Mavericks (0-0) at Celtics (0-0) Finals Game #1 6/6/24

[celticinorlando]

Laker and Heat fans in a misery fest

[cman88]

I'm surprised how many comments I see today saying "theres no way KP can replicate this" from other fans.

as if he didn't average those exact numbers all season. I'm starting to feel alot of people must not have watched our games.

i'm surprised how efficient he was after not playing for 38 days. but nothing he did on the court is anything different than what he did for us all season. or am I missing something?

[Phantom255x]

One game at a time. Still a long series to go.

I do feel much better about this Finals than I did 2022, even after the Game 1 win that year. We have a lot of matchup advantages over Dallas and I think HCA can certainly help. Plus the Jays look a lot more matured than in 2022.

[Donoghus]

I'm surprised how many comments I see today saying "theres no way KP can replicate this" from other fans.

as if he didn't average those exact numbers all season. I'm starting to feel alot of people must not have watched our games.

i'm surprised how efficient he was after not playing for 38 days. but nothing he did on the court is anything different than what he did for us all season. or am I missing something?

That's becoming apparent with a lot of the national media.  I'm sure they watched a decent amount of games during this playoff run but I'm convinced a lot of them watched very little of the Celtics in the regular season and also bought in way too much to recency bias with Dallas without any regard to how matchups factor in or being blinded by Luka/Kyrie while simultaneously buying into false narratives about Jaylen & Jayson.

I was in shock over how many people in basketball media were making the Celtics underdogs heading into this series.

[Kuberski33]

Looked like to me Luka messed up his knee or leg .  He was going full tilt pretty good , then bam ,  he was hobbling. 

Want to continue to make him work and pick him up full court , no rest for that leg .  While he might still drop 30 ,  dude causing defense let down for his team . Four Mavs gotta stop 5 Celtics who all can drive and shoot the three.

Celtics keep the game fast , run fat Luka to death , worry hire and exhaust him physically.

He had some sort of leg injury in the last series. I remember the announcers talking about it quite a bit.

[GreenEnvy]

One game at a time. Still a long series to go.

I do feel much better about this Finals than I did 2022, even after the Game 1 win that year. We have a lot of matchup advantages over Dallas and I think HCA can certainly help. Plus the Jays look a lot more matured than in 2022.

We had a couple possession lead halfway through the 4th quarter of Game 4 in 2022. If we closed out that game like we should have, we hang banner 18 then. Letting that game slip through our fingers cost us the series.

This team looks different than that team though. They look prepared for this moment better than 2022.

[tonydelk]

I'm surprised how many comments I see today saying "theres no way KP can replicate this" from other fans.

as if he didn't average those exact numbers all season. I'm starting to feel alot of people must not have watched our games.

i'm surprised how efficient he was after not playing for 38 days. but nothing he did on the court is anything different than what he did for us all season. or am I missing something?

That's becoming apparent with a lot of the national media.  I'm sure they watched a decent amount of games during this playoff run but I'm convinced a lot of them watched very little of the Celtics in the regular season and also bought in way too much to recency bias with Dallas without any regard to how matchups factor in or being blinded by Luka/Kyrie while simultaneously buying into false narratives about Jaylen & Jayson.

I was in shock over how many people in basketball media were making the Celtics underdogs heading into this series.

No shock here.  The media hates the Celtics.  It's crazy.  After the game was over the old Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline. GM from GSW said the exact thing I knew the media would say.  If it wasn't for the 1st quarter the game is tied.  Well when they stop playing 1 of the 4 quarters get back to me.  The media will find any crack in the Celtics armor to talk about.  The Celtics defense was unbelievable.  Their offense was rusty and they let about 15 fouls go that would have led to free throws.  They don't say the Celtics blew them out and didn't play a great offensive game.  That's the story line.  If the Celtics play defense like that this entire series it's a sweep.  That defense is just suffocating.  1 down 3 to go.  1 game at a time C's.

[liam]

Apparently Luka was 1-8 vs Horford. Didn’t realize he guarded him that well.

When someone slow & plodding goes up against someone else slow & plodding.

Much better matchups for Al this series than the Indy series.

That's why in a pinch I'd play Tillman on Luka. Size and strength give Luka problems. Luka is also not in the best condition so having a big guy lean on him all game will wear Luka down. Luka has a lot of the qualities that made Bird great but I never saw Bird look tired in a game. I think it was all the running Bird put in year-round.

[SparzWizard]

for those you here who enjoy tasting laker tears.

https://lakersball.com/threads/nba-finals-2024-discussion-go-mavs.4083/page-4#post-532458

delicious. thank u sir!

That was kinda us during that bubble season. Now they can finally have a taste of it, except this season is legit.

[jpotter33]

https://x.com/nba_university/status/1799149628304269354?s=46&t=lGU0TGXtwjkuVuoin6WTNw

Tatum passed out of 61.1% (!) of his drives last night…

He only passed out of 25.2% of his drives this season. DAL was collapsing hard on Tatum. He also passed out of a couple drives that could’ve been rim FGA. Monitoring if DAL continues to schematically prefer Tatum passing.

[keevsnick]

I'm surprised how many comments I see today saying "theres no way KP can replicate this" from other fans.

as if he didn't average those exact numbers all season. I'm starting to feel alot of people must not have watched our games.

i'm surprised how efficient he was after not playing for 38 days. but nothing he did on the court is anything different than what he did for us all season. or am I missing something?

He probably won't shoot as well as he did in game one all series. He hit a lot of tough long two's which he can make, but probably not at the roughly 80% mark he hit in this game.

The defensive performance on the other hand is totally repeatable in my opinion.

[Birdman]

Lot of experts are picking Dallas in game 2..am I’m missing something here? I said Celtics in 5 & still sticking to it..if Tatum plays great & Celtics hit little more 3s, they win by 15 or more Sunday…Celtics are the Rodney Dangerfield of the NBA, no respect

[SHAQATTACK]

One game at a time. Still a long series to go.

I do feel much better about this Finals than I did 2022, even after the Game 1 win that year. We have a lot of matchup advantages over Dallas and I think HCA can certainly help. Plus the Jays look a lot more matured than in 2022.

Yes , I do too, this team is way more mature , Brown is more skilled, Holiday and KP make this a way more formidable foe.

[Neurotic Guy]

One game at a time. Still a long series to go.

I do feel much better about this Finals than I did 2022, even after the Game 1 win that year. We have a lot of matchup advantages over Dallas and I think HCA can certainly help. Plus the Jays look a lot more matured than in 2022.

Yes , I do too, this team is way more mature , Brown is more skilled, Holiday and KP make this a way more formidable foe.

This is true. The variable I’m uncomfortable with is whether we just saw a really bad game by Dallas.  Other than Luka, Dallas looked nothing like they looked v. the Thunder or Twolves.  So either Boston took them out of their game or Mavs just had a clunker. We’ll know a lot more on Sunday.  Irving probably plays a lot better. PJ and others may not miss open looks.  And then the series looks much less certain.

[hpantazo]

One game at a time. Still a long series to go.

I do feel much better about this Finals than I did 2022, even after the Game 1 win that year. We have a lot of matchup advantages over Dallas and I think HCA can certainly help. Plus the Jays look a lot more matured than in 2022.

Yes , I do too, this team is way more mature , Brown is more skilled, Holiday and KP make this a way more formidable foe.

This is true. The variable I’m uncomfortable with is whether we just saw a really bad game by Dallas.  Other than Luka, Dallas looked nothing like they looked v. the Thunder or Twolves.  So either Boston took them out of their game or Mavs just had a clunker. We’ll know a lot more on Sunday.  Irving probably plays a lot better. PJ and others may not miss open looks.  And then the series looks much less certain.

Well Game 1 was in line with our two regular season meetings with Dallas, so there is no indication that it was a one off clunker by the Mavs. They do not match up well with us, and our defense took them totally out of their gameplan. I expect some adjustments by Kidd, but there is only so much they can do with the roster they have. The Celtics are due for a poor shooting game at some point, but with our defense and versatility I still expect it to be a close game if we do have a bad shooting night. We also know the Celtics can play better than they did in Game 1.