Hoops Tonight - NBA Finals Reaction: Tatum & Celtics ALL-TIME greats? Why Mavericks WON'T be back

work for the next couple of days. Today, we're focusing on the NBA Finals and some of the bigger picture storylines. We're going to talk about the Celtics team a little bit more, how they rank compared to other champions, what their chances to repeat look like. We're gonna talk a little bit about Finals MVP. I want to talk about Jason Tatum and his struggles and how that actually is a good thing in terms of where this Boston Celtics

team can get to in the future. Then we'll turn our attention to Dallas, talk a little bit about how close they actually were and what they need to improve and to give themselves a better chance to hoist the trophy next year. So today, focus in on the finals on We're gonna take tomorrow off. On Thursday, we're gonna do what we do every year, which is we're gonna

give our five biggest takeaways from this playoff run. That's going to focus more on basketball tactics and the different things that we learned from this two months to basketball to try to give us a better chance to predict things in the future. Then we're gonna do a mail bag over the weekend. So in the five Takeaways video on Thursday and in today's finals video, drop mail bag questions over the weekend. We're gonna hit all of them.

Everything is fair game. We'll split it into two. We'll have like an NBA Finals oriented mail bag and then we'll have like a rest of the league oriented mail bag. But drop those questions in the YouTube videos today and Thursday, and we'll hit those mail bag questions over the weekend. Then when we come back from the weekend next week, we're gonna start to turn our attention towards next season, starting with the NBA Draft. But I'm excited to kind of tie off the season today by getting into some

NBA Finals storylines. You guys know the joke. Before we get started, Subscribe to the Hoops Tonight Hoops to Night YouTube chain. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLT so you guys

don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast feed wherever you get your podcast un our Hoops Tonight, and then keep dropping mail back questions in the YouTube comments so we can keep hitting them throughout the rest of the summer and the last minut least before we get started, I want to talk to you guys about Game Time. They have an amazing ticket buying experience. I know the NBA Finals are over, but there's still tons of events

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Hops for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Download Game Time today, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. All right, let's talk some basketball. So before we get into any of the big storylines from this NBA season. I just wanted to give a quick message to Boston Celtics fans. Congratulations not only for being champions, but this was a really fun team and they won me over in a lot of ways towards the end of the year. I know that I grew frustrated with them during this regular

season for a lot of reasons. Obviously, like anytime I see talent that can kind of like play down to the competition, that sometimes can get frustrating. Missoula Ball, too, had a lot of highs and lows. There were these highs where they're getting these paint touches and these awesome driving kick looks or awesome driving layup lay stuff at the rim when their spacing was really good and they

had multiple attacks on the same possession. But then they'd also have stretches where they'd be kind of like just drible up the floor and take pull up jumpers or not get dribble penetration. And Missola Ball looked ugly sometimes, And to Joe Miszula's credit, he just continued to ride those guys throughout the season and try to get them to be more deliberate about their spacing and about their execution, and I thought that they reached their ceiling in this

playoff run on both ends of the floor. And like, like, the biggest compliment that I can pay to the Celtics is I enjoyed watching them down the tail end of the season. They became a fun team for me to watch, which again, like that's not always the case. The Dallas Mavericks team, for instance, is a team that I don't

particularly they enjoy watching. They don't play a brand of basketball that I enjoy watching, right, And so like that, just Celtics fans, congratulations, and you've got yourself a really, really fun basketball team. The second piece of it, there's gonna be a lot of discourse surrounding the team moving forward, right. Some of that is just the reality of the profession, right, it's our job. My job today was to wake up and talk about the major storylines of the NBA Finals.

That's gonna be happening all over the place around NBA media. There's gonna be a lot of ranking, There's gonna be a lot of like, well they don't have this, or they didn't play these guys or blah blah blah blah. And you're gonna hear some of that stuff from me too, right, But here's the reality. No one can ever take away the fact that the twenty twenty four Boston Celtics won the Larry O'Brien Trophy, that the Larry O'Brien Trophy resides

in Boston for the twenty twenty four NBA season. There is a lot of discourse, but nobody can take it away. It lasts forever. This is the beautiful thing about the game of basketball. You cannot argue with the winner. The trophy is the trophy. You guys know, I talk about this all the time. I'm a loyalist of the banner, right like I care about the championship more than anything else, and that I think can never be touched in terms

of the legitimacy of the accomplishment. So just when you hear all that discourse over the next couple of days, just remember, if you hear something you don't like, they can never take it away from you. You guys know, I root for the Los Angeles Lakers right as a Lakers fan. Trust me, After that twenty twenty season, it was a lot of the same stuff. They dominated the entire regular season. They started twenty four and three, they

were the best team in the Western Conference. There's that Bucks team out east that beat up on a weak Eastern Conference schedule and got a bunch of attention. But the Lakers were the best team throughout the regular season. Then they kicked everyone's ass in the postseason and it was, you know, mickey mouse ring. It was the Disney Championship. It was all everyone wanted to just undercut the success of that championship. Right, that's the discourse, that's the narrative

piece of it. But remember, the twenty twenty Larry O'Brien Trophy resides with the Los Angeles Lakers. That can never be taken away. And so just Boston fans, congratulations, And no matter what anybody says, including myself, over the course of the next week, the trophy is the trophy. It can never be taken away. And it's just a really really cool thing to be a part of. And I'm really really happy for you guys, and I'm happy that you have such a fun basketball team to root for.

On that note, let's get into some of the narrative stuff, right, So, first of all, before we go any further, not all championships are the same. That just goes without saying, right, some carry a certain level of cultural resonance, And a big part of that is just I think there's a

relatability to struggle. So I think all fans are more drawn to like adversity versus dominance, you know, like, even though dominance means better Basketball city just seems to resonate with people, right, So, like, for instance, the twenty twenty Lakers were the best championship team that Lebron ever played on. I'm using that as an example because that's a team I rooted for. Right that that twenty twenty Lakers team kicked everyone's ass. They lost what five playoff games, the

entire playoff run. They just ran through everybody right, started the season twenty four and three. But when you look back at all of Lebron's championships, that's probably the least resonant, right, It's the one that people care about the least. If you think about Lebron's key championship moments, what do you think about you think about twenty sixteen coming down from three to one, Lebron bawling his eyes out on the

floor because he brought a Championship to Cleveland. You think about coming back from down three to two to beat the Spurs. You think about coming back from down three to two to beat the Celtics in twenty twelve before they beat the Thunder in the finals, right, So like that's the reality, right, So, like you're not going to get the same level of like just nationwide, worldwide, like oh my god, that was incredible because dominance just doesn't

resonate with people the same way that adversity does. The twenty twenty Lakers were a better basketball team than any Lebron team that he played on, except for maybe the twenty thirteen Heat, Like they're on a similar level. But like it's dominance just doesn't resonate with people. It just doesn't. And that's the unfortunate thing. It's kind of like a shitty side effect. It's kind of like Lebron fans do this with Michael Jordan too. It's like he won six

championships and eight tries in the nineties. How is it portrayed. It's portrayed as like, oh, it's just a bunch of bums. The league was diluted, Michael Jordan kicked everyone's ass, and it's like, yeah, there's some truth to that, but just dominance just doesn't resonate with people the same way that adversity does. So like that's that's gonna be why you're not gonna see as much like just overwhelming awe and and credit being thrown Boston's way. It's just kind of

like a natural human behavior. That said, the opportunity will be there for this Boston team to make a more profound imprint on NBA history because we turn around and we play again next year. And as we saw this year, I thought there were five good teams in the East, and four of them ended up on the other end of the bracket. And the one that came out of it was probably the worst team in that bunch, the Indiana Pacers, But they were the team that was healthy

the longest, and then they got hurt when they got there. Right, So next year the East will be stronger. Milwaukee's probably gonna pivot and become more athletic on the perimeter, Damon Giannis will probably be healthy. The Knicks have the ability to make a trade this year. In addition to being kind of an interesting physical matchup for Boston on the front line, right Philly is going to completely rebuild this summer around Tyre's, Max and Joel Embiid. They could be interesting.

Orlando will be better, Indiana will be better. Miami could make a trade this year and re enter into the mix. Right, so, the East will be stronger and there will be a tougher playoff path next year. The West will probably send a better representative. I did not think the best team in the Western Conference made it out this year. I thought there was one team all year long, there was one team that I said could actually hang with Boston in a playoff series. I said it was Denver, and

that team didn't make it out. There was a brief moment there where I started to buy into the Minnesota Timberwolves hype, but that ended up being smoking mirrors, which we'll get more into on Thursday when we talk about some of the basketball tactics stuff. But Boston Denver was the best team, right, they didn't get out. Next year, there will probably be a better representative from the West. The Thunder will. I'm they won me over in a

big way this year. They will be a legit threat next year, especially if they can make a trade this year to upgrade that. Josh gidty position right Minnesota, with another year of growth for Anthony Edwards, Memphis is going to have Gigi Jackson added to the core of the team that made it to the second round two years ago. Right. We all saw what John Moran could do in his brief stretch where he played this season. I think one of that trio of Lakers Warrior sons will get their

shit together next year. Maybe the Lakers make a big star trade, maybe the Warriors make a big star trade. Maybe the Suns just play better basketball under Mike Budenholzer. The West will probably send a better representative. So you will have your opportunity to make a bigger imprint on

NBA history. If next year you go in, you beat Joannison Dame, and you beat and beat Paul George and Tyrese Maxi, and then you get to the finals and you have beat the Denver Nuggets, then people will have no choice but to acknowledge the reality of how dominant this team is. If you're expecting for all of the average NBA fans to look at you beating the Miami Heat without Jimmy Butler, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Indiana

Pacers and that Dallas Mavericks team. You're just not gonna get as much buy in from the court of public opinion, right, But the opportunity will be there next year. These guys are young, They're gonna have the quarterback. Just like like Jason Tatum said, just go do it again. And if you go do it again, you will win more of that resonance in NBA history, some of that you like, you probably will end up in a series that's two to two next year. You probably there might be even

a series where you trail late. Right Like though, Like even when I look back at Jason Tatum and some of his greatest moments as a player, what do I think about. I think about like Game six against Milwaukee when he had forty something and hit that huge midrange, mid range jumper to ice the game late, right, Like, you think about what he was able to achieve in

real adversity. And I do believe the NBA will produce some more adverse situations for the for the Celtics looking forward, so again kind of to put a bow on all of that, there will be a lot of noise, but they can never take the trophy away from you. No, This championship doesn't resonate the way other championships do in NBA history, But that is typical. That is the reality of the personality dynamic of humans and the fact that we resonate more, or that adversity resonates more with us

than dominant does. In three, you will have your chance. You will have your chance next season in all likelihood, but certainly in the next couple of seasons to kind of make a bigger imprint on that NBA history in the way that this team is remembered like that, that will all get revealed in time. The trophy always ends

up revealing those things, ranking them. Where does this championship team rank compared with recent NBA champions So I look at there was this kind of weird phase, right, There's this phase that went from twenty fourteen to eight twenty fifteen, excuse me to twenty eighteen where it was Cavs Warriors every year. Right, it was Calves out of the East, Warriors out of the West, every single year, four years

in a row. Right. That was the era of like not much parody, right, and like we had the Warriors in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen were so damn talented. This is this is a crazy stat They were so damn talented that they had negative odds to win the title before training camp. Like, if you bet one hundred dollars on the Warriors to win the title in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen before the season tipped off, you would get less than one hundred dollars if they actually

won the trophy. That is how talented that Warriors team was. After that, we experienced the time of parody. Right. Since then, there have been six NBA champions, the Raptors, the Lakers, the Bucks, the Warriors, the Nuggets, the Celtics. Right, how do those teams rank number six? I have the Milwaukee Bucks. That to me was kind of a funky season post COVID year, right where we had all the weird lineups

throughout the year. All of the teams that made it to the conference finals in the previous year, the Lakers, the Nuggets, the Heat, and the Celtics all fell apart that year and had bad, underachieving seasons, in most part because of injuries. Jamal Murray got hurt, Anthony Davis got hurt, the Heat were banged up all year. So like we saw like that was kind of like a funky season.

Our conference finals finalists were a Clippers team led by Paul George, a Hawks team led by Trey Young, a Suns team led by Devin Booker, and then that twenty twenty one Bucks team. And so again they're a desserve irving champion. No one can ever take the trophy away. But if I was ranking them among those six teams, I have them at last place. Number five, I have the Toronto Raptors. I thought that was an incredible defensive team.

Pascal Siakam was their second best player, had a really good series, especially attacking Draymond Green in space, which I thought was super fascinating. Kawhi Leonard kind of had his biggest moment as the best player on the championship team, but I didn't think they were as good as some of the teams ahead of them. Number four, I have that Golden State Warriors team in twenty twenty two. Steph Curry. I thought that was the peak of his MBA of

his entire career. I thought that in twenty twenty one he was playing at the best, like regular season level of his career. Now a lot of people are going to point to his MVP seasons. But what I always say is those MVP seasons took place before the league had any idea schematically how to even guard Steph Curry. What was so fascinating to me about his run there in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two was the

league knew how to deal with him. They were being physical with him off ball, trying to deny him off ball actions, trying to force him to back cut into the lane, chasing him over the top of ball screens, physicality to try to wear him out, all that stuff. The book on how on the best way to guard Steph Curry was out and it just didn't matter. He kicked everyone's ass anyway. And there was an injury that he suffered in that twenty twenty two season that kind

of disrupted him going into the postseason. But I thought that that Game four on the road in Boston was the best individual game of his career given the stakes in the situation in terms of them trailing to one in the series. The one thing that kind of holds them back from the teams ahead of them is once again just overall talent on the roster. The second best player on that team was some version of either Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, or Draymond Green. They just didn't have like

a ton of like top tier talent. At number three, I have this Boston Celtics team. I think that they were an incredibly dominant defensive team. I think that on the offensive end, they had moments where they looked completely and utterly unguardable. The one thing that holds them back from the teams above them on this tier for me was the lack of just like a true alpha dog star.

The two teams that are above them for me on this list are teams that were both dominant on both ends of the floor and had a true apex superstar. Number two I have the twenty twenty three Denver Nuggets. I thought that that was the most well fitting five man starting lineup that I've seen since this Boston Celtics team. I think this Boston Celtics team has actually done a better job. That said, I thought nicolea. Jokic maybe still

is the undisputed best player in the world. It was like a real alpha dog element that this Boston Celtics team didn't have. And the number one I have the twenty twenty Los Angeles Lakers. Admittedly I'm biased, but my case is very simple. They had two of the top five players in the world. The second best player on that Nuggets team was Jamal Murray. Obviously the Celtics didn't have a top five player on the roster that Los Angeles Lakers team. Lebron was the best player in the world.

I that he deserved to win MVP that year. Had a dominant NBA Finals and a dominant playoff run, and Anthony Davis was right there with him. We can say whatever we want about Anthony Davis in his career as a totality, but in that twenty twenty season, there were very few players that were playing better basketball than Anthony Davis. I had him ranked as the fourth best player in the world after that playoff run. So they had the best and fourth best player in the world on the

same team. They were the best defense in the league. They had a dominant playoff run. They ran through Damian Lillard and CJ. McCollum in round one. They ran through James Harden and Russell Westbrook in round two, Jokich and Murray in round three, Jimmy and Bam in round four, it was a dominant playoff run. That's how I have the six championship, the six champions ranked since the twenty eighteen Warriors Finals MVP. So, as I talked about last night, I would not have had a problem if Jason Tatum

won it. And the main reason why is when I look at NBA history, I want the history books to read like a like what that team actually was. So like, for instance, when we look back at twenty fifteen and it's like twenty fifteen NBA Champion Golden State Warriors Finals MVP Andre Godala, You're like, that just doesn't tell the story of that team. It was one of the biggest travesty's in NBA history. They gave it to a role

player made no damn sense. He was a beneficiary of attention that was being thrown at Steph Curry and defensively the beneficiary of injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. It just didn't make any sense. I would have been okay with looking back at this season and seeing twenty twenty four NBA Champion Boston Celtics Finals MVP Jason Tatum because from training camp to the hoisting of the trophy,

Tatum was their best and most important player. That said, in this series, I did think Jaylen Brown was the best player more frequently. To put it simply, I thought Jason Tatum was the best player on the floor in Game five, but that was the only player the only game in the series where I thought he was the best player on the floor, So like it would have been weird for him to have the Finals MVP Trophy having not been the best player on the floor in

four of the five games of the series. I thought Jalen Brown had a similarly important defensive job to Jason Tatum, being the guy that was picking up Luka Doncic full court and trying to wear him out. I thought he had the most iconic highlights of the series and his two gigantic one handed hammers that he had. I think it was in Game two and in Game three if I remember correctly. And I also thought he hit the

biggest shots of the series. In Game two down the stretch when they needed a bucket, he was the guy that drove by Maxic Kleba and had the left handed layup that kind of iced that game. And then in Game three when the Mavericks got it down to one he hit two massive mid range jump shots to rescue possessions that put that game away. I thought he had

the biggest imprint. Like if you were to kind of like weigh the overall contributions of players in this series among any Celtic, I thought Jalen Brown did have the biggest impact. It's not like a role player. This is not like giving it to Andre Gudala. In my opinion, Jalen Brown has improved and entered into the compsation with Jason Tatum in that second tier of stars, behind the guys right at the very top, and so to me, it's just a credit to Jalen Brown and his improvement.

I remember, you know, one of the things I'm not trying to take a victory lap here, because God knows, I've been wrong about lots of shit, But one of the things I've been right about is this specific issue.

There's always been calls after each loss from the Celtics to break up Tatum and Brown, and what I've consistently said is you have a better chance of getting where you need to go by Jalen Brown just getting better than you do by trying to flip Jalen Brown into something better like in chances are you'll flip Jalen Brown and get something worse in return, whereas Jalen Brown might be able to improve and get where he needs to go.

And Jalen Brown went from a very embarrassing performance last year against Miami and the conference finals to the best playoff front of his career and he won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP and the Finals MVP. So tip of the cap to Jalen Brown. He improved, He addressed the things that he needed to address to make a bigger impact on this particular Celtics team, and I thought he was deserving of the trophy. But that said, I wouldn't have had any problem with Jason Tatum getting it. The

Celtics has a chance to repeat. So obviously, every time that a team wins an NBA championship, the next conversation is does this team have what it takes to do it again? Right? There's a statement from Michael Malone before this season, if I remember correctly, where he said I'm gonna butcher this, but he said something along the lines of like, to win, you need talent, but to repeat you need character. Right, And so that's the main thing. Do the Celtics have the talent to repeat. You bet

your ass that absolutely have the talent to repeat. Will they have the character? That's the next piece. Will the disease of more infiltrate, Well, guys start to co opt possessions and get out of their roles because now they already have the trophy. Right, those are the kinds of speed bumps that they'll encounter along the way. As we mentioned earlier, I do think the face tougher teams in the following season, right like this will be a more

difficult title run, But they have the talent there. Another big piece that's if that's fascinating to me is Jason Tatum's jump shooting. So Jason Tatum, I checked the stats on Synergy this morning in this playoff run shot twenty nine point eight percent on jump shots. To give you guys some perspective, Jana Santana Kumpo in this regular season shot twenty nine point nine percent on jump shots. So Tatum, as I mentioned multiple times in this playoff run, was

just in a miserable shooting slump this year. I don't I don't have an explanation for it other than that it can just happen. Like shooting slumps, Like there's there's this kind of feeling that people have for some reason that like, oh, you work on your jumper and it's just kind of like a perpetual rise. It's like, No, it's more of like a a staggered line, just like anything else. Right, you zoom out from it, and it

looks like an increase if you've been working hard. But if you zoom in, you're gonna see some peaks and valleys. And there's no doubt that Tatum entered into a massive shooting slump in this postseason run. Do I think that Jason Tatum is a bad jump shooter? No? Do I think he settles for too many pull up jumpers and that he should structure his game more like he did in Game five, or he's using his physical gifts to get to the rim. Yeah, that's what I think he

should focus on. But he is a better jump shooter than he demonstrated, and I would be stunned if he didn't shoot a lot better on jump shots in next year's postseason. So that's another thing that's scary as it pertains to the Boston's repeat chances. Porzingis won't healthy for the majority of this playoff run and Jayson Tatum played

like shit by his standards. And so if those two things rectify themselves and you get a healthy Christops Porzingis and you get a just a more Jason Tatum like playoff run, it's gonna be that much harder to beat the Celtics team four times out of seven. It will be challenging. My guess right now is that I'll probably end up having Boston as my title favorite going into next season. It extends beyond the beyond my like kind

of loyalty to the banter stuff. As you guys know, I always kind of defer to champions just out of respect. But another part of it is this season revealed the Western Conference is just such a blood bath that even a team like Denver, and like, one of the things with Denver, like I had a lot of I had Celtics fans today, like, oh, Denver wasn't on Boston's level, Like we'll see, we don't know. We didn't play each other,

so we don't know. But one of the things with Denver you got to remember is Jamal Murray missed a significant chunk of the season. When Jamal Murray was healthy, they were forty four and fifteen. That's a sixty one win pace in that blood bath of a Western conference. So I from the beginning of the season I had Milwaukee in that tier, but I bumped him off after the first month. But for the majority of the season I had Denver and Boston. Those were the two teams.

Had Denver Boston gap everyone else, right, And that's that to me, I thought kind of manifested in the season where when Denver got knocked out, Boston was just clearly better than whoever else would have come out of that conference as far as Denver goes. One of the things that because a lot of people would be like, oh, well, how did they lose to Minnesota? That was literally one of the most bizarre NBA playoff series I have ever watched.

Here are a couple crazy stats. Denver led by at least eighteen in all three of their wins, and in the Game seven that they lost, they led by twenty in the fourth quarter or not in the fourth quarter. They led by twenty in the second half. So they played well enough to win that series, they just somehow lost in this crazy second half run. Right. And then in addition to that, just digging themselves in the hole they did in the first two games of the series

by dropping the first two games in Denver. Like, I believe if Denver played Minnesota in a playoff series again, they would beat them. But Minnesota is a weird team. They were specifically constructed to beat Denver with all their size on the perimeter and on the interior. It was a bad matchup. They got upset. They got upset in a series they led by eighteen and three wins and led by twenty in one of the losses. It was

a weird thing that happened. As a result, we had one of those second tier teams make it into the championship round to face Boston. Boston beat the living shit out of them, right, So like again, like as it pertains to Denver, I do think it's worth mentioning that they looked like a Boston level team most of the year, with exception of when Jamal Murray got hurt and that

bizarre Minnesota Timberwolve series. So like I again, like there, I think that Boston will get challenged at another level next year, but it'll just be another opportunity for Boston to demonstrate if they are this all time great team that so many Celtics fans seem to think that they are. They will have the opportunity to prove that next season. All right, let's move it to Dallas real quick, and then we'll talk a little bit about just a little season wrap up and then we'll get out of here.

Is Dallas close this more? Or? Last night with Coln Koward, I pointed out that I did not think that this Dallas Mavericks team was close to winning the championship, and I have been getting ShredIt on Twitter all day long for that. Specific Mavericks fans are pissed we made the finals. How how is it that we made the finals and

you're gonna say we're not close? Well, you trailed by twenty nine, and one of the losses, you trailed by twenty six in one of the losses, you trailed by twenty one in one of the losses, and you trailed by fourteen in one of the losses. You trailed three to zero in the series, and you beat the shit out of Boston in that desperation game for but you were not close. I mean, I'm curious if you're if you're a Mavericks fan, if you do you believe you

were close to winning that series. I don't think you were. And there were two teams at the top of the league, Denver and Boston. As we mentioned earlier, just in the previous segment, like that Denver team was a lot better than what their results this year showed. That Denver team, if they would have made it in the conference finals, I would have picked them against Dallas. I think they

would have won somewhat convincingly. I don't think they match up as well with Denver as Minnesota did in terms of their physicality on the front line, right and so like, I don't think that Dallas was particularly close. To take it a step further, Boston did not shoot over the their season average for jump shooting a single time in this series. Boston got one point one to two points per jump shot in the regular season. They were below that in all five games. Jason Tatum we discussed earlier,

was in a massive slump. There will be a better version of this Boston team in all likelihood waiting whoever comes out of the Western Conference next year. So this is where it's about being honest with yourself. So, for instance, guys, I'm a Lakers fan, the Lakers made it to the Western Conference Finals last year, I never, not even for a single second this year, put them in my top tier of contenders. I consistently had them in that second tier.

And I said right after the series, they clearly have to get better at XYZ going into the season. I'm like, they clearly need to make an aggressive deal this deadline to try to put themselves into this conversation. They never did, and so for me, the Lakers never entered into that tier. I am a fan of the Lakers who made a deep playoff run, and I had to admit they are not close. The Miami Heat made the NBA Finals last year. They did not trail three to zero. They stole a

game in Denver in Game two. Did anybody think after that series that the Miami Heat were close to winning an NBA championship. I didn't. I thought it was abundantly clear that they did not have enough firepower. What ends

up happening in the NBA every year. One of the things I'm learning, and we're going to talk about this more when we get to our Tactics Pod on Thursday, But there's a top tier of teams, the real championship contenders, and every year there's usually two three four teams in that tier, right this year there were two, But it doesn't really matter what you do against everyone else, everyone

else's matchups. You happen to catch a Minnesota team in the Western Conference Finals that specifically struggles with rim protection, which was evidenced by the fact that they were seventeenth in offense in the regular season. It was a terrible matchup. Even their perimeter defenders were too skinny for Luca. They didn't have a loudor to an Aaron Gordon, like a big physical specimen to put on to Luca. They got barbecued. They got their ass kicked, right, But that was a

matchup thing. That group, all that group, all the teams below the Denver Boston Tier, any of them could have beat any of them based on matchups. In my opinion, Dallas kind of weaved their way through there. And one how did the Lakers make it to the Western Conference Finals Last year? They faced a Memphis Grizzlies team in the first round that had a dribble drive guard in John morant In not great perimeter shooting, so the Lakers could pack the paint. They had Anthony Davis. It was

a terrible matchup for Memphis. The book has been out for how to beat the Golden State Warriors for two years now. You got to have athletic size and you need to funnel them into your size in the paint. The Lakers kind of put that together with their top locking and forcing the Guards to backcut into Anthony Davis. That was a bad matchup for the Warriors. Right, So the Lakers, good matchup against Memphis, win the series, good matchup against Golden State, win the series, run into a

real championship contender. Get their ass kicked. They weren't close. Now, Dallas beat better teams. For the record, like I had a lot of Dallas fans like, we beat some of the best seeds in the conference. You're absolutely right, but let's go through them individually. You beat the Los Angeles Clippers, who were missing their best player. That's a favorable matchup. The Oklahoma City Thunder were a one seed. And by the way, the Thunder won me over in a big way.

And I'm sure they won over MAVs fans because guess what, that series could have gone either way if they don't get that last bucket or that last foul on PJ. Washington in the corner. The Thunder took the lead on the previous possession. You were about to go back to Oklahoma City to play a Game seven. So okay See won me over in a big way in this postseason run. But what was I What did I consistently say all season the Thunder are too young and too small to

make a deep playoff run. Dallas exposed them for that right. A really good team, a quality series win for Dallas, but that was not a top tier championship contender that they beat. Then they faced Minnesota, and admittedly that was the one time I picked wrong against Dallas. I picked Dallas to beat the Clippers. I picked Dallas to beat Oklahoma City. I picked Boston to beat Dallas. But I

was wrong about the Minnesota series. I kind of drank too much of the Minnesota kool aid after they beat Denver, just because I respected that Denver team so much. But we're gonna talk about that more on Thursday in the tactic spot. That to me was a major revealing factor for me, just in terms of matchups and like how we can't overreact to any series win. The only thing that matters is how you match up against your next opponent, at which Dallas fans just found out as they ran

into Boston. Right, but Minnesota was a team that could not deal with rim protection. I used to quote those stats during the series, like Anthony Edwards was getting to the paint like less than a half as often as he was against Denver. Dallas loaded up the strong side, they played off their shooters the non shooters obviously on the other end of the floor. They didn't have anybody big enough to guard Luca. It was a bad matchup. So then they run into a real championship contender in

the NBA Finals. They trail by twenty nine, trail by twenty six, trail by twenty one, trail by fourteen. You're not close. That is the literal definition of not close. And what I mean by that that's not intended to undercut the accomplishment. It is a bona fide NBA Finals run. As a Mavericks fan, I'm sure you guys had so much fun watching that playoff run. What I'm saying that for is it means they need to improve. What that means is they can't just run it back. What did

the Lakers do? I said right after the Denvers loss. The Dever loss, they are not close. They have to improve with guard athleticism, a legitimate backup center, and Lebron and ad had to improve as over the top shooters. Laid that all out immediately after that series. They didn't

do any of that. They signed Torreon Prints in the offseason, they got a couple of backup centers in Jackson Hayes and Christian wood that couldn't play in the playoffs, and then at the deadline they did nothing, and then they signed Spencer Dinwoodie is a buyout guy. Right, they ran it back, and what happened. They ran into the same fucking team and they lost the same fucking way. So, like that's what I'm saying. I'm not trying to say you're not close to be a dickhead. I'm saying you're

not close, because it means you need to improve. If you run it back, if you do what the Lakers did and just say let's go give this thing another shot. If you do what the Miami Heat do it did and you just say let's just give this thing another shot, you're gonna lose in disappointing fashion the way the Miami heat the Los Angeles Lakers did. So that's the next question. What do the Dallas Mavericks need to improve them? Well, there were several things that stood out to me. I

want to start on the offense. Event. They had just a one oh one offensive rating in the NBA Finals. That is bad bad. They had an offensive rating, I want to say, over one to eighteen against the Minnesota Timberwolves. A lot of it has to do with matchups, but a big part of it was game plan. So one of the things that Minnesota did is they kept Rudy

Gobert on the lob threats on Gafford and Lively. That allowed Dallas to operate with traditional four out spacing, meaning they had shooters in the corners they're preferably their corner three point shooters, Derek Jones and PJ. Washington, and then they had Kyrie Irving on the opposite wing. Then Luca would get the ball screen and he would go downhill as the lob threat was going and they'd both be

going into open space underneath the basket. That allowed Luca to manipulate Rudy Gobert into that no man's land between the two so that he could unlock the lob game. Boston put together a game plan that caused a ton of issues for Dallas's offense. They put their four, Jason Tatum onto the lob threat. They put their center onto pour above the break three point shooters. What that did is it fucked up the spacing because then you had in order to put two shooters in the corners, you

had to tug Kyrie in one of the corners. You had Lively and Gafford standing in the dunker spot, which allowed Jason Tatum to help on everything underneath the basket. And then when Luca wanted to bring the center into the action to attack Porzingis or Horford, it was Derek Jones or PJ. Washington set in the screen. If those guys tried to roll, they were rolling into all that traffic.

Now that the dunker spot is occupied. If they popped where the opening was, it was above the break threes, and above the break three point shooting ended up being the Achilles heel of this Dallas offense. Derek Jones Junior shot twenty six percent on above the break threes in the playoffs. Maxi Kleba shot twenty six percent on above the break threees in the playoffs. PJ Washington shot thirty one percent on above the break threees during the playoffs.

Those three guys combined to go seven for twenty eight. That's twenty five percent on above the break threes during the NBA Finals. What does that mean? Why does that matter? Because this is a copycat league. Every NBA coach watched

the NBA Finals. When they watch the NBA Finals, they're all making a little note like, Oh, when we're guarding Dallas, let's just put our biggest forward on their lob threat, have them switch ball screens, and then let's put our center, our rim protector on their above the break three point shooters that can't make above the breakthrees. You will see that same coverage a lot moving forward. That is exactly

what happened to the Golden State Warriors. The Lakers put together a game plan which was top block their shooters, don't allow them to use their screens, force them to backcut, and help off of Draymond Green and Jonathan Kaminga or whoever they're limited. Three point shooters are with your rim protectors, your size, keep those guys underneath the rim. Be super physical on the perimeter. That will slow down Golden State's motion offense and force them to play and pick and roll.

Every team does that. Now it's a copycat league. When a game plan starts to take shape that has an effect on you, it resonates among the other twenty eight teams in the league. And so there are several things that could they could do to address this. If you're gonna stay with four out, those guys have to improve as above the break three point shooters. They either have to improve or you've got to find them a different players. I mean, because inevitably you will run into this exact

same situation. And that is something that didn't just slow down Dallas's offense, rendered it borderline useless over the course of that NBA Final series. A one oh one offensive rating. That's not just bad, that is atrociously bad. I want to say they didn't cross over one hundred points a single time in the series, maybe except for Game five, right, I think they did it just once in Game five. Actually no, I heard the stat last night from our

producer with Colin. I think he said Dallas failed to score one hundred points seven times during the entire regular season and did it four times in this series, so like, it was a major issue. So obviously, finding role players that are comfortable taking and making above the break three is because that is a vital part of your spacing. Right. Secondly, it might be worthwhile to explore more five out concepts on offense. One of the big advantages here is Derek Lively.

Derek Lively was wildly impressive in this playoff run as a screener and as a decision maker. Right. He even fucking he knocked out a three pointer in game four, right, so like, and I'm not even in five out. Five out does not mean five shooters. Now for Boston it does. But all five out means is that all of the action is taking place on the perimeter, in the paint is not occupied unless it is for a post up

as part of the play or on a roll. What that means is the Bigs operate out at the three point line as dribble handoff guys, and they roll and then they come back up and run another another dribble handoff, and they roll, and they come back up and run another dribble handoff. They primarily operate from the perimeter. They roll into empty space and then they come back. So the paint is vacant except when someone's rolling or driving

or cutting or posting right. So basically what that means is instead of dribbling the ball out the floor and having this guy stay in the corner and this guy's staying in the corner and come set a ball screen and we're just going to spread an attack, have it actually function more with everybody involved, the more ball in player movement. One of the things I like is I

think that because of Lively's development there, because PJ. Washington can put the ball on the floor a little bit, because you have Kyrie Irving and Luca, as long as you get basically a better version of Derek Jones, a player like Derek Jones that can actually make more plays off the bounce, and honestly, he might be able to do it if you just open training camp with it and run that as your base offense. But I just want to see. I think five out concepts are more

resilient to playoff matchup issues. The four out offense, it took one switch the center and Tatum switching to completely bog down the spacing on everything, whereas if it was five out and there was tons of ball in player movement as you're cycling from side decide and everyone's involved. It lessens Luca's usage. It has a better chance of keeping guys like PJ. Washington, Derek Jones, Josh Green, Dante Exen, whoever it is, in rhythm throughout the game. It opens

up more space on the back line. Like again, if Tatum is up at getting engaged in a switch on a dribble handoff, and then all of a sudden, it's back on the other side of the foor, and then it's coming back this way, and there's three dribble handoffs on the same possession. It don't really matter what Boston's

base game plan is. All of a sudden, the entire team is being asked to do more on every possession defensively, and so I'd like to see them kind of explore that a little bit, just to make them more resilient as an offensive team. In the playoffs, they ran some five out concepts, they ran some stack, pick and roll, they ran some double stagger stuffy. It's not like they don't do any of that, but more often than that, more often than not, they dribble the ball off the floor.

They set a guard screen for a switch, they go to their four out spacing and they call for a ball screen. It's just a little too rude to entry. It's a little too predictable, and it's one of those things that I think puts a ceiling on their offense in the playoffs. Remember I wrong. I had to learn the hard way about this. And we're gonna get into more detail with this when we get to our tactics spot on Thursday. But like, the Lakers were a four out team last year and then they adopted five out.

It was ugly as all hell for half the season, but it like clicked in January and suddenly they were one of the best offenses in the league. And they had a much better offensive showing against Denver in that first round series than they did the last year. Right, So, like,

I'm a big believer and they've won me over. This is about This is a modern basketball concept that I was too late to buy into, and I do think that Dallas would be would be served well by trying to tilt their offense a little bit more in that direction. The last piece, Luca needs to be able to function as just a part of a championship level defense. So again, this is something we talked about a lot after Game three.

But I would love to see Luca come in next season at at just an entirely different level of physical conditioning. By virtue of that, he can handle higher usage, he can handle those defensive responsibilities. He can handle more physical defensive matchups in the postseason without fatiguing and without losing some of his efficiency. Just to put it simply, every NBA player has to have some sort of humiliating moment

in order to reach their ultimate ceiling. Jalen Brown last year gets embarrassed in the conference finals, wins Finals MVP. The next year, Lebron James in twenty eleven gets embarrassed in the NBA Finals wins back to back MVPs and Finals MVPs. Luka Doncic got embarrassed in a lot of ways, especially on the defensive end of the floor in this series. I thought it was the worst defensive performance by a

superstar I've ever seen in the NBA Finals. So like I'm hoping that he just takes that to heart, takes it personally, makes the necessary improvements, and brings that next level when he comes into next season. Again, as I mentioned before, the West will be better. Memphis is going to join this picture next year. Houston could very well join this picture. Like I said, one of the Lakers,

Warriors or Suns. They're gonna get their shit together. There's going to be something that makes this more complicated next year. And I think Step one is self awareness. Admit you're not good enough. Step two, address your needs. Step three go out and execute, give yourself a chance to win. All right, before we get out of here, I want to talk a little bit, just wrap up the season.

You know, we almost exactly eight months ago we launched our new YouTube channel, and it was kind of a scary moment because the Volumes YouTube channel has like over seven hundred thousand subscribers and that was kind of like a really nice supporting foundation for what we were trying to do. Right, Like just obviously people still need to click on the link to watch the show, but like just so many more eyeballs were on the show in terms of like door swings that we could convert by

virtue of being on the Volumes channel. And so I was really nervous as we as we launched the new channel last year at the start of this season, and just that it would just kind of lead to some sort of downturn or that we would have some just disappointing performance. And it's been eight months. We've done over eleven point six million views. In that eight months, We've added over seventy thousand subscribers. Just during the playoff run,

we had over a million unique viewers. We had over four hundred thousand returning viewers, people who made multiple visits to the channel. I just have been completely blown away by how you guys have supported me and supported this channel and supported this show over the course of the last few years. I just can't put into words how

incredibly thankful I am for all of you. There's obviously a certain amount of negativity that comes with the comes with the job, right, That's just kind of the virtue of sports. Like I have to say I like this team or dislike this team, which is automatically going to piss some people off, and like the overwhelming positivity that I get from you guys in the comments and direct messages and Twitter mentions and all of that stuff. You guys just support me in such an incredible way, and

I'm just incredibly thankful for you. I'm so excited to see what we can turn this thing into I mean, we've been going for what two years and four months or something like that since we started with the volume back in the twenty twenty two season, and it's just been it's been such a blast. I'm getting to experience things I never in a million years thought i'd get to experience. I'm interviewing an NBA player for the first time at Summer League. I'm super excited about that we've had.

I've get getting to go see the Team USA scrimmage against a Canada on July tenth there at the Thomas and Max Center. I just I wouldn't be able to do the things that I get to do or experience when I get to experience without your guys' support. And I just hope you guys know that I'm eternally thankful to you, and I'm super super excited to see what we can build as we look into the future. I'm really excited to get started on the next season. One last thing before we go to Don't Forget about my

Two Sons podcast. You can see a little logo down here. That's a podcast that I do with my buddy Luke where we talk more about like film and TV show stuff. Last night, we just uploaded a reaction to the first episode of House of the Dragon, so you guys can

go check that out. We're gonna be recording Acolyte episode four later tonight as well, and there's just a lot of really fun content and stuff coming out over the course of the rest of this summer, So make sure you guys head over there hit that subscribe button, and i'd appreciate your support there as well. But again, I'm just really thankful for you guys, and I'm looking forward to getting into another fun offseason and then another fun

season from there. All right, that's all I have for tonight. Congratulations Celtics fans. Congratulations Mavericks fans too. That was a fun season for you guys. We'll be back. We're gonna take tomorrow off. We'll be back on Thursday to get into some basketball tactics and the five biggest things that I learned from this playoff run, and I will see you guys. Then the volume