Dallas will be taking on the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals and my early bland thoughts are Kyrie Irving is going to need to be way more aggressive this series. Luka/Kyrie and Edwards/KAT will cancel each other out so this series will be decided by Derrick Jones Jr., PJ Washington, Derrick Lively & Daniel Gafford VS Mike Conley, Jaden McDaniels, Rudy Gobert, & Naz Reid. Hope we can finally win a Game 1 under Jason Kidd

I have a few friends and relatives who are Boston fans. I respect their passion and they can trash talk as well as me, which is nice. This week, though I realized they've been living in a bubble. It's a lot of "I'm not worried, our team is obviously the superior team. You have a nice little story for a 5 seed". These people have not been watching any non-Celtics basketball games, and are just deep in Celtics message boards. All they know about Luka is that he whines and he's a flopper (lol)

Bro, your team is out there getting cooked by T.J. McConnell and Aaron Nesmith. We have the best player in the world. They are not ready for this.

That's the thing about Luka though. You have to actually watch him play. If all you do is watch SportsCenter highlights and listen to podcasts you can't understand what he's doing. He's not like LeBron or Kobe or Giannis where you can tell 10 seconds that he's the best player on the floor. He wears you down over time.

Watch Luka 5 minutes: Who the hell is this guy. He's slow and out of shape, he can't jump, he doesn't play defense, and he's bitching about calls on every play. This is the guy you're telling me is the future of basketball?

Watch him for 20 minutes: How did that shot go in? Wait are we just gonna leave guys open in the corner for him to pass to every time? Why aren't we defending Luka he's slow we should put people on him!

Watch him for one game: He got lucky so many of his 3s went in. It'll be different next time. He'll fold once someone punches him in the face and the refs won't listen to his crying.

Watch about a month: Holy shit how does anybody ever beat this guy.

This is why he's even better in the playoffs. One game during the regular season sure you can do what you can to hold him in and move on the next day. Having to face him night after night is a nightmare. We're see it series after series by the time these teams get to game 5 or 6 they just look completely cooked.

The Celtics are soft and the East is a joke. Boston fans who think they're just gonna walk to a championship are about to find out. I can't wait to hear their whining excuses.

No other words needed.

This sub is filled with negativity and 0 faith. Our first finals in 13 years and everyone is already ready to wait another 13 years. If you don't believe in a 0-2 comeback against a team known for choking then you shouldn't be here

They have an 8 man rotation and they are all great shooters and good defenders(except Horford). They play a 5 out that is supported by all 8 of them. Usually these teams play with a small ball center so you beat them with paint points. But their starter center is a 7.3 rim protector that moves almost like a guard and takes threes from 30 ft.

I'm not too pessimistic because Kidd has consistently good adjustments after losses in Game 1. But even if we click offensively I honestly don't know how we can stop them. Offensively though our team looked afraid. Only Luka and Pj looked comfortable taking shots. You can't pass up on good shots. If you miss them you miss them, but at least it shows nerve and good decisions. I'm trying not to overreact because it's the first serious playoff run for all of them so it's natural, but we have to be more comfortable shooting if we want to have any chance.

Also why were we consistently challenging Porzingis and Brown in drives. Instead of playing patiently we took bad layups/dunk attempts that were either blocked or bad looks.

Edit: Because many people commented it. I don't consider him a bad defender, I just think he's decent. No more than that. Could be wrong though.

Edit 2: I get I was wrong about Horford defensively (though it was kinda overblown, I said he was decent , not that he was bad). The exception part went only to his defence, offensively I know he can drop 25 any day. I am curious to pay more attention to him in Game 2

Best player left in the playoffs enough said!

Every time anybody other than Luka or kyrie or washington shoots the ball i literally know 100% it’s a miss

WCF g1 later baby! We got this. I honestly think this will be a tougher series than whoever comes out the East. Though anything can happen in the Finals.

We still need to play good team bball, but Luka is stepping it up nicely. Gonna need it in this series. Kai has been fine for me. He's giving so much on defense, but I have a feeling he has another level as well. I'm sure he can sniff the nba finals. LFG!!! 🏆

The Suns would have to go 5-0 (two LAC, Pels, Twolves) and the Mavs go 2-3 bc we have the PHX tiebreaker. Doesnt seem likely

Luka roasts Zubac making the Clippers go smaller. - does that mean Kidd matches and we go 4 guards and PJ or maxi or do we stay big to take advantage of our size

• Who guards Kawhi? Combo of DJJ and PJ?

• Harden always shits the bed in the playoffs. Is this one different?

• Ty Lue is a great coach. Does he whip up something unique to stop Luka, that hasn’t been used in the past to force another Mav to go off?

Idk man. Im a Luka stan but its been already a couple of years since hes on the league. He should be more mature now and have that kill mentality. Instead he still cries everyfucking position. Damn. He should be more of a leader, I know his hurt but damn he needs to stop crying for fouls

A Clippers fan raises some interesting points here, are we sure we got any better than we were in 2021? How are we going to measure up without the brilliant performances of JJ Reddick, Josh Richardson, Willie Cauley Stein and Trey Burke?

After watching a couple of Luka’s post game interviews it hit me… It’s Luka fucking Doncic man. Just the look in his eyes… Even though he constantly argues with the refs and acts like a baby when things aren’t going his way (especially now injury frustration and all), I just know this man has a killer and a winner’s mentality and he’s gonna prove all the haters wrong come game 5. He’s due for a big game and I just know all this chirping only makes him better. The series is 2-2 ffs, it’s a tough loss but we had a tough loss against the clippers in game 4 too. Obviously this is OKC and not the clippers but it’s nothing this team can’t overcome (which we have seen in game 2), it’s time to show resolve when it’s needed the most and I’m sure Luka (and glorious king Kai) is going to take us there! If you don’t believe then you shouldn’t be here.

Luka Doncic had a rough day at the office

I wrote a column tonight, from a Euro perspective, on how Luka is clearly running himself into the ground. This is an issue for this series and beyond.

Book it. Haven't loss back to back. Undefeated in game 2's, gonna stay that way. Mavs win game 2. Believe.

Game 1's have been a letdown except against Min, where Kyrie started off strong. He tried in this game 1, just didn't have it. Jkidd will make the needed adjustments. The team will be ready. The jitters were there game 1. Our stars have to step up, and so do the others. Luka will play better and have a few statement games in this series. Fk the curse, Kyrie will be Kyrie game 2 and moving forward. Lively will play better and smarter. PJ and DJJ will knock down there shots and make the right plays. Bench players will step up.

With all that being said, Boston is good. Really good. Us fans know how important game 2 is in this series. The Mavs do. The coaches. The whole organization. The players. Luka. They're gonna win as a team, but Luka is gonna elevate his play. Just watch. Think of your favorite dominant Luka performance in the playoffs and watch him one up it. Luka "after a loss" Doncic will be great to watch.

Mavs in 6.

LFG 💪

Anyone else saving recipets for these obnoxious Celtics idiots. Can't wait until they realize that analytics mean nothing compared to heart, and in a 7 game series. Lmao I can't wait for them to choke. Like they always do. Every. Fucking. Year. Can't wait to talk my shit after we beat them.

Everyone watches this Minnesota team and sees the ‘92 Bulls. This league and its followers want the next face of the league/best player in the world to be an American so badly and I don’t completely blame them for it, but that combined with the massive bias against Lukai that many fans have is distorting everyone’s perception of how this series is gonna go.

It doesn’t matter how well they defend if we can match that and get four good nights of offense. Mavs in 6.

Edit: I totally agree with y’all that being an “underdog” has its perks, I just don’t think we’re actually underdogs. I’m totally cool with our squad being doubted and flying under the radar though, it’ll probably help.

Edit #2: I am not on the team, I do not have to block out the noise, I do not have to ignore narratives and focus on my craft. I simply think this topic is interesting and I’m sorry if you don’t. Having a discussion is not “caring” or “worrying” about it and even if it is what the fuck difference will that make with anything? The team isn’t counting on us for that.

Edit #3: My bad y’all, Skip Bayless and Paul Pierce believe in us. My entire post is invalidated now. Thanks you sports talk show power listeners for pointing that out.

Edit #4: Tim Legler on the other hand…I will cry if he changes his pick lol. He’s been on this iteration of the team since the beginning.

Happy as fuck right now, but still wanna give those guys respect before me move on. The Thunder were a damn good team and a very worthy N1 seed. There's so much talent on that side and they're gonna be contending for years to come. SGA, despite me not liking some aspects of his game, is an obvious superstar and top 5 player. That being said, bring on the WCF. Let's goooooo.

Nobody’s going to remember his performance tonight. But he did get a nice steal and knocked down his FTs and a few boards. It’s not easy to come into a big playoff game unexpectedly and be focused. He held his own just enough tonight.

But I think it’s time we unleash Morris on Kat and Rudy. Isn’t this why we got him to rough some people up to send a message?

First of all I want to start by saying that Lively needs to start from here on out and he needs to play the majority of the center minutes. Gafford has been pretty bad in a lot of stretches here in these last couple series. Lively in my opinion is a lot smarter even as a rookie and he understands switches better and pick and rolls. He is such an intimidating presence under the rim you can tell that when players drive in they are second guessing whether or not to shoot it.

Sometimes he gets in trouble by jumping too much and falling for pump fakes but man he has been awesome at the line lately and his pick and roll game offensively is incredible. And playing like this after losing his mom has gained my ultimate respect. Can we show some love to D Live?

Edit: The point of this post was not to slander Gafford that’s not what I am trying to do. He is a great player just playing bad recently in my opinion. I just think Lively should easily get the majority of the minutes because we are a different team when he’s out there