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

[SleepingHero]

Josh Mazur (@MazurFocus)
Listening to the Wolves make every excuse in the book except giving credit to the Mavs D and game planning is obnoxious. Insecurity and immaturity.

[SleepingHero]

Noah Weber (@noahweber00)
Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving on when the switch flipped on him being a leader and his leadership as a whole:

“Last summer when we got exited from the playoff contention and I’m watching my peers go for a chance at winning the golden trophy…You get motivation from failure…This year I really focused on doing the little things, and if my points came, they came, but I wanted to make sure we felt good as a team after every single game and we got to be honest with each other, we had a lot of long meetings with J-Kid, sometimes it felt like therapy…Once I saw we had a chance, I was like well I’m not going to take this for granted, so every single day I remind those guys what it’s like to fail, what it’s like to get to that mountain top…”



https://x.com/noahweber00/status/1793485395302195245


Great interview by Kyrie

[fifteenth]

Josh Mazur (@MazurFocus)
Listening to the Wolves make every excuse in the book except giving credit to the Mavs D and game planning is obnoxious. Insecurity and immaturity.

That's a sign that the Mavs have the better mentality, which can be huge

[SleepingHero]

Landon Thomas (@sixfivelando)
Timberwolves lost on Wolves Back Day.

Brutal.

[SleepingHero]

https://x.com/blazers_palace/status/1793447127349367039

Kyle Anderson for 3!

[SleepingHero]

First juicy news post game:

Jace frederick (@JaceFrederick)
Interesting from Mike Conley. Any drop coverage you saw tonight was in error:

“We were told to be up.”

[KillerLeft]

This is excellent analysis by Draymond Green, despite his inability to communicate it with ideal clarity. If you can hang with him through the meandering and stammering, you’ll get to a lot of objective truth. 

The Wolves are designed to play drop coverage, and Dallas is designed to destroy drop coverage. Watching the game, my thought was that the only thing for which Dallas seemed ill-prepared for was Kyle Anderson at the free-throw line area. I thought his activity there disrupted Dallas rotations and led to some of those wide open looks from three. For some reason (Draymond has some interesting thoughts about this) MIN went away from it in the second half half.

The adjustment is clear: less Gobert, more KAT at the 5. Will Minnesota go for it? I’m skeptical.

https://www.youtube.com/live/EFe2kNbLXbM...NQz9YVDMlu

Make sure that after the Dallas talk you either skip the IND/BOS talk or listen all the way to the chat questions at the end.

[fifteenth]

First juicy news post game:

Jace frederick (@JaceFrederick)
Interesting from Mike Conley. Any drop coverage you saw tonight was in error:

“We were told to be up.”

I can't completely make sense of this. How about you guys? It sounds like he's saying that the guards were supposed to take away the guard (ball handler) and that big, the "back side", was supposed to take away the roller. But what he's describing doesn't address what they were supposed to do when the guard was stuck on Luka's hip and the big took the roller. He's saying they didn't always do it right, but the way he's describing it sounds like they don't really have a plan for doing it right. The plan he describes is their problem.

Here's hoping they don't get it figured out!

[Jym]

This is excellent analysis by Draymond Green, despite his inability to communicate it with ideal clarity. If you can hang with him through the meandering and stammering, you’ll get to a lot of objective truth. 

The Wolves are designed to play drop coverage, and Dallas is designed to destroy drop coverage. Watching the game, my thought was that the only thing for which Dallas seemed ill-prepared for was Kyle Anderson at the free-throw line area. I thought his activity there disrupted Dallas rotations and led to some of those wide open looks from three. For some reason (Draymond has some interesting thoughts about this) MIN went away from it in the second half half.

The adjustment is clear: less Gobert, more KAT at the 5. Will Minnesota go for it? I’m skeptical.

https://www.youtube.com/live/EFe2kNbLXbM...NQz9YVDMlu

Yeah really does feel like either Conley or Golbert will be on the bench within a couple games 
And quite honestly they'd probably be their most dangerous and switchable if they benched both

[KillerLeft]

I can't completely make sense of this. How about you guys? It sounds like he's saying that the guards were supposed to take away the guard (ball handler) and that big, the "back side", was supposed to take away the roller. But what he's describing doesn't address what they were supposed to do when the guard was stuck on Luka's hip and the big took the roller. He's saying they didn't always do it right, but the way he's describing it sounds like they don't really have a plan for doing it right. The plan he describes is their problem.

Here's hoping they don't get it figured out!

He’s saying there were defensive miscues for Minnesota last night, but it’s nowhere near proof of the tweeter’s “any drop coverage you saw was a mistake” claim. The Wolves ALWAYS play drop. ALL Gobert teams do. The quote was probably about mistakes that were made later in the game, as the Wolves tried to adjust, and that makes sense because those adjustments were taking them away from what they normally do.

[DallasMaverick]

He’s saying there were defensive miscues for Minnesota last night, but it’s nowhere near proof of the tweeter’s “any drop coverage you saw was a mistake” claim. The Wolves ALWAYS play drop. ALL Gobert teams do. The quote was probably about mistakes that were made later in the game, as the Wolves tried to adjust, and that makes sense because those adjustments were taking them away from what they normally do.

In Jason Timpf’s analysis, he suggested that Minny try going under screens rather than over. Basically giving Dallas the three instead of lob dunks. This allows Minny to continue playing their drop D, which seems like the only real way to maximize Gobert.

Dallas’ trades at the deadline give them real versatility against Minny’s bigs.

[KillerLeft]

In Jason Timpf’s analysis, he suggested that Minny try going under screens rather than over. Basically giving Dallas the three instead of lob dunks. This allows Minny to continue playing their drop D, which seems like the only real way to maximize Gobert.

Dallas’ trades at the deadline give them real versatility against Minny’s bigs.

I saw that, and I actually think it’s worth a try with how ineffective Luka’s step back has been this postseason, so far. Then again, I can think of no better way to get Luka’s step back going. 

I sort of felt like these kind of questions were going to come for Minnesota at some point during the series, but I am surprised and giddy that people are already asking them after game one.

[fifteenth]

In Jason Timpf’s analysis, he suggested that Minny try going under screens rather than over. Basically giving Dallas the three instead of lob dunks. This allows Minny to continue playing their drop D, which seems like the only real way to maximize Gobert.

Dallas’ trades at the deadline give them real versatility against Minny’s bigs.

Oh, right. I listened to Jason say that. And it actually makes sense, to me, of what Mike Conley said. 

If they're able to stick to that plan in game 2 then here's hoping that Luka's 3 is dropping.

[fifteenth]

I sort of felt like these kind of questions were going to come for Minnesota at some point during the series, but I am surprised and giddy that people are already asking them after game one.

I agree! The Mavs won the game 1 chess match, so much so, that the Tpups already have to consider changing something up!

It's so nice to see this happen in a game 1. In the first two series, it was like we didn't even make a chess move until game 2.

[KillerLeft]

Styles make fights.

I have no idea if Dallas will go on to beat Minnesota, but I’m pretty confident the Wolves are a better opponent for them than Denver would have been.

[Smitty]

I have no idea if Dallas will go on to beat Minnesota, but I’m pretty confident the Wolves are a better opponent for them than Denver would have been.

Interesting, I thought the opposite coming in. I'm not ready to change my opinion on that just yet, not that it matters or that we'll ever know. I just thought their size would negate ours and not having Maxi against the Wolves would be almost impossible to overcome.

[vfromlmf]

I picked the Mavs in 5. Things could turn out differently in Game 2 but last night showed the Wolves clearly have a matchup problem.

Going under Luka pick & rolls is laughable.

They can't bench Conley, he's the only player besides ANT who can initiate the offense.

I guess they can bench the DPOY and play Slo-Mo if they want to get swept.

I'm not ready to say the series is over but the Wolves look cooked.

[KillerLeft]

Interesting, I thought the opposite coming in. I'm not ready to change my opinion on that just yet, not that it matters or that we'll ever know. I just thought their size would negate ours and not having Maxi against the Wolves would be almost impossible to overcome.

The size is nice, but it's in the wrong spots, imo, at least relative to what Dallas tries to do. 

I saw this drop coverage issue coming when they made the Gobert trade. I wasn't really thinking about Dallas at the time, because who even knew these teams would match up in the playoffs, but I think I said early this season that I wasn't worried about Minnesota at all. At some point, teams like Minnesota run into great, 3-level scoring ball-handlers (Dallas has TWO, lol) and Gobert, for all of his greatness, looks like he doesn't belong. 

Now, to be clear, Minnesota did MUCH better this season than I expected, but to me that's more about how GREAT Edwards has been, and how impactful McDaniels can be, defensively (though not so much against Luka, so far). 

And, there are adjustments that can be made to make Dallas' life much harder, so don't take this as me saying this will be an easy series or anything like that. Minnesota is a better team than they showed last night, for sure. But, I really think Dallas has a chance here. The trick will be containing Edwards (so far, so good) and not getting Gafford matched up with KAT (I was a little alarmed that PJ had so much trouble with him last night).

[Smitty]

The size is nice, but it's in the wrong spots, imo, at least relative to what Dallas tries to do. 

I saw this drop coverage issue coming when they made the Gobert trade. I wasn't really thinking about Dallas at the time, because who even knew these teams would match up in the playoffs, but I think I said early this season that I wasn't worried about Minnesota at all. At some point, teams like Minnesota run into great, 3-level scoring ball-handlers (Dallas has TWO, lol) and Gobert, for all of his greatness, looks like he doesn't belong. 

Now, to be clear, Minnesota did MUCH better this season than I expected, but to me that's more about how GREAT Edwards has been, and how impactful McDaniels can be, defensively (though not so much against Luka, so far). 

And, there are adjustments that can be made to make Dallas' life much harder, so don't take this as me saying this will be an easy series or anything like that. Minnesota is a better team than they showed last night, for sure. But, I really think Dallas has a chance here. The trick will be containing Edwards (so far, so good) and not getting Gafford matched up with KAT (I was a little alarmed that PJ had so much trouble with him last night).

Like you, I wasn't so much worried about Gobert. I thought he'd eventually get played off the floor against Dallas. It's the KAT/Reid frontcourt that gave me nightmares (still does). It means Gafford becomes unplayable and if PJ gets in any kind of foul trouble then you're left with only DJJ at the 4. IF the Wolves go to that almost exclusively, I think they can win. If Gobert continues to play 38 minutes the rest of the way, I like the Mavs chances.

[KillerLeft]

The great thing about Lively is that he IS long, and he IS physical, and he DOES protect the paint and work on the glass, BUT...he can ALSO cover a lot of ground over the course of a possession and he can move his feet in space. I won't go so far as to say he's a modern, switchable big, like Kleber, Green or Adebayo, for example, but he's definitely not awful on an island when forced into that situation. Far, far from it. In other words, he's pretty damn close to the ideal big for a pick and roll team because he's a great, hard roller AND HE CAN GUARD THOSE ACTIONS ON THE OTHER END.

Win or lose this series, THAT is the type you want, moving forward. Not the Gobert type. Just my opinion.