Yahoo Sports Senior NBA Reporter Vincent Goodwill and Tim Cato of The Athletic break down how the Celtics will try to stop Luka Doncic in the NBA Finals. Listen to the full “Good Word with Goodwill” conversation — part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast — and subscribe at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video transcript
I feel like in the fifth game, Dallas started putting their screens so high on the floor for Luca that it was like you guys couldn’t run down the court as fast as we can move the ball down the court.
If you’re going to attack us, we’ll put the screen down there, in the middle of the court.
You can’t cover 40 feet of space with three or two guys and everyone in rotation and we’re going to, you know, open up shots that way.
I feel like this is a strategy they’re going to try to replicate against Boston, whether it’s Boston switches or blitzes, even if Boston doesn’t blitz, they feel like they can change everything.
I think Luca can even hunt.
I don’t think I’m going to say he’s going to hunt down Jalen Brown, but I feel like he can wear down Jalen Brown offensively, making him responsible defensively.
Do you know what I mean?
And like you said, Horford is Sam Hauser, even poor Zings, even when he’s running around assuming everything’s fine, right?
Like I didn’t feel like there was any confrontation that Luca wouldn’t feel comfortable with if he was there.
The big question for Boston is: I think they can win either way.
And so it’s those two paths, they can just start to bend it and they can get better at it over the course of the series.
But they don’t do that much.
Like there will be some serial learning if that’s what they choose to do or they can let it go.
But I think, I think if they decide to just change everything to let them score one-on-one, that should be something they commit to for this entire series.
I, I think, I think it’s a big disadvantage if, if, if Boston panics if, if Dallas gets a game and, and Boston panics and changes midway because the whole idea of saying, hey Luca, we understand like, you know, we, we, we’re going to trade, you know, whoever you want and you’re going to have to score on them.
The idea is to wear them down throughout the series.
And unless you really commit to this, I, I just, what’s the point of doing this, but, but you’re not going to play the traditional, you know, drop hedges, you know, Luca is the best alive at solving which, you know, you talked about these screens that they’re setting up for him literally, you know, almost literally at half court, you know.
Yes, OK. Just swim underneath him and suddenly Luca is hitting that shot too.
You know, like with, with a range of over 30 feet.
So he’s the most difficult player, the most difficult perimeter player in the NBA to defend.
And I, you know, I’m not at all jealous of the Boston team trying to figure that out even with the defense they have.
