Is Jrue Holiday a dark horse candidate for Finals MVP? | Good word with good will

Yahoo Sports Senior NBA Reporter Vincent Goodwill joins Dan Devine to discuss Celtics guard Jrue Holiday’s Finals MVP candidacy and why he has been so effective against the Mavericks. Listen to the full conversation about “Good Word with Good Will” – part of the “Ball Don’t Lie” podcast – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

see more

Video transcript

I want to talk about giving Drew Holiday a lot of love here, the same way you talk about Jason Tatum doing all the things except scoring, Jrue Holiday is doing all the things and scoring right.

He’s making all these critical plays.

He’s defending Kyrie Irving by doing that, making those shots really difficult for us and Kyrie to go left, even though Kyrie might be the best, you know, in paint scoring, you know, two-handed, ambidextrous, all other types of The problem is that he’s making everything look too difficult and he’s on track for Finals MVP.

If we did such a thing, I think there would be a lack of peace because if he’s your fourth or fifth best player, then, honey, you’re going to have problems on the other side.

Problems.

It ends absolutely with 26 points.

I think it was 11 of 14 from the floor, um 11 rebounds and it’s so typical of you, you know, you think about Jrue Holiday and you think about him functionally and how we’ve seen him throughout his entire career as a point guard, right?

Or a combo guard at most, like on the ball in Boston, he’s like, you know, he’s the guy he’s essentially replacing Marcus Smart used to joke and call himself stretch six and where he is, what position is Jrue’s holiday ?

Well, where did a lot of your buckets come from tonight?

From the most humid place?

Right?

He is facing the ground under the basket.

Um, and I think he’s fascinating because he’s a player where, when the ecosystem is working, he seems, you know, he’s, he’s like part of the benefits of a lot of this.

So I, I don’t want to diminish Drew Holiday’s individual contributions because those 26 and 11 that were gigantic and not to mention the defensive plays, as you mentioned, the huge, you know, get the deflection turns into a steal, winds on the three point , like big momentum-changing plays.

Um, you know, I think he had four offensive rebounds as extra possessions.

He’s succeeding, he’s doing everything they need him to do.

But a lot of it when you look, you look back at those photos.

A ton of that is generated from downhill tatum, downhill brown, right.

So that’s when we have our spacing, when we have the five out, we have Porzingis in the slot or we have Horford in the corner, however we move the chess pieces and we win a man on a board catches a ball screen, catches it, turns the corner , it comes down and it’s designed with his spacing in the deepest spot or in the corners, that he’s never spent so much time in the corner anywhere he’s been before and he is, and what a big adjustment it’s been for him all season.

Get used to being able to take these photos.

And also what do you do if you don’t take the photo, the steering angles are different.

Oh, the spacing is different.

The fun where you’re on the floor, get comfortable with that.

He was so comfortable.

Right.

You, you’re like, I get the ball on the swing, I swing in the corner, closeouts coming at me and I go and it’s like going straight to the rim, being able to use the backboard as, or the, the rim as a shield. of the shot blocker.

He had all these fluid, flowing things and was very comfortable with what they were asking of him in that offense.

But a lot of it is, it starts with Tatum around a high ball screen or brown and in iso against the defender, he can hit it and then once the breakdown, the defense collapses, that’s when you get the spray and then he makes all of these parts.

He has to make them, but they’re there for the taking in large part because of the way the rest of the offense is just a stress test of the Dallas defense, possession after possession and, you know, you’re, you’re absolutely right.

Like, this hasn’t been an overwhelming Boston defense, like I, I’m sorry, the overwhelming Boston offense, the Dallas defense has played well enough to win in some of these games, but it’s the challenge of dealing with all these ways. that you can is broken and then, you know, 90 possessions at a time, 95 possessions at a time.

It’s a lot to deal with.

And if you lose focus for a second or if you lose rotation for a second, if your short man isn’t ready for a second, all of a sudden, Jrue Holiday is putting the ball in the basket and putting your defender back there. with him.

And so, yeah, an absolutely sensational game from him that I think is the kind of thing that I, I if you, if you end up with an Andre Iguodala MVP type situation, um, it wouldn’t, it certainly wouldn’t be unwarranted.

Jrue Holiday has been playing amazing, but I think it’s also a manifestation of that, it’s the way this team looks when it’s cooking and providing these opportunities to other guys.

And Jrue Holiday took full advantage of them.

To close