Boston Celtics Defense
2024 NBA Finals Preview on the Celtics defense.
The NBA Finals are set with the Boston Celtics facing the Dallas Mavericks in an incredibly fun series that we have the opportunity to dive into a little deeper with the week break we had. In these breakdowns we are going to look at the Celtics Offense/Defense and the Mavs Offense/Defense in 4 separate posts to look at what they have run over the course of the first 3 rounds.
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Most stats and film below are from Synergy, but some labeled CTG are from Cleaning The Glass.
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2024 NBA Finals Preview - Boston Celtics Offense
2024 NBA Finals Preview - Dallas Mavericks Defense
2024 NBA Finals Preview - Dallas Mavericks Offense
Tatum On Bigs Strategy
I posted this breakdown of the Celtics gameplan vs the Cavs but it is essentially the same defensive setup they have for most series. The plan is to have Horford/Porzingis on a wing - typically a non shooter (I am thinking PJ to start/DJJ) - and to have a wing on the other teams big like Mobley on the Cavs. Then any ballscreens that are set are automatically switched and then Horford is always in help defense off the non shooters.
Here they switch Tatum//White on the Mobley ballscreen with Horford matched up on Okoro.
When the Cavs pass the ball to Mobley in the post, Horford sags off in the lane toward the help.
Then on the pass out Jrue closes out to the extra pass to make Okoro either a shooter or a playmaker.
In the final matchup of the season we can see Tatum started on Lively, Porzingis started on PJ Washington - a matchup we will definitely see just depends on how they want to start the series.
The Mavericks attacked this with PJ as the ballscreener and the Celtics (during the regular season) ignored the pop of PJ. One note for the playoffs is that PJ Washington is shooting 14% on pick and pop 3’s.
Here we can see the Celtics switching White on the hand off with Kleber at the 5, and then on the roll switching the roll and ends up in a 1 on 1 miss.
Switching Defense
On offense the Mavericks possessions end in a pick and roll chance 38% of the time, an ISO 15%, and Post Up 3% of the time. If I am preparing for this series as the Celtics I am going to
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