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

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

KYRIE AT THE PODIUM ON NBA TV!

[Phantom255x]

KYRIE AT THE PODIUM ON NBA TV!

lol he’s carrying a basketball (weird) and then also mentioned that he thought TD garden would be “a bit louder”.

Yeah okay pal. I’m sure Mavs fans thought you’d shoot better than 6-19 too. Remind anyone of the 2019 days? Already beginning with Cryrie, if the C’s go up 2-0 wouldn’t surprise me if he gets “hurt”

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

KYRIE AT THE PODIUM ON NBA TV!

lol he’s carrying a basketball (weird) and then also mentioned that he thought TD garden would be “a bit louder”.

Yeah okay pal. I’m sure Mavs fans thought you’d shoot better than 6-19 too. Remind anyone of the 2019 days? Already beginning with Cryrie, if the C’s go up 2-0 wouldn’t surprise me if he gets “hurt”

if we can go up 2-0 cryrie and dallas will be in deep trouble.

[SparzWizard]

Gosh these ABC7 LA sports news postgame folks are like "The In-Season Championship that the Lakers won, does that count as an 18th banner?" and then another said "well yes we can count that too since it's a championship" 

trash. that covid bubble was NOT a title. it should be stripped from the FAKERS  or a big faty Asterisk by it

Facts. But I was talking about this year's IST trophy they won, ya know, the one back in December 

[jambr380]

Gosh these ABC7 LA sports news postgame folks are like "The In-Season Championship that the Lakers won, does that count as an 18th banner?" and then another said "well yes we can count that too since it's a championship" 

trash. that covid bubble was NOT a title. it should be stripped from the FAKERS  or a big faty Asterisk by it

Facts. But I was talking about this year's IST trophy they won, ya know, the one back in December 

Nobody who is making an argument for the IST trophy meaning anything is doing it in good faith. A 1st round playoff series is more important. Heck, a play-in game is more important. Besides, it's not like the Lakers or the Pacers were anywhere near the top of the league.

And btw, it's 12, not 17 for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Minneapolis Lakers have the other 5

[SparzWizard]

Gosh these ABC7 LA sports news postgame folks are like "The In-Season Championship that the Lakers won, does that count as an 18th banner?" and then another said "well yes we can count that too since it's a championship" 

trash. that covid bubble was NOT a title. it should be stripped from the FAKERS  or a big faty Asterisk by it

Facts. But I was talking about this year's IST trophy they won, ya know, the one back in December 

Nobody who is making an argument for the IST trophy meaning anything is doing it in good faith. A 1st round playoff series is more important. Heck, a play-in game is more important. Besides, it's not like the Lakers or the Pacers were anywhere near the top of the league.

And btw, it's 12, not 17 for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Minneapolis Lakers have the other 5

We don't count the 2020 bubble, 2010 Game 7 highway robbery, and 2002 WCF. So it's like 9 

[Atzar]

I'm wondering what Kidd does to try to force Boston's defense to send extra help at Luka.  So many guys in their rotation only eat if Luka cooks for them.  If we aren't overhelping and exposing those lob/kickout opportunities, they aren't eating.  That leaves Luka and Kyrie to try to keep up with our offense by themselves, and that's too much to ask four times out of seven.  Dallas MUST find a way to squeeze some juice out of those roleplayers. 

Luka, for his part, got his 30 and really didn't appear to have the gas tank to do a ton more.  We made him work on defense, and I also suspect that knee is limiting him quite a bit.  He'll most likely have better games than this, and it really doesn't seem like we care as long as their other guys don't hurt us. 

Thought we had a very average offensive game, all things considered.  KP dropkicked the Mavs in the first half but ultimately just hit his season average (national media appears to have forgotten how good this dude has been for us this year).  JB was solid.  Tatum struggled.  Shot pretty well from three, and given the quality of looks we were getting, I'd expect us to continue to shoot that well.  I don't really think Dallas has the personnel to defend our outside shooting unless they compromise their defense in the paint.  They have a good team defense, but their individual defenders are shaky and our five-out spacing and versatility exposes that.  Our defense was terrific overall, but I think we have room to be significantly better on offense.  Exciting thought.

Three more to get!  Stay focused.

[tenn_smoothie]

If Boston defends like this then this will be a short series.

Yeah Kyrie struggled and Doncic had hardly any assists because of the Celtic defense. Not sure why it’s not getting enough credit from Shaq or the commentators.

It’s not like the mavs scored 89 in a bubble. Boston made them play 1 v 1 basketball. You could see kyrie getting frustrated out there being hounded by jrue and white.

Well it's because all the media had their heads up their butts telling us how Luka and Kyrie is the greatest scoring backcourt in NBA history and the league has never seen anything like them. Hard for them to go back on it, they will dig in to excuses

I was surprised (but should not have been) when I read the espn article predicting the series.
Best record in the league (Celts) vs a lower seed from the west (Mavs) who got hot at the end of the season and espn's "expert" panel had 9 votes for Dallas winning and eight for Boston. I'm guessing many anticipated Irving and Doncic going crazy on us, which they still may well do.

Gotta keep up the defense and make ADJUSTMENTS Joe.
Throw different defensive looks at them, keep them off balance. Stay one step ahead of them.
Celts must have talked a lot about rebounding during the past 10 days in preparation. Excellent job on the boards.

[tenn_smoothie]

Gosh these ABC7 LA sports news postgame folks are like "The In-Season Championship that the Lakers won, does that count as an 18th banner?" and then another said "well yes we can count that too since it's a championship" 

trash. that covid bubble was NOT a title. it should be stripped from the FAKERS  or a big faty Asterisk by it

Facts. But I was talking about this year's IST trophy they won, ya know, the one back in December 

Nobody who is making an argument for the IST trophy meaning anything is doing it in good faith. A 1st round playoff series is more important. Heck, a play-in game is more important. Besides, it's not like the Lakers or the Pacers were anywhere near the top of the league.

And btw, it's 12, not 17 for the Los Angeles Lakers. The Minneapolis Lakers have the other 5

And the first two for Minneapolis were not even NBA titles, but some generic "American Basketball League" or some such type of name.

[tenn_smoothie]

KYRIE AT THE PODIUM ON NBA TV!

lol he’s carrying a basketball (weird) and then also mentioned that he thought TD garden would be “a bit louder”.

What an ass !!

He has made all these comments about how he has changed since his time in Boston and how he was going through personal issues when he was here that affected his performance and behavior. Idiot said that he had "processed the difficulties he had in a healthy way" whatever that means.

Those post-game snipes he made with him holding the game ball (he took it back to the hotel) show that he hasn't changed much at all.
He is still bitter and resentful towards the franchise that bent over backwards for him and that he abandoned after promising to stay.
He will start tearing apart the Dallas team by next season - he usually waits til year 2 with a team to start his psycho act.

[Kernewek]

A Kyrie implosion would be nice, but I doubt it’ll happen to be honest.

I also don’t expect Luka to be held to one assist per game for the rest of the series.

But overall, going as expected.

[Neurotic Guy]

I'm wondering what Kidd does to try to force Boston's defense to send extra help at Luka.  So many guys in their rotation only eat if Luka cooks for them.  If we aren't overhelping and exposing those lob/kickout opportunities, they aren't eating.  That leaves Luka and Kyrie to try to keep up with our offense by themselves, and that's too much to ask four times out of seven.  Dallas MUST find a way to squeeze some juice out of those roleplayers. 

Luka, for his part, got his 30 and really didn't appear to have the gas tank to do a ton more.  We made him work on defense, and I also suspect that knee is limiting him quite a bit.  He'll most likely have better games than this, and it really doesn't seem like we care as long as their other guys don't hurt us. 

Thought we had a very average offensive game, all things considered.  KP dropkicked the Mavs in the first half but ultimately just hit his season average (national media appears to have forgotten how good this dude has been for us this year).  JB was solid.  Tatum struggled.  Shot pretty well from three, and given the quality of looks we were getting, I'd expect us to continue to shoot that well.  I don't really think Dallas has the personnel to defend our outside shooting unless they compromise their defense in the paint.  They have a good team defense, but their individual defenders are shaky and our five-out spacing and versatility exposes that.  Our defense was terrific overall, but I think we have room to be significantly better on offense.  Exciting thought.

Three more to get!  Stay focused.

Add that Pritchard was 0-7, 0-5 from three.  He won’t do that again.
On the other hand, Kyrie will score. 

[celticinorlando]

Perfectly fine with Luka getting a hollow 30 points. He’s having to work hard to do it. Dallas only wins if him and Kyrie go big.

Boston has a lot of room for improvement in game 2 which is encouraging.

I just feel like Dallas is so slow compared to Indy.

[SHAQATTACK]

Pretty fun game.

KP rose from the grave and clobbered them with a KG like basketball clinic.

Boston Haters in shambles now.

[liam]

Tatum is creating so much gravity in these playoffs that he's like a black hole that pulls defenses in.