2024 NBA Finals: The Biggest Questions of Celtics-Mavericks – The Ringer

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How will the Celtics defend Luka Doncic? We dive deep into the matchups and examine the critical strategy questions that could decide the Finals.
The NBA Finals matchup nobody thought would happen (until it actually happened) is almost here. On Thursday night, the Boston Celtics will square off against the Dallas Mavericks in a series that palpitates with melodrama and historical consequence. Kyrie Irving is back in Boston! Kristaps Porzingis is back in Dallas! Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown are back near the mountaintop! Luka Doncic is extremely close to broad recognition as the best player alive!
Check out our daily predictions hub for the 2023-24 championship
On the court, both sides will spend the next few weeks cycling through tactical questions and variables that will help decide the 2023-24 NBA champion. Here are four of the most compelling story lines that belong under the spotlight.
It’s a significant question that stubbornly confounds the smartest minds in basketball. Doncic is tall, strong, bold, skilled, and smart enough to outmaneuver every coverage specifically designed to slow him down. At 25, he’s a less athletic but better 3-point shooting iteration of LeBron James in his prime.
During the conference finals, facing a Minnesota Timberwolves defense that neutered a pair of high-powered offenses in the first two rounds, Doncic averaged 32.4 points, 8.2 assists, and 9.6 rebounds per game, with a 62.7 true shooting percentage. The Wolves tried everything; Doncic melted them into soup.
On every play, his greatest advantage is sophisticated intuition. He’s gimlet-eyed when running pick-and-rolls, a walking bucket in isolation, and increasingly confident in his teammates’ ability to play fast without him. Now, in Boston, he faces an obstacle unlike any other in these playoffs.
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While the (very large) Wolves were constructed to stop Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets, the Celtics are equipped to throw multiple All-Defensive team–caliber bodies at Doncic. Jaylen Brown and Jrue Holiday are likely to split this job, and Jayson Tatum can tag in once foul trouble is less of a concern late in close games.
Identifying Luka’s primary assignment is just the tip of the iceberg, though. This is someone who strains all five defenders in myriad ways when he has the ball, regardless of what he’s doing, wherever he is. The better question to ask might be: What is Boston willing to surrender? Does it want to restrict corner 3s or take away lobs? Can it do both and press Luka to beat the Celtics with contested jump shots?
There’s no uniform game plan for stopping Doncic. Boston’s coverage will depend on who gets dragged into the action, be it Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard, or Sam Hauser. It’s also dictated by the screener. For example, let’s assume Tatum or Holiday spends time on Daniel Gafford and Dereck Lively II while Horford and Porzingis roam off P.J. Washington, Derrick Jones Jr., Josh Green, or Dante Exum. If any of those non-centers set a screen, Boston may just switch and offer help in different forms behind the play.
The Celtics don’t usually ramp up their aggression by intentionally throwing two on the ball, but Luka is an exception. They’ll put themselves in rotation, content with having Washington or DJJ pop for a non-corner 3 or drive into a clogged lane. (Gafford and Lively can’t space the floor.)
Watch the clips below, and it’s not hard to see a scenario in this series where Maxi Kleber spends real time at the 5, giving Dallas’s offense some room to breathe. It’s a wrinkle that Boston’s offense would probably be OK with, considering how awesome those two bigs have been throughout these playoffs.
When Dallas says “Screw it” and brings its center up to set a screen regardless of who’s on them, Boston will likely switch the action and cede no advantage. If the Celtics can use this strategy to flatten the Mavs out, take away lobs, and make Doncic hit contested 2-point shots, they’ll be happy. Execution is much easier said than done, but unlike Minnesota, Boston doesn’t have to toggle between drops and blitzes. With no holes in its lineup, it can switch most matchups without feeling too much anxiety in a rotation.
Some of that’s due to how well they pre-switch bigs out of unwanted situations. It’s not something that can be executed on every possession, but they’ve done a pretty good job throughout these playoffs, keeping Horford out of harm’s way. Here’s an example from March, with Dallas trying two screeners before a third brings White into the action (and after all that, Doncic just misses a really good look):
Entire games don’t unfold in well-choreographed half-court situations. There will be constant switching, crossmatching in transition, and chaotic scrambling when Dallas grabs an offensive rebound. Doncic is tough. He’ll get his numbers, hit impossible stepbacks, and apply enough pressure to coerce defensive breakdowns that generate open 3s. Against normal players, help defenders can start rotating as the ball takes flight. With Luka, sometimes you don’t know a pass is a pass until it has reached the recipient:
But the Celtics’ versatility, discipline, and size make them a tough nut to crack. They will change things up on the fly—helping on one play, staying home on another—avoid unnecessary fouls, limit second-chance and transition opportunities, and (at least through the first game or two) make Luka operate on more of a whim than he’d prefer.
Of course, there are other ways Doncic can beat a defense. Dallas can simplify its offense, deliberately clear out one side of the floor, and watch him go one-on-one:
(This also applies to Kyrie Irving.)
Until Boston finds itself down a couple of games, or unless Luka and Irving flame-broil single coverage for eight to 12 straight quarters, Joe Mazzulla won’t overreact to these types of baskets. Two players, on their own, can’t beat a team that’s currently 76-20. Especially with 2-point shots.
The Mavericks aren’t in the Finals because of their offense. They’re here because their defense in the first three rounds held the Clippers, Thunder, and Timberwolves to 109.5, 111.8, and 112.1 points per 100 possessions, respectively—all bottom-10 marks relative to the regular season.
Most of that success boils down to rim protection. Dallas held its three opponents to 59.4 percent shooting at the basket, a trend that carried over from the end of the regular season. In the Finals, Gafford and Lively don’t have a non-shooting threat to roam off of, though. Josh Giddey, Rudy Gobert, Kyle Anderson, and Ivica Zubac aren’t walking through that door.
Unless Jason Kidd wants to stick his centers on Holiday, White, Brown, or Tatum, they’ll have to guard either Porzingis or Horford. Leave either big man alone on the perimeter at your own peril.
The Mavericks also enjoyed some luck in the first couple of rounds. Oklahoma City—a team that led the regular season in 3-point percentage—hit only 34.7 percent of the 193 3s that were either open or wide open against Dallas. In that series, Lu Dort led OKC in 3-point attempts and, after converting a career-high 39.4 percent of those shots during the regular season, made only 31.7 percent of them. Giddey went 3-for-16 and was completely ignored. Dallas didn’t really care about Chet Holmgren, either. The Thunder’s rookie center finished 6-for-27 (22.2 percent!) after establishing himself as a legitimate pick-and-pop threat all year. The Mavs were fine switching initial ball screens and then packing the paint.
Boston, on the other hand, has no soft spots from deep. It takes the most 3s, and it makes the most 3s. All that spacing turns the court into a prairie, which then emboldens one major pillar of Boston’s explosive offensive identity: the ability to create a mismatch and then pounce once the defense reacts to it. It’ll be fascinating to see how the Mavs respond when Doncic and Irving are plunged into compromising situations against a team that loves to hunt.
Will the Mavericks leave those two on an island and blanket the 3-point line? Will they hard double on the catch, brush off the math, and hope for a slump? Will they live somewhere in between, shrink the floor, show bodies, and sprint into closeouts? Or will they try their damnedest to avoid switches altogether? There aren’t any easy answers. On the play below, with Kleber at the 5, Tatum has Doncic’s man set a ball screen, and the Mavs choose to rotate out of it, triggering a series of passes that allows Brown to overpower Irving:
Regardless of how much time is on the clock or what the scoreboard reads, Boston is a 3-point tsunami waiting to happen. It relentlessly hunts shots behind the arc in a variety of ways—including flare screens, back screens, and pick-the-picker actions—with lineups that typically feature five dangerous outside threats and up to four elite playmaking shot creators. In other words, there’s no obvious place for Doncic or Irving to hide, and foul trouble for either star isn’t a reality Dallas is likely to survive. Though Dallas held opponents to a measly 109.4 points per 100 possessions with those two on the court this postseason, Boston can hatch the type of problems Kidd may not be equipped to solve.
Two things are true: Doncic is better than Tatum, and the Celtics can beat the Mavericks in a series where that fact is undeniable. But if Tatum shines brighter than Doncic, it’s almost impossible to see a path for Dallas to win it all.
The two first-team All-NBA members serve their teams in different ways. The Mavericks revolve around Doncic. He’s had the ball in his hands for 149 minutes in these playoffs (8.8 per game). Meanwhile, Tatum’s time of possession is 74 minutes (5.3 per game), and he’s enmeshed in a roster that has several established ball handlers who can effectively make plays. But how well Dallas defends Boston’s best player is still pretty significant.
The Mavericks can’t guard Tatum as they did Anthony Edwards or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. If they do, Tatum should happily let Brown, Holiday, White, Porzingis, and Horford punish any over-aggression:
Things could get interesting if/when the Mavericks don’t act like they’re afraid of Tatum. His track record speaks for itself, but several numbers from this playoff run aren’t pretty. After making 43 percent of his spot-up 3s during the regular season, Tatum’s at just 27.6 percent in the playoffs.
According to Synergy, on Tatum’s isolation plays that end in a shot, turnover, drawn foul, or pass that then leads to a shot, Boston generates only 0.86 points per possession with a 39.4 effective field goal percentage. Those numbers are atrocious, and the film is a mélange of midrange jumpers, stepback 3s, and rushed drives into the teeth of a set defense. Most of these plays begin after the defense switches a screen and gives Tatum the matchup he wants. Often, in these playoffs, that hasn’t mattered.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t feast over the next couple of weeks. To start, a lot of the shots Tatum gets are looks he converted quite comfortably this season. When he finds a zone, gets to his spot, and either rises, unbothered, over a smaller defender or overpowers him in the paint, Boston looks unbeatable. The shots just haven’t fallen in this postseason like they have in the past.
Last year, Tatum’s effective field goal percentage as an isolation scorer was 59.6, and the Celtics generated a whopping 121.5 points per 100 possessions on plays that included a pass. A hot streak from one of the game’s most prolific scorers would doom Dallas.
Another factor is Porzingis, who hasn’t been around since Game 4 in the first round. As mentioned in the last section, KP’s gravity is a game changer for the Celtics. If they can split 48 minutes at the center position between him and Horford and keep the floor spaced, life will get a lot easier for Tatum when the defense switches.
Instead of plays like this …
… there will be a lot more room to operate, which will lead to plays like this:
More good news for Boston: Tatum is a perennial MVP candidate for a reason. He averaged 30 points per game (shooting 67.9 percent on drives) in the conference finals. Against Doncic (who’s officially underrated on defense but also not reminding anyone of Lu Dort) or smaller targets like Irving and Green, he should be able to create decent opportunities for himself and steady perks for his teammates.
Boston is a playoff-high plus-141 when he’s on the court in these playoffs. They whistle to the tune of a 121.4 offensive rating with him and barf out an atrocious 99.5 when he sits. It’s one of the most positive on/off differentials anyone has had this postseason, a trend that should continue, if not improve, when more of his own shots start to fall.
The Mavericks beat the Timberwolves without grabbing a big percentage of their own missed shots. But offensive rebounds are a humongous reason this group even got that far.
The only team that grabbed a higher percentage of its own missed shots before the conference finals was the Knicks; the Mavs posted an offensive rebound rate (32.5 percent) that would’ve also ranked second during the regular season. This was a big deal. After the trade deadline, they ranked 24th in the regular season. For all the talk about their amazing crunch-time effort and dueling superstars, second-chance points were a saving grace against the undersized Thunder and a Clippers team that was pummeled with Zubac on the bench.
This sets up a showdown against a unit that isn’t vulnerable on the glass. The Celtics have grabbed 77 percent of their opponents’ missed shots and allowed 8.9 second-chance points per 100 possessions, which is tied with the New Orleans Pelicans for best in the playoffs. They are elite at limiting points per miss and putback opportunities, too. At the same time, assuming Boston sticks a non-center on Gafford and Lively, both bigs will have plenty of chances to bum-rush the offensive glass.
It’s here where the series could very well be decided, unless, of course, Boston can win the rebounding battle when it has possession. (The Celtics’ offensive rebound rate was 31.4 percent in the conference finals.) Not only will that give the best offense in the league more shots, but it’ll also keep the Mavs from attacking in the open floor, which is another in-between area where they’ve punished opponents.
On paper, this Finals promises to be a thrilling chess match. There will be countless counters from game to game and adjustments from play to play. These four topics should be top of mind throughout the action, though. And one way or another, they’ll ultimately help decide which team raises their first banner in over a decade.
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