Poll: Mavericks vs. Celtics Series Predictions

[celticinorlando]

I think it is important for them to win game 1. Just cannot give Dallas a bunch of momentum.

[jpotter33]

I know all game one’s are big, but I feel like this one is extra huge.  What will we see out of Porzingis and how the Celts handle the pressure will be very telling.  I do have a suspicion they’re going come out and pour it on early.  How they react with a big lead willtellnusnq will speak volun.

I believe that Dallas is 1-5 under Kidd in Game 1’s, and we’ve generally started well in Game 1’s. So the precedents are there.

[Moranis]

Tim Legler says the two best under pressure players in this series both play for Dallas. Luka and Kyrie. The longest track of consistent clutch play under pressure.

 You know it's funny because Kyrie has never won anything without LeBonds.  And even then he won just one title. It's pretty ridiculous the reputation he's gained just because of that one shot in one game.

 Where has all this clutchness been in other seasons?  Like when Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and the celtics manhandled his Nets a couple years ago?

 Also hasn't Dallas had some pretty big chokes this Post season?

So one of the most clutch shots of all time to win the title against a 73-9 team shouldn’t count?
Sorry but Tim Legler isnt wrong until the Celtics prove him wrong.

he was 1 of 4 down the stretch of that game. Obviously the 1 was huge, but he missed plenty of other shots

So again, dont count arguably one of the most clutch/important shots in nba history because he was 1 of 4 down the stretch?
Kyrie was sensational in that finals and until the Celtics prove otherwise the mavericks do indeed have the 2 most clutch players in the series.

Kyrie was great in that series. The Celtics have 7 or 8 of the 10 best players in this series. I'm not particularly worried.

I definitely see 5 of the best 10 in the series, one of which is a 7’3 made of glass guy that hasn’t played in a month.
Anything beyond that I’m not guaranteeing

I know you love to underrate the Celtics talent. But PJ Washington is their #3 it’s debatable if he’s as good as even Jrue/white

Dallas has 3 players averaging double figures. That’s it

I was listening to Tim Legler's recent video on the most important players in the series. He went

(1) Luka
(2) Tatum
(3) Jaylen = very high on Jaylen, near Tatum level
(4) Kyrie

(5) Gafford / Lively
(6) D White

Legler admitted he cheated a bit with Gafford / Lively as a duo. They are not as good as BOS guys as individuals but as a tandem they have had a huge impact on games. So he cheated and added them as a tandem. Fair enough. I get his reasoning here.

Legler then picked D White as his last guy. He could have gone Porzignis or Jrue. Or even PJ Washington. He had PJ Washington as close to D White and Jrue. That shocked me. I don't rate PJ anywhere near that level. I wouldn't even have him in the discussion.

I see Jrue and D White as borderline top 10 PGs. Or top 10 SGs. Porzingis as a sure fire top 10 center. I have PJ Washington more in the low 20s among PFs. I don't see him as anywhere near the same caliber of player as our guys.

well important is not the same thing as best

That is true. Maybe I misunderstood by what Legler meant as important rather than best. The title of the video said important. Not best.

Although it felt like he was talking about how much impact they would have on the series. He was talking about Jaylen and Kyrie. His reasoning for Jaylen being higher than Kyrie was that Tatum makes more space for Jaylen than Luka does for Kyrie. That Kyrie has less time on the ball and opportunity to do things than Jaylen does. That is why Jaylen can / is likely to have a bigger impact on the series than Kyrie.

It felt similar for PJ Washington. About how much impact he would have on the series vs Jrue or D White.

The title of the video said most important but it also said role players. They were talking about the 4 main stars for 30-40mins of the video. Then 15-20min of a couple of role players. I don't know how carefully they chose their wording / video title here.

I think impact and important are more similar than best.  If Dallas wins it will be first because Luka is awesome and has an awesome series, Kyrie is good to great, and then they get some very timely play from the role players and in that the two centers and Washington are likely far more important than Jones, Hardaway, Kleber, etc. 

[Moranis]

I think it is important for them to win game 1. Just cannot give Dallas a bunch of momentum.

I think Boston loses the series if they lose game 1.  Not that they couldn't come back down 1 game, but I just don't think that is how the series will go.  Boston has to win the first game.

[celticinorlando]

I think it is important for them to win game 1. Just cannot give Dallas a bunch of momentum.

I think Boston loses the series if they lose game 1.  Not that they couldn't come back down 1 game, but I just don't think that is how the series will go.  Boston has to win the first game.

The last three finals the team that lost game one won the series. I don’t think at all that if they lose it’s over. They will get one in Dallas and at worse come home 2-2 for game 5.

[SparzWizard]

I think it is important for them to win game 1. Just cannot give Dallas a bunch of momentum.

I think Boston loses the series if they lose game 1.  Not that they couldn't come back down 1 game, but I just don't think that is how the series will go.  Boston has to win the first game.

The last three finals the team that lost game one won the series. I don’t think at all that if they lose it’s over. They will get one in Dallas and at worse come home 2-2 for game 5.

Don't come home 2-2. We need to come home up 3-1 or come home to raise banner 18. Come home 2-2 plays right into Dallas's hands and they have that tendency to go up 3-2. All about momentum and confidence which the Mavs are pretty good at

[SparzWizard]

No game thread yet? 

[Phantom255x]

I think it is important for them to win game 1. Just cannot give Dallas a bunch of momentum.

I think Boston loses the series if they lose game 1.  Not that they couldn't come back down 1 game, but I just don't think that is how the series will go.  Boston has to win the first game.

Oh god I hope not lol, I actually think they'll lose Game 1 but win in 6 games 

My sister and I will also *very likely* be attending Game 5. If we are down 3-1 at that point it'll be so depressing.

[Who]

Oh my mistake. Tim Legler is picking Dallas.

I thought he was picking Boston but in a close series. He is actually picking Dallas in a close series with the clutch play of Luka & Kyrie being the deciding factor down the stretch. Legler trusts those guys more in a close game than he does Boston's players. And he firmly believes that these will be close hard fought games.

[Moranis]

Oh my mistake. Tim Legler is picking Dallas.

I thought he was picking Boston but in a close series. He is actually picking Dallas in a close series with the clutch play of Luka & Kyrie being the deciding factor down the stretch. Legler trusts those guys more in a close game than he does Boston's players. And he firmly believes that these will be close hard fought games.

If the games are close down the stretch, I'm worried about Luka a lot.  Kyrie is very inconsistent.  I don't think he will choke, but he also might just be bad.  That would match him throughout his career.  Luka, though, is an amazingly clutch player.  I want no part of a 1 possession game in crunch time. 

[Who]

https://sports.yahoo.com/2024-nba-finals-luka-doncic-is-the-series-best-player-what-does-that-mean-for-the-celtics-003322605.html?.tsrc=1317

There is a frequently recited mantra that the team with the best player in the series typically wins it. But the broader context of the teams matters as well. The Dallas Mavericks have the better player in Luka Doncic, but the Boston Celtics had the far superior record and point differential in the regular season.

According to research by Ben Rohrbach, the "best" player in the NBA Finals has won 56 of 68 championships, good for a win percentage of 82.4 percent. LeBron James accounts for five of those 12 losses.

The team with the better regular season record has finished 47-18 in the Finals, which is a win percentage of 72.3 percent. Teams that finish with eight or more wins than their opponents are 30-5 (.857 winning percentage) in the Finals.

I was curious how he decided who the best player was

Using each season's MVP race as the determining factor for who voters believed was the best player in that particular campaign, the better player has won 41 of 68 NBA Finals — or roughly 60% — since 1956. Since the turn of the century, the player who finished higher in MVP voting has been 12-11 in Finals matchups.

Those are not overwhelming numbers. Hardly doctrine.

However, if you go by a more general idea of who was the best player in each series — weeding out, for example, when Charles Barkley won the 1993 MVP, only for his Phoenix Suns to lose to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls — you could make the argument that the best player won 56 of 68 championships (82.4%).

Interestingly, LeBron James accounts for five of those 12 losses. (Bill Russell's Celtics lost to the St. Louis Hawks in 1958. Wilt Chamberlain's Los Angeles Lakers lost to the New York Knicks in 1973. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Milwaukee Bucks lost to the Celtics in 1974. Elvin Hayes' Washington Bullets lost to the Seattle SuperSonics in 1979.

Magic Johnson's Lakers lost to the Detroit Pistons in 1989. Kobe Bryant's Lakers lost to the Pistons in 2004. Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks lost to the Miami Heat in 2006. And James lost to the Mavericks in 2011, the San Antonio Spurs in 2014 and the Golden State Warriors in 2015, 2017 and 2018.)

Back to the "best player wins the series" theory. You might think the wider the gap between two players, the more likely the better player is to win a championship. Not necessarily true, either. In cases when just one spot separated two players in MVP voting, the higher finisher won 14 of 19 Finals. In cases when five or more spots separated them in the voting, the player who earned more MVP votes won 13 of 19 Finals.

Interesting numbers the writer came up. So a team like Boston who is 8+ wins ahead in the regular season is 30-5 in the NBA Finals History. 86% win likelihood.

[SparzWizard]

Oh my mistake. Tim Legler is picking Dallas.

I thought he was picking Boston but in a close series. He is actually picking Dallas in a close series with the clutch play of Luka & Kyrie being the deciding factor down the stretch. Legler trusts those guys more in a close game than he does Boston's players. And he firmly believes that these will be close hard fought games.

Celtics haven't been battle-tested this postseason. Dallas will be their first big test. And on their end, they got two superstars on the backcourt, including one championship-experienced guard.

[0003323344]

SAS has picked Dallas. Kiss of death?

[cman88]

Oh my mistake. Tim Legler is picking Dallas.

I thought he was picking Boston but in a close series. He is actually picking Dallas in a close series with the clutch play of Luka & Kyrie being the deciding factor down the stretch. Legler trusts those guys more in a close game than he does Boston's players. And he firmly believes that these will be close hard fought games.

Celtics haven't been battle-tested this postseason. Dallas will be their first big test. And on their end, they got two superstars on the backcourt, including one championship-experienced guard.

sure they aren't Dallas talent level of superstars. but i think its a disservice to the pacers and celtics to say they werent tested in that series.

3 of those games could've gone either way. And boston showed something that everyone wanted answered. that they could win a close game with clutch defense/offense

[cman88]

Tim Legler says the two best under pressure players in this series both play for Dallas. Luka and Kyrie. The longest track of consistent clutch play under pressure.

 You know it's funny because Kyrie has never won anything without LeBonds.  And even then he won just one title. It's pretty ridiculous the reputation he's gained just because of that one shot in one game.

 Where has all this clutchness been in other seasons?  Like when Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and the celtics manhandled his Nets a couple years ago?

 Also hasn't Dallas had some pretty big chokes this Post season?

So one of the most clutch shots of all time to win the title against a 73-9 team shouldn’t count?
Sorry but Tim Legler isnt wrong until the Celtics prove him wrong.

he was 1 of 4 down the stretch of that game. Obviously the 1 was huge, but he missed plenty of other shots

So again, dont count arguably one of the most clutch/important shots in nba history because he was 1 of 4 down the stretch?
Kyrie was sensational in that finals and until the Celtics prove otherwise the mavericks do indeed have the 2 most clutch players in the series.

Kyrie was great in that series. The Celtics have 7 or 8 of the 10 best players in this series. I'm not particularly worried.

I definitely see 5 of the best 10 in the series, one of which is a 7’3 made of glass guy that hasn’t played in a month.
Anything beyond that I’m not guaranteeing

I know you love to underrate the Celtics talent. But PJ Washington is their #3 it’s debatable if he’s as good as even Jrue/white

Dallas has 3 players averaging double figures. That’s it

I was listening to Tim Legler's recent video on the most important players in the series. He went

(1) Luka
(2) Tatum
(3) Jaylen = very high on Jaylen, near Tatum level
(4) Kyrie

(5) Gafford / Lively
(6) D White

Legler admitted he cheated a bit with Gafford / Lively as a duo. They are not as good as BOS guys as individuals but as a tandem they have had a huge impact on games. So he cheated and added them as a tandem. Fair enough. I get his reasoning here.

Legler then picked D White as his last guy. He could have gone Porzignis or Jrue. Or even PJ Washington. He had PJ Washington as close to D White and Jrue. That shocked me. I don't rate PJ anywhere near that level. I wouldn't even have him in the discussion.

I see Jrue and D White as borderline top 10 PGs. Or top 10 SGs. Porzingis as a sure fire top 10 center. I have PJ Washington more in the low 20s among PFs. I don't see him as anywhere near the same caliber of player as our guys.

well important is not the same thing as best

That is true. Maybe I misunderstood by what Legler meant as important rather than best. The title of the video said important. Not best.

Although it felt like he was talking about how much impact they would have on the series. He was talking about Jaylen and Kyrie. His reasoning for Jaylen being higher than Kyrie was that Tatum makes more space for Jaylen than Luka does for Kyrie. That Kyrie has less time on the ball and opportunity to do things than Jaylen does. That is why Jaylen can / is likely to have a bigger impact on the series than Kyrie.

It felt similar for PJ Washington. About how much impact he would have on the series vs Jrue or D White.

The title of the video said most important but it also said role players. They were talking about the 4 main stars for 30-40mins of the video. Then 15-20min of a couple of role players. I don't know how carefully they chose their wording / video title here.

I think impact and important are more similar than best.  If Dallas wins it will be first because Luka is awesome and has an awesome series, Kyrie is good to great, and then they get some very timely play from the role players and in that the two centers and Washington are likely far more important than Jones, Hardaway, Kleber, etc.

if their role players outplay Porzingis, jrue, white, horford that will be the most depressing finals loss ever. there is really no contest in the talent behind their 2 stars vs. ours.

dallas has 3 players averaging double figures. boston has 5.