Finals Preview: Celtics thru 3 rounds, per 36 minutes rates adjusted to standards of 100 points and 44 rebounds per team per game; and other standardizing tweaks.
Celtics are not looking as good to me as their record. Heavy dependence on White, Holiday and Mazzula. Will Porzingis' return help or hurt? Good chance that change will hurt because it gets more complicated. The bench is one guy and trouble or potential trouble.
Haven't studied matchup yet but they can be beaten.
Next season, good chance it is someone new again. In tune, one of top 6 or 10, but really in tune at the end.
Against Pacers, Celtics 2 biggest minute lineups were great... then next 5 negative and 7 of 9 negative. That was not so solid, against not that strong an opponent.
Mazzula's lineup choices and timing could again be critical. A few mistakes from good can make the difference.
The 10 most used pairs against Pacers were fine, the second 10 were garbage.
Celtics dominated 2 regular season matchups. Hot 3pt shooting among other things. Mavs were just meh with poor 3pt shooting and not much at all from FT line. Probably need to be more Moreyball.
3pt shooting and refereeing likely to matter a lot and perhaps some out of everything else.
Will one of the top 4 guys be the clear best performer? Will it be decided beyond the top 4?
Which team not playing learns the most, decides for the most future impact based on what they "see" in the finals?
Celtics' changes from last year: Without Porzingis, they added Jrue Holiday.
They gave up their #3 in minutes, Marcus Smart; their #6, 7, and 8: Brogdon, Williams and Williams.
Huge regular season improvements from their deep bench have not carried over to the postseason.
If the Mavs make a quick finish of the WCF, they get some much needed rest and recovery. Boston looks pretty soft inside vs the twin Bigs of Dallas.
Looking at offensive playoff to date factors - defensive playoff to date factor of finals opponent for each team then comparing the net for each factor.
20 years ago, the Pistons in midseason acquired Rasheed Wallace; and the rest of the season put up overwhelming point differentials. This led some of us to predict they would 'upset' the Lakers in the Finals; and they did.
These Mavs are not quite that, but they did have an abrupt improvement after acquiring Gafford and Washington for the last 30 RS games. Their 28 games before the last two (clearly tanking) match up pretty well against the Celtics' season:
They are closer in the playoffs due to (1) Porzingis' absence for Boston, and (2) likely tougher RS schedule for Dallas.
Celts shoot and rebound slightly better; Mavs with a TO-diff. edge.
Tatum vs Mavs in regular season, 2nd most point of all opponents. Brown, 3rd most. Holiday, tied for 7th most. White, 3rd least. Porzingis tied for 7th most. Horford tied for 5th most. Strangely only in big tie for 9th most as a team. I guess the bench did less than high.
For Mavs, Doncic had 14th highest scoring on 3rd worst ts%. Irving, tied for 5th lowest scoring on 3rd worst ts%. Lively, 9th highest, Washington 6th highest, Gafford not a real minutes test.
Celtics got a lot of edge (12pts) from last few minutes of 1st and 3rd quarters where they had a starters on the court edge and Luka was not out there.
Mavs 5 most used lineups won by +12 so far, but should have been used more. Rest of lineups lost by about -37. Starters won again but stayed at 11 minutes per game.
Celtics had 2 moderately bad lineups but overall did well.