Key Highlights The Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks faced off once this season following the trade deadline, when Boston won, 138-110 Dallas’ now-vaunted defense struggled to contain the Celtics, which hit 21 threes and posted a 136.6 offensive rating Despite the blowout loss, Luka Doncic was terrific with 37 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists The Mavericks had yet to find their current starting five and opened that game with Josh Green and Dereck Lively starting over Derrick Jones Jr. and Daniel Gafford For both participants, these 2024 NBA Finals will serve as vastly different experiences than the preceding three rounds. For the Boston Celtics, they’re facing a fully healthy team that has rampaged through the league the past three months, going 35-11 over its prior 46 games with Luka Doncic in the lineup. Dallas has become a defensive machine and represents the stiffest foe Boston’s league-best offense has faced this postseason. The Celtics haven’t encountered a team the past six weeks with such offensive gusto flanked by range, size and connectivity defensively. Pair that with Doncic’s scheme-proof offensive artistry and the Mavericks’ inclusion here — dashing the hopes of title contender after title contender en route — isn’t hard to grasp. For the Mavericks, Boston is a juggernaut, touting a tidy 76-20 record through 96 games — winning 64 of 82 during the regular season to nab the NBA’s top record and 12 of 14 during the playoffs for a smooth cruise back to the Finals. The Celtics will sternly challenge Dallas’ revamped defense. It’s a unit predicated on funneling possessions to shaky shooters and offensive options squaring off with a unit predicated on excising those players from the rotation. The Mavericks call the bluff of five-out offenses and savvy spacing ploys. Boston, meanwhile, doesn’t bluff. The entirety of its eight-man rotation credibly spaces the floor and most of them can attack closeouts. The wheels of the offense have rarely stopped spinning this season. Dallas will have to solve that riddle, all while navigating a third-ranked defense on the other side. This is a matchup between the two defining teams of the season: Boston for its eight months of consistent dominance and Dallas for its four-month sprint of marvelous hoops discarding everyone — no matter how presumptively elite — to return to the Finals after a 13-year hiatus. Let’s dive into some storylines that might shape the series. Kristaps Porzingis Is A Familiar Face, But A New Challenge For Dallas Entering this showdown, there will be, understandably, parallels between Porzingis’ game and that of Chet Holmgren‘s, who Dallas saw back in the second round. Despite some lumps offensively, Holmgren was very good in that series. He averaged 15.8 points (59.1 percent true shooting), 6.2 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game. While Jalen Williams struggled immensely, Holmgren largely held up his end of the bargain as a member of the prominent supporting cast behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. But a few of the holes in his game enabled the Mavericks to stash smaller defenders on him and stress a bit less about his outside shooting than most defenses the Oklahoma City Thunder saw this season. Holmgren is not an adept mismatch scorer yet. According to Synergy, during the regular season, he recorded just 36 post-up possessions and didn’t even eclipse 10 all playoffs (the minimum number for any points per possession leaderboard). When Dallas took its center off him, he wasn’t a viable option to punish undersized opponents. And although he’s a very good shooter, his slow, one-motion release eases the pressure of an immediate closeout. Because of those limitations, his presence didn’t amplify Oklahoma City’s offense to the same levels as the regular season and invited Dallas to have its centers roam off of highly flawed offensive players, mucking up the Thunder’s drive-and-kick game. Porzingis is a different flavor of stretch big. He produced 1.30 points per possession on 185 post-up possessions in the regular season (96th percentile) and made a living crushing switches/mismatches. As a spacer, he wields an elevated two-motion release. From the elbows, on the block or beyond the arc, he’ll fire over anyone. Once a shrewd tactic to disrupt his rhythm, crowding his airspace from below doesn’t usually hinder him anymore. In his lone game against the Mavericks this season, he scored 24 points on 76.1 percent true shooting and showcased this duality. [
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Guarding Porzingis with a center complicates Dallas’ defensive strategy of anchoring a big to be on 24/7 watch in the paint. He rarely sits in the corners and often resides on the wings, which necessitates odder, longer help responsibilities for opposing bigs and more standard interior rotations for smaller, ill-suited defenders. If they play drop, Porzingis will flare beyond the arc and hoist open threes. If they switch, he’ll post. If the help comes, he’ll flick the ball to some other qualified shooter and spin Dallas into a frenzied scramble — a place it’s not been much this postseason and one from which Boston excels offensively.
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I imagine the Mavericks switch or employ drop early, then adapt if those ideas falter. According to reports, Porzingis is expected to return in Game 1 from a six-week absence due to a calf strain, yet was coy about declaring himself 100 percent. A compromised Porzingis would probably strain Dallas’ defense considerably less. But if he does provide his traditional imprint, I wouldn’t be surprised if Dallas switches, invites post-ups and brings selective, punctual doubles with size to bother his shooting and passing windows. Regardless, between his own arsenal and the firepower around him, he’s a unique scorer the Mavericks haven’t dealt with this postseason.
Can Boston Slow The Mavericks’ Lob Game?
Through 17 playoff games, Dallas has recorded 54 alley-oops. The second-place Denver Nuggets have nine. Doncic is, of course, a brilliant lob thrower whose radar-level anticipation, deft touch and ingenuity encourage him to toss those suckers at any moment. Kyrie Irving is pretty willing, too. The bigs, Gafford and Lively, populate to passes like moths to a flame. Every opponent has grappled with this dynamic. Boston is next, and beyond Porzingis, it doesn’t sport much interior size (in the rotation) to potentially curtail this Lobapalooza. The possible solution is its switch-heavy dynamic. Switch ball-screens. Avoid drop when any sort of aerial threat is diving to the rim, especially given the Celtics’ propensity to play two-on-two in drop and eliminate corner triples. They’ve finished top four in lowest opposing corner three rate both seasons under head coach Joe Mazzulla and are first in the playoffs this year. Occasionally, the lack of size and schematic tendencies have reared their head. Lively is 10-of-10 from the field against Boston this season.
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Switching is palatable because neither Gafford nor Lively are post-up or face-up aficionados; however, it leaves Boston susceptible to second opportunities, with the Mavericks fourth in offensive rebounding rate in the playoffs (29.8 percent). Josh Green, Derrick Jones Jr., P.J. Washington, Lively, Gafford, Doncic and Irving all rank in the 60th percentile or better for offensive rebounding rate. Gang rebounding will be pivotal. Boston leads the playoffs in lowest opposing offensive rebounding rate. Including against Dallas this season, Jayson Tatum — an elite defensive rebounder — has a history of capably guarding non-creating centers while Porzingis (or Al Horford) lurks off/defends the least threatening shooter. In an aim to keep the ball in front and reduce Doncic’s paint touches, switching will almost assuredly be the base coverage. Will that include Horford and Porzingis, though? The former is still pretty good on the perimeter and certainly better than in drop, but the latter is a bit heavy-footed with slow hips and is coming off a lower-body injury. Dallas has insisted on bringing Boston’s bigs into the action during both regular season games. How will the Celtics handle that? Lots of pre-switching might happen, but the Mavericks will exhaust the well and spam screeners until there’s an empty side with the big unable to stay hidden. Could a potential remedy be something like this?
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