Here's some quotes from the Lowe article on ESPN, you do need a sub to ESPN+ to view it. He was breaking down the Xs and Os of the Celtics defense which he feels is good enough to win a championship, even if our offense, being heavily predicated on the 3 point shot, misfires. It's a great article if you can access it, I feel like Lowe is one of the better sports journalists out there and he has an ability to simplify schemes and Xs and Os.
He has a lot of short video clips (10-15 sec) to illustrate what he's talking about as well which really show how well this team is drilled - as Lowe said "In their three series, the Celtics reached a higher gear on defense when they needed to. They elevated into a state of controlled frenzy, smothering every option, moving as one entity, responding to every opposing two-man action with the precise right read. So much of great defense lies in the absence of mistakes -- in two defenders intersecting at full speed and deciding together, without a word, to do nothing fancy." It's not easy to be so fluid with a switch heavy defense and make so few mistakes with it happening so often, every player on the team that gets on the court needing to know exactly where they should be whatever the opposition decides to do. (I suspect the absence of some players might be due to the fact that this action becomes less smooth when they are on the court:)
https://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs/mp4/CLE_BOS___GIF1_2gif.mp4https://media.video-cdn.espn.com/gifs/mp4/Celtics_Pacers_4th_Gif_2gif.mp4Here he was talking about how the Celtics could combat the Doncic pick and roll with its switch-heavy defense.
Whenever they can, the Celtics so far in these playoffs have inverted matchups so that their centers defend non-threatening perimeter players -- leaving their armada of wings to guard the opponent's go-to screen-setters, and switch all pick-and-rolls. It is a tactic they embraced during their 2022 Finals run under former head coach Ime Udoka, with Robert Williams III nominally guarding punchless wings -- acting as rover, and allowing faster Boston defenders to switch pick-and-rolls.
Tatum guarded Evan Mobley for much of the conference semifinals, with Horford "guarding" Isaac Okoro. The Cavs could not find any consistent answers.
The Mavericks present a challenge at an entirely different level than what Boston has faced in the last six weeks.
The Mavericks do not play any lineups against which Boston can safely switch everything. Their least dynamic offensive players can do more than their equivalents on Miami, Cleveland and Indiana.
In past matchups against Dallas, for instance, the Celtics have stashed their centers on P.J. Washington and Derrick Jones Jr. -- sticking wings on Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford and (when the Mavs have downsized) Maxi Kleber. If the Doncic/Lively pick-and-roll involves Brown and Tatum, that's a natural switch -- though Boston will have to be careful protecting the defensive glass.
The same could be true of an Irving/Lively two-man action that starts with Holiday on Irving and Tatum on Lively. Holiday and Brown can switch the Irving/Doncic two-man game. That switch gets dicier if White begins on Irving; Doncic has the size to bully White.
The point is that if Doncic wants to go after Boston's centers, he has to use someone other than Lively and Gafford as his screener to do it. That leaves those big men to linger around the basket; if Doncic's pick-and-roll partner -- Jones, Washington, Josh Green, whoever -- darts to the rim, they are rumbling into heavy traffic. A lot of lob dunks evaporate.
He also expects the Mavs, and Doncic, to do this in response, which the Cs will then have to adapt to (and will cause some hand-wringing for us on the game threads):
Doncic has seen many variants of this scheme over many years. He and the Mavericks know the counters. Washington can pop for 3s. They can run sideline pick-and-rolls to stretch Boston's defense. If Boston's centers drop back against any Doncic-Washington or Doncic-Jones pick-and-roll, that opens up an entire subset of Doncic's game -- floaters, step-back 3s, those prodding deceleration dribbles that clear space for midrangers.
The Celtics are loath to double-team. They prefer to keep their big men back on the pick-and-roll -- allowing perimeter defenders to stay home on shooters. Lots of Dallas opponents enter games with those same tenets. One quarter jousting with Doncic, and they rethink everything.
Doncic is also a genius at coaxing the very switches these matchup gambits are designed to avoid. You can put your lumbering bigs wherever you want; Doncic will find them, draw them out and lure them into one-on-one matchups they can't win. The only sustained success the Cavaliers and Pacers had on offense against Boston -- and it didn't last long -- was when Mitchell, Haliburton and Pascal Siakam attacked Horford and Luke Kornet on switches. Doncic resides in another stratosphere.
Boston will have to adapt and adjust within each game.
His conclusion? It won't be pretty, but if the Cs execute their defense throughout the game, not just in patches, they should be able to handle anything the Mavs can throw at them.
The time for Boston is now. There will be games in the next two weeks when its 3-point-shooting machine runs cold. Dallas has been an elite defense for three-plus months now and will meet that shooting machine with one of the league's meanest, smartest units.
Boston's defense can match or exceed the Mavs'. It can carry Boston to those gutsy, ugly wins every team needs to win the Finals -- provided that defense can bring peak intensity and focus every minute of every game. It can't be for stretches, when Boston falls behind or feels threatened. The Mavs are too good.
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/40247501/lowe-why-boston-celtics-fallback-actually-their-history-making-offense-nba-finals
The $64m question is, can they maintain that defensive intensity and focus for every game, all 48 minutes?
Poll