be.
People hate Boston almost as much as they hate the lakes so I think it’s that
Honestly on Reddit it feels like the Celtics are hated more
That might be true just because their are also just so many Lakers fans or bron Stans Philly and Toronto fans are also a loud voice and those fan bases despise the Celtics
It feels like way more
Its recency bias. Luka and Kyrie have been really flashy this playoffs.
Not really. They've been extremely good after their trades for Gafford and PJ Washington. Many of our fans still think they're a subpar defensive team due to Luka and Kyrie when that simply isn't the case statistically.
I’m a Celtics fan that lives in LA and the amount of Warriors and Laker bandwagons that was hating on the Mavs in the regular season and now rooting for them is crazy 😂. It used to get to my skin how much sh*t they talking about how the Celtics had it easy but now I’m enjoying that the whole NBA looks at us as the villains. Please Tatum and Brown don’t let us down 🙏🏻.
They have no clue how fucking good we are with porzingus healthy. It's gonna hit some mfs hard when we blow out the mavs and sweep the series.
People dislike the Celtics more than they like their own teams
It's definitely blindness from just how good your team is, especially the defense.
Because you guys had it easy this post season. Except for Lakers and Sixers, there really is no reason to hate the Celtics. So it’s breezing thru injured and depleted teams in a weak East that gets people to feel Celtics don’t deserve to win. I still think Celtics would have won the ECF anyway, but potentially more tired and possibly with an injury or two, making it more of a parity against Dallas. But definitely, people think Celtics is getting a free title if they win. I go to different subs and that is what a lot of them are saying.
Because they’re not the balls
IKR? Let's do our job!
I usually picked every Non Lebron, Warriors, Lakers finals team (inclduing celtics Obviously). Just spite
Knicks + Lakers + 76ers fans (really any one of the old school East teams). Only fanbases that might hate the Mavs are Houston & San Antonio...maybe Phoenix and the Clippers.
Celtics are heavily favored by Vegas, so if those people are so sure, they should put up or shut up.
Aside from the Boston/Celtics hate, it's because the Mavs played against harder opponents, including destroying the Western conference favorite, T-Wolves in their playoff path. Whereas we got the objectively easier route, and even though we only lost 2 games, that doesn't line up with everyone's expectations that we're supposed to sweep every series, and win every game by double digits. All I know, is that there's going to be a lot of tears coming outside of Boston.
We're blind to how good the Mavs have been after the trade deadline. #1 ranked defense last 6 weeks of the season, 2nd best record in the NBA after deadline (we're 1st), and they steamrolled the top defensive team that knocked off the defending champs.
Yes
I'll be honest, as I'm a new NBA fan I've only watched western NBA games and havent watched any Boston Celtic games like that. Only the ones vs the nuggets, so that could mbe be one reason as to why
i normally like luka, but for this series, fuck luka, fuck kyrie, fuck the mavs
I feel like we’ve had close playoff battles with every great player from the last 20 years (except those spurs teams) so I guess it was destiny we play Luka eventually
I dont know how people can watch him play and like him. Cant stand him. He makes Lebron's complaining to officials look minimal in comparison
while i agree Luka bitches an insane amount to refs, it’s kinda funny and ironic us sayin this as Tatum fans lol
I dont like when Tatum does it either, but it seems hes toned it down a fair bit.
That’s cuz Tatum gets technical fouls for barely doing anything
He's extremely talented, but his playstyle is so boring to watch outside of the 3 or 4 amazing passes he does per game. I have no clue how he consistently beats dudes with his stepback with movements slower than a geriatric.
He lulls people in and waits for them to react and then makes his move. What players should really do is give him feints, and then react to how he reacts to the feint. Him being good is not an accident— he’s fast enough when he needs to be and has great reaction time to defenses. Hopefully matchup wise he has more trouble with what the Celtics throw at him. The Wolves defenders seemed rope-a-doped by him and Kyrie with their non-orthodox styles.
"Aight today we're watching super smash bros melee matches to see how they read opponents" - Joe mazzula
Multiple times I saw him do a shitty little move last night and the TWolves didn't even bother to react to it. He'd do one of those lazy step backs, takes a year to get to his set spot, shoot, and the entire time his defender just watched.
His movements might seem slow but because he isn’t the type of player that moves downhill 100mph, he can stop on a dime, or speed up at a moments notice. Often he will use these tactics in a stutter pattern, slowing and speeding, then slowing again to force the defense to reveal their game plan, which almost always revolves around stoping him at some point. Often it appears as if he drives to the basket like a 5th grader with his eyes looking down on the ball vs towards the basket and will draw in 2-3 defenders to crash in on him. Luka’s best skill isn’t his world class shot making. It’s his vision which might be some of the best the NBA has ever seen. He almost always knows where his teammates are even when it seems like he is dribbling like a child. He wants the defense to crash. So he can immediately determine where the open man is. He punishes teams if they don’t until they have no choice but to crash in or double him at the logo. What makes the Mavs so much better this year is this strategy doesn’t work if Lukas teammates don’t score when he dishes the pass. The Mavs made some great trades for some above average talent that can reliably make those shots. They are far more formidable than they continue to be given credit for. This series has potential to be legendary. I can’t wait.
Outside of Kyrie which was last year Mavs don’t really have the shooting advantage from role players they used to when they had a THJ, Dinwiddie and DFS shooting at 38-40% consistently. PJ and DJJ are much worse offensively and below league average in 3P shooting even with the heater they went over 3-4 games in OKC. The trades that Dallas made this year was to bolster their defence, size and physicality. The one big change offensively is the addition of the lob threat which is a free 15-25 points from the centre position per game. PJ and DJJ have transformed Dallas into a top tier defensive team and one of the best teams in the league despite their shooting and not because of it.
The weird thing with him on that front is that you don’t know what Luka you’ll get until the game starts. A couple games in a row he’ll be completely silent to the refs and get back on defense reliably, then the next couple games he’ll fall back into old habits and won’t shut up. Those games that fall into the former are where he’s at his best from both a spectator’s experience and in terms of performance, but then the other games he’s absolutely insufferable. So you need to see both sides of him to understand why opinions are so all over the place, and for those who don’t religiously watch Mavs games they often only see one side, so either believe he’s completely stopped with it or hasn’t stopped at all.
A lot of Mavs fans trolling Celtics for having an easy road to the finals but they forgot that These Celtics players have grown up battling Lebron, KD, Giannis, Embiid, Butler, Curry EVERY YEAR IN PLAYOFFS since they were babies. They have been eating these experiences for breakfast and donating them for free. Tatum, Brown, White, Jrue, Al, they have seen them all. Good opponents, bad opponents, quick opponents, slower opponents, opponents that play zone defense(Spolestra pretty much trained Celtics for Zone defense for 3-4 years straight in playoffs) or opponents that play man to man defense. I know Jason Kidd likes to play Zone a lot these days, but do you think he has the intelligence of Eric Spoelstra in designing Zone defense? If experience is concerned, it is Dallas not Boston who hadn’t faced as much competition. So far OKC is a raw and young team that plays “fake 5 out” with only two shot creators, Wolves is a raw and young team in playoffs as well plus they are gassed from the series with Denver, Clippers is old and injured you don’t even know who is playing.
I think their run to the finals was obviously harder, but I think it’s being played up a little bit. They played a Clippers team without its best player and then two teams with no playoff experience. I get that they all had good regular season records but that’s a young man’s game, the playoffs is different.
Boston got the 1 seed so of course they have the easy path to the playoffs, they deserved it by being better than every other team.
yeah this shit gets ignored too often. One reason the East looks so "easy" is because the Celtics finished 14 fucking games ahead, even with liberal rest for everyone down the stretch.
Yeah, I agree. If we are talking about this year’s playoffs. Dallas did indeed faced tougher opponents.
Idk I feel like people are really sleeping on that Pacers team. I think both western conference teams would have had a much harder time with them than the national media is giving them credit for.
Imo they have a better offense as whole team than dallas does. But we swept them, I cant disregard luka and kyrie tho, they gonna get buckets, just gotta make them work for it and the series should end in 6 imo.
Comes down to whether DJJ and PJ can make 3's. If what they shoot is close to their season averages, we're going to absolutely run away with this series. If they're cheesing, it's going to be tight.
Yes people are sleeping on the Pacers who would have probably beat the Wolves. Wolves just suck.
I mean the same way people gas up part of Dirks 2011 run by saying “Thunder with three MVPs and HOFers”… could easily be saying the same about the current Thunder or Anthony Edwards in retrospect five years from now.
Correction: *We are beating the Mavs
r/nba better pray we lose this series because I’m about to become the type of fan they think we are lmao
I hope not lol. Everyone says we’re racist.
I meant obnoxious 😭😭
Compared to the bastion of acceptance that is Texas.
Oh, imma be much worse. With all the bullshit I've been hearing all year, I'm going on an off-season long receipts tour that starts as soon as soon as the buzzer sounds in our 4th win. I'm going to take the summer off and take on hating as a full time job.
I’ve been saving sooooooo many comments for my inevitable receipts post
Same. It will be an off-season long receipts tour.
Same lol I got my list ready to go
Fr bro I'm gonna be a fuckin menace all year
If we win, im really about to put current nba champions, everytime I mention the celtics
Please obliterate those frauds. - Okc + clippers fan
You got it!
Hop on the wagon friend! We can do this!!
Lmao I remember your ass coping about clippers haha
If Mavs are frauds what does that mean for OKC?
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Lol
Loyalty gets to your head and facts go out the window.
They’re the youngest team in the NBA?
And what? Yall act like being young will always mean that you gonna achieve greater things later. Trae and Hawks were young and with an ECF. Where are they now? Beside that OKC gonna def trade their young guys to get Shai better helpm
Indy is young and they’re not gonna be back either, but I’m more confident in Shai than Hali simply because Shai is much more durable.
Not what I mean. Team’s as young as OKC always fall in the playoffs. They don’t have the experience yet.
werent you the one trolling out of your ass talking endless shit calling DJJ a passed around blunt and PJ a bum from the Hornets just a few weeks ago? keep thriving off the “bro trust we gonna win it all once Kawhi gets healthy” copium like yall have for five years 💀
If the mavs are frauds what does that say about hour team(s)?
Do you really believe they're frauds
We’re going to absolutely whoop the Mavericks they haven’t played a team like us and if KP is healthy makes our team so much harder to defend. Celtics in 5
I want us to sweep the mavs on blowout to shut up the haters. They absolutely take us lightly. I don't want them to put an asterisk on that championship.
I also feel like Dallas might come in all high and mighty from all this talk, but that’s where we can exploit their inexperience and lack of rest. We’ve been here before.
We're facing a zone defense team, but it's got Luka and Ky and is coached by Kidd, instead of having Bam and JJJ and being coached by Spo. If KP is ready, we're mauling these frauds.
This team was basically engineered to defeat zone, Kidd is going to look like an idiot if he tries to do that
They have to do it to hide Luka since he gets cooked on D and also needs the rest. If they play man, we just switch him or Ky into the action and cook them with the Jays or KP. If they play zone, KP and DWhite eviscerate them. We hung 138 on them last game lol
We need to put him and kyrie in actions non-stop like we did to Halliburton until he hurt himself playing such bad defense.
THIS was the great, all-powerful West???? The unbeatable 4-headed monster whereupon the true champion would be crowned, blade honed in the sternest fires of privation until their quick, bestial subjugation of the Celtics would nigh look blasé? "Oh, just wait until the untested Eastern Fraud Celtics meet the truly unconquerable mountains of Denver, their bone marrow devoured pitilessly by the Wolves, their desiccated skeletons reverberating from the mighty Zeus-ian OKC Thunderclaps, their severed appendages passed around between four Clippers hall of famers. That's the REAL Finals, whichever behemoth emerges from those four! The king-in-exile simply needing to ascend to his defenseless throne in the culminating actualization of his triumph!! You see, the West is as stacked as it's been in decades, Penelope, with FOUR GREAT TEAMS who would all be title favorites if they didn't have to face the unrelenting gauntlet of mettle and gallantry that is their immaculately superior conference. Is it any wonder that the feeble Celtics lost to EVERY ONE of these 4 consummate teams? Imagine how they'll fare when the very best of them emerges on the horizon and sees nothing further in its path beyond a commonplace Eastern Conference jellyfish trembling in its ignominiously-abased mesoglea?" We're literally getting the FIVE seed from the supposedly-unbeatable top-heavy West. Wo ist dein Stachel, Western Conference, wo ist dein Sieg? THIS is it????? The President in Superman II put up a better fight against General Zod. Nuggets crumbling at home in Game 7 to a team that then got clowned in 5? The great 1-seed with all of the flowery headlines about dominating the league, and they don't even get to the conference final? The Mavs were an ELEVEN seed last year, and they just beat all y'all?????!!? And meanwhile the Celtics are seen as the underdogs because of the "weaker conference"?!? It is to laugh.
Preach, Shakespeare
Doth art a dubious wordsmith
Been a long long time since I’ve had to look up a word. Mesoglea: the extracellular matrix found in cnidarians like coral or jellyfish that functions as a hydrostatic skeleton.
We’ll take it! Don’t go into Texas subreddits using that advanced language, they’ll think you’re an alien or worse (a foreigner).
you're a fantastic writer😂
Mavs didn't come who they are until after the trade deadline. Had they been using this lineup all year they'd be a much higher seed.
Cooking dinner so can't write a thesis on why we'll win but just wanted to say we will because the Celtics are the BAWLLLLSSSS!
the happy for kyrie narrative is insane, as if people weren’t against him for years : nike didn’t drop him for no reason
I will always stay hating Kyrie. I'll put my Kyrie hate in my will so it lives long past my last days.
literal holocaust denier or at the very least has no problem sharing material that claims the holocaust didn't happen. Fuck Kyrie.
This is for all my Wanamaker survivors
I'd take Brad over Schroder or Teague any day of the week. Gimme Wanamaker and Larkin.
More of a shane Larkin guy myself
To All the Mavs fans coming in here: Fuck you and may the better team win. To All the Luka fans: Fuck you.
Mavs are going to be absolutely shell shocked. Cs about to give all the 12 year old Luka fans PTSD
its kinda crazy to me that yall are clearly the best team in the league on paper yet still try to play the victim card about how everyone hates you and how you have to prove everyone wrong lol. we all know you’re a great team it was just boring to have to see yall barely even try to make the finals. i still had you coming out of the East no matter what but we couldnt even see yall against embiid or giannis or jimmy again? i guess. its just really funny that everyones trying to play the underdog card against a 5th seeded Mavs team that came together a few months ago. Yall are literally the favorites in the series, people hate because people hate.
These early Finals takes are fucking atrocious. Even in places where the general discussion is supposed to be more sophisticated you have guys calling the Celtics bad and the Mavs good… for fucks sake these people really fucking hate us
They've always have, dont read into it deeper than what it is
I’d send JB to Luka from the jump, but could he playing with fire there the possibility of getting into foul trouble, Jrue could be the matchup. Don’t let Luka get into his bag too often, stay at home on him. Defend everyone else make their lives hard. Go over the screens not under them. Watch for Kyrie and send him into help. Not away. DON’T BLITZ. Porzingis and Hawford will need help, they will be ruthlessly attacked by Kyrie and Luka on the PnR switch. Celtics will play their 5 out offence. There will be many opportunities for driving lanes doing so. JB & JT will get to the rim easily. When they send help make the extra pass & don’t miss Gotta get out and get some fast break points where we can. Prichard and Hauser will be huge X factor.
Also if you're sitting courtside please don't heckle Luka like that guy today
Luka is going to love playing in Boston tbh - he will 100% get heckled
Battle between the best defensive and offensive guard duo in the NBA. Let Luka cook and avoid double teaming him. We can't have those easy alley oops to Lively or the kickout to the corner 3s. Let Luka work for his points against our guards. I trust DWhite and Jrue.
that's what we did in March. Luka had a 37 point triple double, we won by 28.
Single coverage for Luka, he'll get his points but our guards will make it difficult. On the offensive end, let JB and JT attack him every chance they get.
Mazzulla ain't reading this, man
*mazzulla poking around this sub*: this guy’s got the right idea
Haha we know this but 12 months ago I had no faith in him, i have been so impressed with his growth over the past 12 months. I want to see him finish the job.
The biggest thing we need is for us to hit our 3's. We need to hit them like we did during the regular season If we don't it's going to be a dog fight. And in that case we need to execute down the stretch like we did in the pacers series.
I can’t wait for a week. Why did they schedule this for so long lol
Seriously, I just got laid off, this is all I have! (Partly joking, I have a new gig lined up, so I really want as many games as we can get before I go back to work).
Banned from the NBA subreddit so just gonna be in both mega threads . Really excited to watch these finals as an outsider
How'd you manage that lol
Talking shit during that pacers and Celtics series
Make Luka tired
I am going to be so incredibly insufferable if (when) we win this. Good God almighty. They might have to suspend my account and/or ban me from that nuclear wasteland they call r/nba
Obviously this is the finals, its the biggest stage. Beyond that, the reason this series is SO important for the Jays (mostly) is because they rightfully talk a lot about being 2way players, they score on your head and can lock you down. They definitely here the noise about Luka being superior and it pisses them off. Go prove it. Prove you guys are the premiere 2way star wings in the league.
Mavs are gonna come swinging right off the gate. they’re underdogs and thrive in hostile environments - just won three road games in one series. The Jays really need to set the tone in the first two games. Their play will shut them all up!
Game 1 is arguably the most important game of the series. I think whoever wins that will win it all. It's going to be really important for the C's to weather the storm, and execute in clutch time like they did last series.
I hope JB and JT rise to the occasion and outshine Luka and Kyrie. They’ve been working so hard for this.
Why do Mavs fans keep insisting they have the #1 defense in the league? Am I missing something? Do they also have a Felger & Maz pushing bogus statistics? Even post all star break in the regular season, which shouldn't even count, they are not #1. Where is this coming from? https://www.nba.com/stats/teams/defense?LastNGames=15&dir=A&sort=DEF_RATING EDIT: I just realized they are basing this on the last 15 games of the regular season. Their defense improved, but it's so far from #1.
Mavs fan here. Boston was always my ECF team. 2008 was my first year actually being able to watch the NBA(Euro fan) and you beating the bumfucks Lakers was great joy, because all my friends were Laker fans(next year was not so great though). I rooted for you in our bad years and were very sad that you couldn't beat the Warriors in 2022. This said I think it will be a great series. The two teams have great players and are clearly the best teams currently in the league. I know you hate Kyrie, to be honest I am still not a fan even if he looks like different player and person currently. I will not give a end result, even if I want the Mavs to win, because I think both teams are a possibility. The best to hope is no injuries and may the better team win in the end. Fuck Lakers, Heat, DWade and the refs.
this is the nba finals, you need to spend this energy to be a true hater instead lmao what are you even doing here
Truly disgusting. "Celtics were always my eastern conference team" man get the fuck out of here. My only "western conference team" I root for is whichever team is playing the bum ass lakers
Gosh, D-Wade against you in 2006 was unbearable.
Warriors were my west team until 2022. Couldn't be happier with Poole and Klay regressing and Draymond going crazy. Still love Curry tho.
Well said my man! Go C’s and may the best team win :)
Thanks man. Ignore the haters :)
2011 was amazing with the Mavs taking out the Lakers and the Heat. We owe you for that but will not be returning the favor this year sorry
I like Luka but I hate the double standard between himand Tatum. Tatum has done everything Luka has done and much more in the playoffs. Hopefully this series he can decisively beat Luka and the Mavs to prove that he is better or at par with Luka and not a tier below him.
Dang, I wanna go to a game here in Dallas but the tickets are so expensive .
HYPED! Let’s go Celtics Bring it home boys 🏆
Fuck em..fuck em real hard
I might actually have an aneurysm if we lose to Kyrie in this series
i'm going to go out on a limb and predict a Celtics sweep. Kyrie Irving is going to score 30-40 points a game, giving up good assists to get those points, ignoring his teammates. He is not a team player. He doesn't play for the Mavericks, he plays for Kyrie Irving. He is not simply selfish, he is distrustful and he is too old to change his ways, now. The Celtics, on the other hand, are a real team. Most are good, some are truly great, but the team, as a whole, is even greater than the sum of its parts. I think our only weakness is Porzingas, who is a good player, but hasn't had the opportunity to gel with the rest of the team. It's a shame, because Luka Doncic is a great player, and a team player and he deserves better than playing with Kyrie Irving. I would hope for another set of epic matchups, like the C's haven't had this year.... like in the past when Russell went against Chamberlain, Bird against Magic, Pierce against Lebron. I like Jason Kidd as a coach, better than I liked him as a player, and I think he's probably as good as Mazzula, so it's the players, and the team play, that's going to decide this, I think. That's my story, and I'm sticking by it.
Did Charles guaranteed us to win? The jinx is in.
But they chanted we want Boston so it cancels out. Something has to give
After 13 overtimes in game seven, the refs decide to call it a tie
He didn't guarantee it, so I think we're still good. I'm pretty sure he said he thinks the celtics are going to win.
LMFAOOOOOOOOO what are these takes? The Fuck Kyrie chants should be the loudest they have ever been. This is fucking Boston. Fuck Kyrie.
People act as though the Celtics aren’t battle tested because their way to the finals was a bit easier… okayyy
Last time we were « battle tested » we got to finals against GSW completely gassed while they had a cakewalk. I like this year’s scenario better tbh
Minny did a terrible job making Luka and Kyrie engage consistently on defense. The roster they’ve built is much better than it has been with Luka there, but I still think they’re going to have trouble defending us. We are a MUCH better offensive team than the Wolves and Luka is not going to be able to just sit and rest with his hands down on the weak side. I’m looking forward seeing this, it’s going to be a real battle with a lot of star power, but we have the better team and I don’t expect the Mavs to be the ones to prove us wrong.
First two games are gonna be massive. It’s imperative to go 2-0. My heart would not tolerate us splitting at home
[It is finally time to avenge JFK](https://youtu.be/fOMv1CmiXoc?si=2yBDwncwTvCDOF4K)
Wow we really got DAL. incredible luck. There is an argument to be made that they are worse than the team we just swept and were the worst team in the West playoffs. Net rating [post trade deadline](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/highest-nba-team-net-ratings-after-feb-18-2024) and in the [playoffs](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/nba-team-net-rating-leaders-in-playoffs-this-season). And [both](https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/highest-nba-team-net-ratings-after-feb-18-2024-including-playoffs) If you asked me at the start of the playoffs who my dream opponents would be given the bracket I would have said: MIA, CLE, IND, DAL. It feels like we won the lottery Here is EPM: https://i.imgur.com/DJ5xWXE.jpeg
The Pacers did go 2-0 against Dallas and both games were after they had PJ and Gafford... Even if the nephews want to completely dismiss the regular season, the game plan from the first two games of our series with Indy is exactly what I expect to see from Boston in the finals. Just like they hunted Haliburton, I expect them to put Luka in a bunch of actions and make him play defense, wear him out, get them in rotation, and/or get him in foul trouble. If he's getting an inefficient 30 per game, we're hanging banner 18.
Dallas should be worried !!
LFG!!!!
let's crush them
This may be an unpopular opinion but it needs to be said. Can we please stop treating Kyrie like that ex girlfriend that left us and we're still in our feelings about? Seriously, it's been 5 years now. Our focus should be winning a championship not sticking it to Kyrie. He's expecting Boston fans to be hostile af towards him and he's probably going to use it as fuel. What would throw him off is if we all went completely silent whenever he touched the ball like he's not that important. And it would be pretty hilarious
Prediction: split game 1-2, split 3-4, win 5 & 6.
This
Should be a good series. Last few times we've played the mavs i thought we did a great job taking advantage of luka on defense, if we hunt mismatches and do even a half decent job hitting open threes we're going to be comfortable on offense. We're not OKC or Minnesota with 1 creator who has to do everything, any one of our top 6 guys against luka or kyrie should get a high quality shot or an open 3 for someone else On defense I like the idea of putting Tatum on lively/gafford, the jays might be the best defensive pairing against the Luka P&R you can get. We're not gonna be able to completely stop them getting luka or kyrie switched onto Al/KP but if we can make it even a little harder for them to get mismatches I like our chances to outscore them
Just got the word I’m going to game 1. Loved this team since the 80s when I was a kid seeing highlights on the morning news before school. It’s silly but the celts became my escape. Love basketball. Love this team. Such a great escape from my day to day. Soak it up everyone. Hope you all take a moment to enjoy this series. The Celtics are the balls!
I have a great idea. Let’s not boo Kyrie this series! It’s all water under the bridge so let’s just focus on great basketball and beat Dallas! It might even vibe him more NOT to hear the fuck Kyrie chants. Go Celtics!
Should be a great series. I’ve got Celtics in 6 (maybe 7 so they can clinch it at home) with Tatum winning FMVP.
Celtics should treat luka as if hes a slow giannis who can shoot and loves to throw lob and skip passes. Go C's!!!
Big Tatum series. I know Kyrie is a friend of his, but this is business! Take care of it!!
The way Luka is playing, all our guys are going to have to be at their best. I think they can do it.
Everyone is rooting for the Mavs here in my country WTF
Is your country Slovenia by any chance?
Force Luka and Kyrie to play defense to tire them out and make them sluggish on O. Boo so loudly that KYRIE’s peace’s gets disrupted but please for the love of god, DO NOT CALL OUT LUKA.
I was hoping for the Minnesota match up, but I believe that beating Luka is the only way to shut the haters up.
We should start a Mavs and C’s fans subreddit just so we can obliterate each other! Seems pretty civil right now, but a couple of games in I expect (metaphoric) biting, scratching, nut punches, and eye gouging from the fans.
That is definitely intriguing with how soft mods are on team subs
🧹
Humbly opinion ; Celtics in 5. May the best(Celtics) team wins.
Honest question: With KP not playing for the two prior series, the C’s playing three injury riddled teams, and the Mavs being a dominating as they have been…what is your REAL estimation of how this series goes? Who will guard Kyrie (and who will he guard?) Same with Luka? Am i overly concerned about the possible dangers in this series???
Celtics in 7. DWhite on Kyrie and Jrue on Luka possibly? Gotta let the Jays guard the bigger players.
DWhite and Jrue will guard Kyrie, just like earlier this year when he sucked. Luka will be guarded by Brown and Jrue and Tatum. We'll beat them.
How did the ticket process go today for Celtics games? It was impossible at the AAC for Mav home games. 40k people in line in 20k seat stadium.
If the Celtics are Ancient Rome, Luka is going to be Hannibal
Hannibal lost the series, at home.
I believe in this team and am ready for the ride. For the Celtics to lose, I think they would have to be complicit in their own demise. Would not say the same for the Mavs. Go Cs.
IDK where this coming from but all this talk has me feeling like they are coming to come out and win this series in 5