Now that is a true Laker. He died rather than watch the Celtics win another title.
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KP is, not shockingly, officially out. Guh!
These no energy casters really seem to love low efficiency Kobes. At least this one defends and passes. These are the worst finals I’ve ever seen, I don’t know why I even bother. It’s 5am and I can’t get more booze until 9am. Thank you Nordic “system”.
Refs have missed an absolutely insane amount of calls on Dallas. It’s always Marc Davis.
I did not expect it to be Tillman getting minutes. Kudos to the folks who saw that, including Mazzulla. Those 11 mins were worth the two 2nds Stevens traded.
I was saying to my kid - “didn’t the referee blow his whistle?” on that Tatum transition dunk where PJ Washington clearly hit his arm.
And he did! This clip has audio, watch the ref in the bottom left corner. He calls the foul! And then they play on.
My biggest annoyance as a mavs fan w these finals are other mavs fans who are insanely attacking and blaming luka for everything like he is not the main reason they are in the finals. Kyrie disappeared for two games, the role players and bench players all got an audition in game three as Kidd played eleven guys and we get a momentum killing timeout (not sure momentum is real but anyways), luka is the reason they are getting crushed because he complains too much. I understand impartial fans not liking watching luka complaining but that is different from mavs fans BLAMING luka for getting steam rolled in the finals. We can even step down to Luka’s defense which fluctuates between awful and okay. You replace luka with the best perimeter defender in the league and the mavs lose every game by thirty points.
All that being said Luka fouling out was not good but he has only ever fouled out twice and his final foul was a defensive effort foul, that I can’t blame him for. He did have a dumb foul earlier where he got locked up with a Celtic and they called it on him.
Anyways rant almost over. I am a luka fan boy and I believe no other nba player gets the mavericks to the finals, that includes jokic, Giannis and anyone else you want to name.
Luka’s gonna get the Tatum treatment until he wins it. It’s honestly easier on young stars if they don’t make the finals. Once they do, the past failures aren’t ever forgotten. And the successes - like how Doncic played against OKC/MIN, or Tatum’s massive games in huge spots against Milwaukee and Philly aren’t remembered.
This series has basically been a draw +/- when Luka is on the floor, it’s not some blowout. I think he’s -4.
I was in Fenway park for Game 4 of the Yankees series in 2004, someone will do it in the NBA eventually and I will live in fear that it’ll be the Celtics on the wrong end of it unless they close this thing out.
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Beating OKC and Minnesota in a combined 11 games is nasty, nasty work. They both won 56+ games and were healthy! If anyone wants to deep dive Pro Basketball Reference, that may never have been done before in that few games.
Luka got them to the finals, but I sincerely believe this outcome is the ceiling for a team built around a heliocentric offensive superstar who is a shit defender. Luka could never play within the Celtics system on either side of the ball.
People might think Luka is young so of course he’s going to be back, but I think this might end up being his only trip to the finals.
if there’s ever going to be a 3-0 comeback in the nba its going to be a 1 seed coming back against a much lower seed like celtics-heat last year, not a 5 coming back vs a 1
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Celtics could sit Tatum and Brown for the rest of the series and they’d still win at least one more game.
Hush!
8 v 1 seed is most likely to be what gives us a 3-0 comeback, of course, but this series has been relatively close two out of three games, and the Celtics are already down 1 starter (I assume the KP stuff is for show and he’s done for the year).
I watched Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent turn into Klay and Steph last season. I watched a season where both Gordon Hayward and Kyrie went out for the year. I saw the Celtics lose a championship because KG got hurt, then Perk tore his ACL up 3-2 in next year’s finals. Two key young guys for this franchise literally died. Jeff Green was acquired to help defend Lebron, he had a hole in his heart and the next playoffs, Mikael Pietrus was the big body who replaced him. Celtics battle back to fo rce game 7 last year and Tatum turns his ankle 30 seconds in. Robert Williams whole career 
D Wade’s criminal acts injuring Rondo.
Team has had great luck this year, so far. I assume nothing.
(I realize nearly every team can put together a list like that)
It’s going to be Giannis with a season ending injury while Doc coaches
Dallas can do this three more times. Cs look real small without KP, miss the rim protection.
That game was enjoyable for me. 
. Was a little surprised Boston emptied the bench in the third quarter even if it was the right thing to do.
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Some insane facts from this game:
• The Celtics led 11-10 with 6:36 left in the first quarter. They got outscored 40-15 over the next 13+ minutes.
• The Mavericks reached the 70-point mark with 9:39 left in the 3rd quarter. The Celtics didn’t reach it until the 5:36 mark of the 4th.
• The Celtics had more turnovers in the 2nd quarter than they had made field goals.
• The Mavs had a 10-0, 18-1 and 11-0 run within a span of 12 minutes in the first half.
• In the 2nd half, the Mavs had a 12-3, 8-0 and a 15-0 run. Meaning they had six different runs in this game, where they outscored the Celtics by a total of 73-4.
• In a game where the Mavs led by 48 points, Luka and Kyrie combined to shoot 1/14 from 3.
• Jaylen Brown, potential Finals MVP, made his final field goal of the game with 9:01 left in the 2nd quarter.
• From the 1:56 mark of the 1st quarter to the 9:23 mark of the 3rd quarter, the Celtics made zero 2 pointers.
• With 2:21 left in the 3rd quarter, the Mavericks had as many points in the paint (52) as the Celtics entire point total for the game.
• In a 96-second span, in the 4th quarter, Tim Hardaway Jr. had 12 points. He had twice as many points in that span than the Celtics did in the first 5 minutes of the quarter.
• Jrue Holiday finished -38 for the game. The worst in NBA Finals history.
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The Celtics seem to lay one massive playoff egg per month. They have now lost by 2x digits in the playoffs 3 straight months in a row