In a series that seemed like a mismatch from Game 1, as Boston kept a scorching-hot offense to 89 points, significantly below Dallas’ season and playoff average, the Dallas Mavericks fell to the Boston Celtics 4-1 in the NBA Finals the previous season. Other than that, the Mavs were mostly outmatched by a club with an abundance of defensive options—options that other teams just do not have—in order to stop Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic. The Mavs won Game 4 by a respectable margin.
In the Western Conference Finals, the Mavericks’ offense outscored the Minnesota Timberwolves with a 121.0 offensive rating; the Wolves were unable to impede Dallas’ adept use of pick-and-roll play.
Throughout the entire series, Luka Doncic kept four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert alive, as demonstrated by his shot over the French center in Game 2. There were several factors that led to this breakdown of what was a superb regular-season defense, but Doncic’s ability to force offensive mismatches against the Mavericks was the main one.
Doncic exploited this by putting Jaden McDaniels on his back hip, taking advantage of McDaniels’ size and steady speed. Gobert was in drop coverage. He had enough space to move freely around the free-throw line as a result.
Doncic had plenty of room to shoot from the midrange since Gobert was unable to play up and guard the ball handler himself due to Dallas’ abundance of lob threats near the rim. Moreover, Minnesota’s extra baseline defender was frequently forced to choose between guarding these rim passes to big men and preventing Kyrie Irving or another shooter from getting an open look from the corner.
Doncic found simple passes to the middle of the court or on short rolls that resulted in hockey assists to other players in space, even when the Timberwolves chose to blitz the pick-and-roll. The baseline defender had a similar issue when Minnesota hedged on the ball screen as Gobert was in
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