How can the Mavericks get back to the NBA Finals? | Good word with good will

Yahoo Sports Senior NBA Reporter Vincent Goodwill and Senior NBA Writer Dan Devine discuss how the Mavericks can get back to the NBA Finals after falling 2-0 as the series shifts to Dallas. 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.

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Video transcript

If you go up 20 points in the NBA Finals, 86% of the time you will win the series.

We saw it go in the other direction.

Most notably in 2016, the Cavs came back from a 20-31 deficit to beat the Warriors in Game Seven.

All that kind of stuff, right?

Kyrie Irving touched on that tonight with Dan Devine.

He said I didn’t play well in the first two games of that series and I turned around and didn’t remember Kyrie having a bad game one and two against Golden State in that series.

I looked for it.

He was like seven or 22 years old, in one of those games.

I was like, oh, okay. And then he had the masterpiece, you know, the 40-pointers against Klay Thompson and you know, buses and steps and everything was fine, cool.

Can they depend on it or is there another way?

Is there another, maybe we can go down and break Derek Lively and Gafford and start finishing over the defense again or is that path completely closed?

I don’t think it’s completely closed because I think we’ve seen Eno or at least enough success.

It requires Luca to be a battering ram for a quarter and a half.

Right.

And that was effective.

This opened up the game creation game.

The question for the child, though, is: how do we manipulate the pieces so that if we can get Luca pound, pound, pound downhill enough to force Boston to bring in more help.

So when those passes come out, it’s like, instead of it being a throwback to Josh Green, it’s a throwback to Kyrie Irving, right?

For example, how do we move the pieces enough to where you get to or if you’re moving, uh, you can, to get Luca in that space, is to create a corner for these guys, like a more comfortable in their game for these faces.

And I think, you know, the kid mentioned it after the game, like, this is the kind of thing we need to go to.

And then the other part, like, doesn’t turn the ball around, right?

Like, uh, this, it doesn’t feel like it doesn’t come off the screen like 15 turns.

It’s not a G number.

It’s a, but that’s it, I think it’s when they happen, they’re timely.

They are certainly timely.

And so it’s also, it’s their nature.

It’s not like we threw the ball on the 15th line, 10 of those 15 were live ball turnovers.

Boston had 10 steals in this game and they scored, I look for this by clearing glass.com 2.17 points per possession after a steal.

So basically every steal is guaranteed and sometimes you get the hook on the three-point shot.

So like these are absolute killers, especially when your offense isn’t working at the level you want it to be, you can’t afford to turn them in, you know, you finally put them in jail a little bit.

Uh, on defense, you’re slowing them down.

You can’t give them an easy life.

You can’t let them, you know, it’s Jalen Brown’s pick six in the first game, you can’t let them just go down the hill and dunk the ball like that.

So there’s room to clear, there’s space to clear possession which obviously Dallas has been a fantastic turnaround avoiding team all season.

This is integral to the way Kyrie and Luca can dominate the ball and you know how comfortable you feel with them generating something good.

Therefore, there is a cleanliness that Kyrie Irving cannot play, cannot finish, cannot shoot the way Kyrie Irving played in these first two games.

Jason Kidd always talks about this with Luca.

You have to participate in the defense, right?

You have to be an active participant.

They were able to participate in their own salvation in the attack.

You can’t have stupid possessions, you can’t have empty possessions, you can’t play the ball over the place.

And when you get those rare clean looks against the Celtics defense, you make money.

You can’t waste these opportunities because you simply won’t get that many of them.

To close