2024 Playoffs- 3rd Round: Minnesota Timberwolves - Dallas Mavericks- MAVS WIN 4-1!

[Knutsen]

I think Dallas would beat the Celtics pretty easily. They are giving up 200 points a game to the starless Pacers and even with Zingas, they have no rim protection. Unless Zingas has learned to rebound with maximum effort, then our two headed towers are going to be dunking and rebounding all series long.

I‘m not sure, because there are clear advantages on both sides and it‘s not easy to estimate which ones will outweigh the others in a 7 game series. 

Finals experience is much higher on Boston, most of their key guys have been there and know how bright the lights are. We only have Kyrie in that regard.

Boston has probably the best perimeter defense one through four that can switch everything and has very good to great defenders at each position. Is that enough to stop or limit Luka? Probably not - but it could be to really limit Kyrie and shut off all our secondary scorers. 

On interior defense we are much better and much more athletic, even if Porzingis comes back completely healthy. That will make points in the paint rough for Boston, but since they are playing five out most of the times and able to shoot a very high three point percentage maybe that doesn’t bother them too much.

Which leads me to the last point, they are dangerous from one to five offensively, especially if Porzingis plays, especially from the perimeter so they can stretch you out like no other team can. So there‘s no real place to hide Luka, who could very well have to deliver most of our offense by beating his guy off the dribble or in the post. We‘d probably have him guarding Holiday, but they will try to force him to switch time after time. I‘m not saying he won‘t be able to hold his own after the switch, he has shown that in these playoffs, but it will certainly extract a lot of energy from him he‘d need to be effective on offense for 48 minutes.

But let‘s not get ahead of ourselves, the Timberwolves are going to throw the kitchen sink at us in game three and then some, they were able to win three games in Denver, which is tougher than winning two at Dallas, so let’s focus on the task at hand to not anger the basketball gods (and Killers baseball gods as well).