The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals in just five games, completely flipping the script on a Timberwolves team coming off a Game 7 victory against the defending champion Denver Nuggets.
Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving were able to completely dismantle the Timberwolves league-best defense while Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford were able to slow down Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and the Wolves’ offense.
Through two games of the 2024 NBA finals, they have not been able to find nearly the same level of success as the Boston Celtics have taken a 2-0 series lead heading into Game 3 on Wednesday night in Dallas.
For all the struggles the Timberwolves had on both sides of the ball against the Mavericks, the Celtics have maintained complete control of the series to this point.
Boston has completely shut down the Dallas offense, holding them under 100 points in each of the first two games. The Celtics have limited the Mavs to only 6.5 made 3-pointers per game, down significantly from the 12.2 per game they made against the Wolves.
On offense, Head Coach Joe Mazzulla’s group has used their spacing and ball movement to generate good looks far more often than the Timberwolves, especially from long range. Boston has made 13 3-pointers per game on an astounding 34.5 attempts per game, 85% of which have been considered open or wide open by the NBA’s tracking data.
Boston has been able to do everything that they could not, and it has led them two wins away from a championship. Celtics’ Offense
In the Western Conference Finals, the Mavericks were able to undermine the Timberwolves offense using their rim protectors of Lively and Gafford to limit open looks near the basket.
Right from the first possession of the series, the Celtics were able to generate open shots using their 5-out offense to draw the Mavs bigs away from the rim where they are far less comfortable. The spacing on plays like these has put significantly more pressure on the bigs of Dallas to guard both the 3-point line and the rim simultaneously. On the play about, Gafford does not want to give up an open shot from the corner and it only takes a simple pump fake from Al Horford to go right by him for the dunk.
Not only do the Celtics play with five shooters on the floor, but they also have four players on the court who can create off the dribble, which leads to stellar ball movement and passing. Boston also uses this to their advantage by attacking Dallas defenders on switches.
Here Lively is switched onto Jayson Tatum, who is able to drive by him to the rim and kick out to an open Derrick White. The main defender the Celtics have attacked is Dončić, who, while defending well against the Timberwolves, was largely allowed to camp in the corner while guarding Jaden McDaniels.
Boston has not allowed him to do the same as they have attacked him throughout the series when he’s defended Tatum or Jaylen Brown. Here, Brown goes right by Dončić leading to an open 3-pointer for Tatum.
