Dallas Mavericks Defense
2024 NBA Finals Preview on the Mavericks 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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2024 NBA Finals Preview - Boston Celtics Offense
Most stats below are from Synergy, but some labeled CTG are from Cleaning The Glass.
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When Teams Hunt Luka
The obvious weakness or easy target of the Mavericks defense is to attack Luka, at least in theory. Obviously this is the best strategy to try to go after the Mavericks defense is involve Luka, whether it is directly in ballscreen defense or actions to at least try and wear him down physically. Luka and the Mavericks have perfected the way they hide him on defense and setup great gameplans to prevent the offense to attack this specific weakness.
Switch
The first way the Mavericks have Luka defend in ballscreen defense is to simply just have him switch and defend 1 on 1. I actually think this is a tactic they will use against Tatum to mix up the coverages, since Tatum is shooting 18% from 3 in the playoffs in Isolation (via Synergy).
From the first few rounds, we can see the Mavericks not shying away from switching Luka on players like Edwards or Harden, and I think they will use this same tactic from time to time against the Celtics.
Gaps
The reason the Mavericks are comfortable switching Luka and Kyrie is the way they defend behind them, loading up in the gaps to try and slow down any driving attacks.
Here as Luka switches onto Paul George, DJJ loads up at the nail and stops the drive, and the play stalls out.
Another example here as Lively and DJJ both sit in the gaps and the only shot SGA can go to is a pullup jumper (a shot he loves and can hit) to not allow him to get an easier look at the rim.
Switch to Blitz
A common look you will see the Mavericks go to is to switch Luka or Kyrie on the ball to take away and rolls or quick attacks and stagnate the first part, then trap to get the ball out of the players hands.
One thing to notice is that Luka is pretty much always the player who recovers and when he does he does a great job of communicating where the players should rotate to.
This can also be used when bigs switch out like Kleber who are not as mobile as a player like Livey.
Peel Switching
The bread and butter of the Mavericks defense is how they switch off the ball to defend drives and more importantly for the Celtics matchup is defending 5-Out spacing.
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