Yahoo Sports Senior NBA Reporter Vincent Goodwill and The Athletic’s Tim Cato break down NBA Finals defenses to see what adjustments the Celtics and Mavericks need to make to win. 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
Boston’s defense doesn’t double as a team.
They don’t send blitzes, they send the second fewest in the entire regular season.
The only team that sent less blitzes, like sending doubles of those, uh, of those picks was, uh, Detroit, maybe Detroit should have tried to double down a little bit more.
Um, so, Boston has this idea that every time, like they have so many good perimeter defenders that they’re going to switch, as much as possible, they’re going to play drop coverage, you know, they’re going to get you one on one.
They’re not going to give you four-on-three basketball against Luca Danic.
Sometimes he just makes you do it, you know, we saw that in game five, right?
You know, in the close game against Minnesota, there was nothing you could do but double him, there was literally no other option.
And so that identity for Boston is, or they’re going to have to commit to changing and that includes sometimes Al Horford and Christus, you know, you can hide those guys in Derek Jones Junior.
But, um, you know, maybe if Max comes into the game, he’s more of a pick and pop threat, you might have to trade even the big men, you know, and you might have to trade, you might have to trade Sam Houser.
Uh, you might have to trade, uh, Derek White, who’s a good defender.
He is as he is. Yes maybe.
Well, Luca can look at that guy and be like you, you’re really small, you know, you have to make sure you can do that thing really small.
So on the other side of the court, Dallas’ identity is that they always stay on the edge, you know, they always have help and protection there.
They will encounter a sniper, they will get the hell out of them.
Can you do this with Boston?
I’m not so sure, but spacing out each player who will play in the series for Boston could make three and each player will take eight of them.
That’s not something that Dallas has faced, you know, throughout the entire playoff series.
Yes.
Oklahoma City was a space team of five.
Chet Holmgren was hitting three threes a game, you know, he wasn’t a threat in the same way, you know, there were certainly other players that Dallas kind of dared to shoot at times against Boston.
I’m just not sure if you can do it.
And so I think both identities and who wins or takes advantage, uh, will define the series.
And I think both identities being challenged in certain ways probably benefits the offense on both sides as much as we talk about defenses.
I think they will be very efficient offensive games with very high scoring.
Uh, you know, certainly, you know, for the winning team, in any outcome.
Well, I, with the crazy stuff, I don’t want this to turn into a three-point shootout, but it might, okay, like, yeah, modern NBA baby, I hate this.
I hate that.
I hate, hate shooting 53 points in the game.
This is, this is not, this is not the NBA.
I used to love it.
