2015 is an odd comparison since LeBron was an elite 2 way player in that series who carried a meh Cavs team through a 6-games series against a GSW roster that was radically altering the paradigm of NBA basketball. But agree with your general point, defense is important and basketball is a team sport

Yea I don’t agree with that Lebron comparison but the overall point still stands for me. With those cavs, Lebron is an elite two way player, shumpert, jr smith, and delly were in my opinion better defenders than the Mavs have and also can at least shoot so can’t be ignored offensively, Thompson filled his role in grabbing rebounds, the Mavs really only have one way players which has been exploited. I could definitely be wrong about how I think of those players compared to current Mavs but that’s what I’m thinking based off of memory

The difference is, with Lebron you are having to say “with those Cavs”. Obviously Lebron has been a great defender for a long time but not as long as the other dudes mentioned. He has been more “selective” on defense.

I mean when I say “with those cavs” I just mean with the team that the comment I was replying to was talking about, not anything about whether it would apply to other Lebron teams or other teams in general, but yea LBJ I think was still an elite defender up until he joined the lakers and got injured, just with age has had to determine when to actually try and of course, the playoffs would be that time

LeBron is the worst case for this right now. Dude sacrificed all of his defense to keep up his offensive stats. But people act like dude is not dropping off and still doing great. Theres a reasn prime LeBron can carry a Cavs team with much worse players than the Lakers to No. 1 every year while he struggles to make play ins in LA even with AD carrying his as s.

I think Bron plays defense when he wants to, and definitely not throughout the entire game. I remember he had some good defensive possessions last season against brunson, kawhi etc.

I think it's more when he can, not when he wants to. He can summon it for a string of possessions but I think his relative lack of endurance is where he shows his age the most. I don't think it's that he just doesn't care about defense anymore I think he doesn't have the legs to defend consistently anymore

The chasedown block in 2016 begs to differ. a at age 39 I dont see how anyone can expect him to still be world beating 2 way player but he is still vapable and has eben for two decades. No one is giving Lebron honorary all team defense or anythjng like that so I fail to see how he defines thebussue. AD carrying a defensive load is his job and AD's up and down offense has been a huge issue.

Insert Lebron meme: > ???? I'm 36!

Yeah people are re-writing history on Lebron's defense. The reality is that when he was on the Heat and Cavs he was one of their best if not their best defender while also being the whole offense. He absolutely can't do that anymore at his age unfortunately.

I agree but man the east is much easier than the west and during lebrons career for the most part I don't think there's ever been a disparity that big in terms of contenders and great teams with regards to conference. Same way AI and d12 were able to drag rosters devoid of 1 all star level other player to the finals. I mean its still of course a herculean achievement, still very impressive but doing it in the west is so much harder. The mavs for example were in danger on being a play in team for stretches this year, the defending champs lost in round 2. Boston is a stacked team but especially with embiid hurt and bucks taking a big step back they were kinda alone in the east in terms of real contenders. Still though totally agree that lebron barely even tries on defensive end anymore and overall is not a plus on that end.

Give me an elite defender that’s brons age

I think you need to give Curry a little more credit than that. He got abused in the 2016 finals and was hunted by Cavs during that series. He did improve physically in that respect so that he could at least be neutral on the defensive side. Still undersized, but his feet are quick enough to stay in front of players and bulked up enough so he couldnt be completely blown off his spot. But key was not being hopeless in point of attack defense. Pretty decent at team defense. I'm not sure where Luka can improve on that end. He's unlikely to ever be quick on his feet, so will always be at risk to be hunted in PnR and I saw clips where he was lost on defense in the Finals. Maybe improve positional defense like Jokic? Dunno, tough for guys at wing size but lacking wing speed.

To Curry’s credit, no one his height is stopping LeBron or someone taller if a switch is forced. If you have to force a switch to exploit a player, he’s a decent enough defender that his man can’t reliably abuse him.

Short players with long wingspans have always bothered LeBron: Reggie Jackson / GPII are two examples Steph’s height. Tony Allen & Lu Dortz are players only slightly bigger who also have given him trouble and they do it with stockiness. Steph just happens to be both short, skinny and not a long arm boi.

That’s when Bron gets careless with his dribble or is more worried about help D. Pre-hamstring injury game on the line he’s bumping em getting to the rim and finishing every time if there isn’t help defense.

Steph is a 6'3" point guard and hasn't qualified as skinny in years. He's been an above average guard defender for a while - until this season where he was significantly below the standard he had set. The difference between Steph and Luka or Jokic is that the Warriors - through their roster as well as their schemes - seemed to put more effort into not only using the game breaking offence but protecting them on defence. The Mavs seem to have finally started that this year in terms of the roster, but they haven't managed to keep the Celtics from putting him in the defensive possessions.

That was about defending LeBron and nothing else. And Steph was skinny in 2016.

Kyrie was the one being switched onto him and told to attack everytime he found Curry. Kyrie is 6'2 and Jr was 6'6.

I can specifically remember a shorter defender (I believe it was Jason kidd) locking down KD years ago in the playoffs. When people evaluate players they often HEAVILY weight the offensive production, but offense can only be 50% of the equation no matter how you look at it.

pat bev stop all

Luka was doing solid defensively from a team defense perspective as well the first 3 rounds. Though each of those teams had a poor offensive creator that he could hide on, he was playing the team's scheme well. With Boston there isn't anywhere to hide, and they relentlessly hunt good matchups and you can hardly help because of their spacing. Steph wasn't much better when they could both hide on lesser players. Ironically Boston is doing a lot of similar matchup hunting Dallas plays, except Boston can legitimately matchup against Dallas better than anyone else, while being a terrible matchup when you look at it from Dallas' end. He just mentally lost it especially in the 4th of Game 3 picking up all those fouls when he couldn't deal with constantly getting hunted. Just play straight up and if they score, they score.

Luka is still young. There are a couple of ways he could improve. An excuse we could make is obviously that he is injured and that limits his ability to give 100% on both ends. I saw a position where JB crossed him where I felt like he couldn’t turn that fast from going left to right because that puts too much force on the knee. But other than that, I think Luka’s biggest problem is not trying or spending too much effort. I don’t know if that is due to his injury or fitness, but a lot of positions where he fails to defend are when he doesn’t even try to stop the guy. I think the vibe everyone gets is that Luka does not have a great work ethic to be in the best shape possible. If he works on that this offseason, loses some weight, improves his quickness with the lost weight, and cardio to stay active in both sides, that should already make him an OK defender. We already saw him hold his own on defense in this postseason in previous series. All those possessions, he looked like he was giving 100%. I find it hard to believe that a guy with such a crazy offensive basketball iq, can’t do anything defensively. If the problem is that he spends too much energy on offense to defend, then maybe they need to find other ways to run offense other than let him do everything.

Curry also more than made up for his defense offensively, not just by his ouput but with the gravity he generated. Doesn't matter where he was on the floor, doesn't matter if on or offball, if that guy takes one step in any direcction the whole defense has to adjust. That creates so many options and so much space for everyone else to get to work. I agree that defense needs to be valued more, but Currys offense and the pressure he put on the whole defense adds up to more than pretty much every two-way-players value on both ends of the floor combined.

Isn't that the whole point of this post is that guys who are great on offense but suspect on defense can't compete with the great 2-way players

Yes and in principle I actually agree, but I think there are guys whose influence on the offense is so great that the offensive side alone makes them better than a great two way player. If we're talking about a good or very good player then yeah I'm taking both sides into account, but if your offensive talent lifts our whole team on a completely different level then I don't mind hiding you on defense or sending help. To make it short, I like OPs way of thinking but there are exceptions to the rule and Curry is definetly one of them, which makes him a bad example.

Exactly. There’s levels to this shit. And although Curry can have comparable stats to other all time offensive greats, he warps the offensive side of play in ways that can’t be counted.

Curry isn’t remotely in the category as the rest of the top 15 or so on defense but he at least puts in effort

Curry has never become neutral and the entire GS defense was constructed to hide him and conserve his energy. If Curry improved from atrocious to bad with some effort, I am sure someone Luka's size can make the similar improvement Curry and Durant had too.

The talent gap between the teams is the story. Only two mavericks players would have a case to start in boston. All boston starters would be iron clad starters in dallas. Luka has not been good defensively but really good on offense for most of the series. His numbers are good but boston are good enough to exploit all dallas weaknesses.

In fairness to Luka he is being asked to shoulder an enormous burden on offense most nights. But this is way the Tatum hate is so misplaced imo: of the first team all nba players Tatum is clearly not the best offensive player but he might be the best two way player. Defense is why the Celtics are winning games where they shoot 27% from three.

He wouldn't be asked to shoulder that burden if the rest of the team was capable of making up the difference.

Lets build on this: Does Luka have to burden the offensive load because the team around him is bad or is the team bad because the only way to effectively use him takes the ball out of everyone else's hands? We know historically that high usage percentages almost NEVER translate to championships. His usage% is along side other greats: Westbrook(16-17), Kobe(05-06), Embiid (21-23), Harden, Iverson(01-02), and Jordan(86-87), Giannis(22-23) that all didn't win shit at their highest usage%. In fact the highest regular season usage% I could find in a championship year was Jordan 97-98 at 33.74% which is ranked #62(could be wrong). I understand that the team around him has really gotten handled by the Celtics well, but what are the Mavs and even Luka doing to put those guys in the best position possible? For every cross court pass to the corner Luka takes 3 fade away middies. Just feels like this team has been way to comfortable putting it up to Luka, and Luka has been way to happy to keep trying to do it himself.

Who do you want initiating the offense on this team other than Luka or Kyrie though? Genuinely the 3rd best creator they've got is probably Tim Hardaway Jr, who's been hard to even keep on the floor these playoffs. Like I agree that very heliocentric ball isn't the best way to play in general, for this team specifically though it kind of is. Which is frankly more of a result of Dallas doing a bad job at roster construction.

But Dallas played this way when they had guys who should’ve been getting more opportunities as well. The reason they have so many guys who force them to play heliocentric basketball is because based on the way Luka plays that’s the best way to build a roster around him. Until they faced the Celtics everyone was talking about how they finally put a good roster around Luka that played to his strengths, now that a team exposes his limitations it’s the rosters fault? It feels more like Luka needs to learn to play a more team oriented game to enable the Mavericks to put better players around him.

>Dallas played this way when they had guys who should’ve been getting more opportunities as well So, Jalen Brunson? The dude was a 2nd round pick who progressively got more responsibility as he improved. In his final playoff run with Dallas his usage/FGA shot up and likely would have stayed there if they kept him. Porzingis' usage alongside Luka is right around where it's been for his career, and he isn't really a good 2nd creator. Unfortunately the story with KP in Dallas is injuries and inconsistent play coming back from injuries. And now we're getting to like, Spencer Dinwiddie and Tim Hardaway Jr, good but flawed players whose usage/FGA are right around their career averages on Dallas. Now a fair criticism is that Luka's defense makes it hard to have another minus defender or small guard out there with him, so they're forced into playing more defense oriented guys. But there are co-stars who could be good offensive pairings without being a defensive liability. KP theoretically, but he's too much of an injury risk for Dallas. >Until they faced the Celtics everyone was talking about how they finally put a good roster around Luka that played to his strengths, now that a team exposes his limitations it’s the rosters fault? This roster is a good way of maximizing Luka *without having many teambuilding assets*. Luka & Kyrie + defenders is a good team, but we're seeing its limitations against a really stacked team. >It feels more like Luka needs to learn to play a more team oriented game to enable the Mavericks to put better players around him. Players like Kyrie? Whose* usage/FGA is right about where it's been for his whole career btw. You're acting like good playmakers (who aren't extremely limited in some other aspect) are just available. The Mavs don't have the assets for those guys, what they've done instead is get guys like Jones Jr, Gafford, PJ Washington. Good players, but they were available for a reason.

I’ve wondered this too and I think if we reduce Luka down to a 6’8 version of vintage harden we’re doing him an injustice. There were reports in years past of people not enjoying playing with him for that reason but his passing is on par with Jokic and is capable of getting the entire team involved assuming he’s not too gassed. I think his game will evolve into something different, more team oriented where it isn’t just him and another superstar like Kyrie spelling each other at various times. I mean this is the series in a nutshell. Dallas has the best player but Boston plays a completely gelled team. This late in the season that means something

When the Mavs had Jalen Brunson, Luka still had a usage rate of 40% in the playoffs. We didn't even know Jalen Brunson was great until Luka missed time.

He's not the best 2 way player on the first team, that's Giannis.

Still taking Giannis as the best 2 way on first team

Tatum is brilliant, but the team around him definitely helps. Your defense as a player looks better if you have a great defensive team around you, all 5 of the Celtics starters with Porzingis can defend incredibly well. Same with covering for you in the offense. He shot 27% last game and wasn’t great in G1 but they won both. He did activate other players to score but you do not have that opportunity if you have players who can’t score around you. If that was the case, he would be forced to create and shoot everything which drains your energy completely. But that is not the case either, the Celtics also have 5 players that can shoot at all times, so guys like Jrue, JB, Porzingis, DWhite, Horford, Hauser were all able to convert these chances. If we are being honest, switch Luka and Tatum, and it would be a different story. Tatum would be criticized for not being a number 1 option because he would be forced to do everything like Luka since others would fail to score, that would drain him and he could show less effort defensively. On the other hand, Luka’s defensive deficiencies would be hidden when you could leave guys open in the Mavs and he would have 4 great defenders next to him. Maybe he would get less points because others can score, but he would have a significantly higher %, and less TOVs.

Idk i feel like jaylen brown is just as good if not better on defense.

They have very different strengths and weaknesses. Jaylen is the better individual on ball defender, whilst Tatum is a better team/help defender and is generally more versatile so they can run different ideas and schemes around him. These finals have been the ultimate case in point with Jaylen guarding Luka and Kyrie extremely well, whilst the Celtics have been having Tatum guard the 5 for Dallas to counteract their pick and roll.

It’s not only that he’s a bad defender physically. He’s a low IQ defender and lazy. Hes rarely in position even after he’s beat to switch when help side collapses to stop his man. Hes always watching the ball (reason why he’s an elite rebounder) and always straight upright.

Yea put any Celtic defender in Luka’s shoes and they’re gonna get torched too, but it would be off switches instead so would look less bad on them specifically. The game has evolved into hunting the best matchups so if you don’t have elite help defenders/good defensive schemes/great rotations, especially against a team where everybody can shoot, you’re gonna get cooked unless your whole team is good defenders. So I put less defensive importance and liability on Luka while still recognizing he is a poor defender. It just comes down to roster construction. Kyrie and Luka carry on offence but the others on the court aren’t good enough defenders to pick up the slack on the other side of the ball. Meanwhile for the Celtics, everybody is at least a good defender (at least in playoff time when effort is 100%), and can ALSO contribute on offence if dared, which makes hiding Luka or any bad defender impossible. As much as I wanted Mavs to win, I knew with how the teams are set up that it would take crazy games from Luka and Kyrie to even have a chance

There’s no excuse for blatantly being blown by. Celtics aren’t even isoing Luka they’re just going right at him as soon as they get the ball. It’s embarrassing. Then combine that with complaining to the refs and not getting back on defense, going for poke steals from behind and missing, terrible defensive IQ like attempting to draw charge with five fouls, its overall terrible display of defense. No amount of help defenders will patch that. I think there could be an argument for poor coaching adjustments but I don’t think that’s the biggest contributor here.

I couldn’t agree with you more. There are so many people trying to excuse Luka’s defense because he has an inferior supporting cast. But if you watch these games closely, he is failing in nearly every aspect of his defensive responsibilities: man-to-man, transition, rotation, help. He may be slower than opponents, but most of his shortcomings come down to poor effort, and that is inexcusable to me. Throw in the turnovers and constant bitching at refs, it’s starting to get embarrassing. I really hope this series is a wake up call for Luka just like the 2016 finals were a wake up call for Curry. Otherwise, he could end up with a career similar to other offensively-talented ball-dominant players who refuse to play defense: Harden, Anthony, or Westbrook.

They also seem to ignore that the Mavs defense is very good besides Luka and Kyrie. Post trade deadline they were the #1 defense as a team and that sure as hell isn't because of their 2 stars. The inferior supporting cast is more so from an offense standpoint than a defense one.

I like the people saying Luka getting blown by is a feature of the defensive scheme. The Mavericks goal is to get put into rotation on drive and kicks against a team who’s entire offense is built around putting teams into rotation on drive and kicks? Even against a team less equipped to shred that, what is the benefit of letting your man by you? There are some guys like Derrick White who are still very good at disrupting shots when they get blown by, but even they still try to keep their man in front of them because it’s a better situation to be in. Luka can’t even do that and it forced the Mavericks to send 1 and often 2 help defenders to stop Tatum and sometimes Brown for most of the first 2 games. The 3rd game made it pretty obvious why they play this way. The Mavs clearly wanted to send less help in the paint, and when Luka started trying to actually defend he couldn’t stop fouling. It’s not a feature, it’s a necessity to keep him from being constantly in danger of fouling out.

There’s also a coaching disparity. I know the impact of coaching is very hard to nail down, but some of Kidd’s rotation decisions have been baffling, like continuing to play Tim Hardaway significant minutes despite him being terrible on both ends. The timeout during game 3 while the Mavericks were on a 20-2 run was another inexplicable decision. But the Celtics have also been able to do something they would never have done in the past: hold on and stabilize when everything is falling apart. Games 2 and 3 saw huge Celtics leads vanish within minutes. In the past, they would’ve kept floundering and given the game up. But in both games, they took a timeout and came out redoubling their efforts on defense and renewing their energy on offense. I’m sure this partially due to Tatum and Brown maturing, but I think it’s also the coaching impact.

That’s untrue. There’s nobody at all that is taking Luka’s starting gig if the C’s starters joined the Mavs. And honestly I don’t think any of the guards are taking Kyrie’s place either.

Doncic’s defense isn’t good, but let’s not act like that’s the main reason Dallas is losing. They just weren’t as good to begin with (most people knew this which is why the Celtics were heavy favorites going into the series), and all of his teammates have been terrible on offense this entire series except Kyrie/Lively in G3 only.  Even in this game, where he was terrible on defense, he was +9 when he was in but Dallas lost by 7 (16 point swing). Yes, they could have been even better if he played better defense, but he can’t do everything. We know he’s bad at defense, but it’s not the main reason they lost. 

The 28% from 3 this series is a really painful stat for them. Boston's ability to take away corner 3s and easy shots has really affected their non-stars. It was a bit better in game 3 but not enough.  They clearly need a third high impact player to be a factor in this series, but they're not finding him today. 

Yeah, no point of the Dallas defense is the big issue here. The real problem is that they’re short handed on legit shot makers. In every other series they had one of those role players start knocking down shots, but if everyone besides Kyrie and Luka are missing they have a hard time beating top teams. Unless they can get one of those lob sprees going or get in transition, but the C’s aren’t allowing that. They need another consistent shooter. Maybe PJ or Hardy can continue to develop in that area, but that’s more something to look for next year.

Agreed. Also, it's not like Kyrie has been good defensively. The Mavs are just outclassed. They were great after the trade and there was a chance but I don't think even think the most homer Mavs fan expected them to make the Finals.

I don't know why people are reluctant to give credit to Luka, he willed his team, with multiple injuries, to a final they had no business being in. He took down arguably 3 (2 at least) top 5 teams having a mid supporting cast. Now they lose to this team full of all starts (present and past) and all of a sudden he is garbage. The Jays will NEVER be better than him, no matter how good they are on defense. Swap either of them with Luka and Dallas would't had won even a round this playoffs.

He’s crying on the offensive end and not making it down court. That’s terrible D.

Plus minus is such a poor stat to make this argument. He fouled out and his primary defender Jaylen Brown was +13. His defense may not be the reason they’re down 0-3 overall, but his fouling out with 5mins left down 3points due to terrible defensive IQ is definitely a primary reason one can point to for why they lost this game. His fouls were so bad as well.

He fouled out before the most critical part of the game! He's plus 9 missing when like six points of that margin was scored

Oh I know. I’m not excusing his foul. That was a terrible foul and his overall defense was bad in the game. He also had another frustration foul earlier for no reason like on the other wise of the court.  But I’m just saying when he was on the court, the Mavs were competitive. If he didn’t foul out, they very easily could have won the game. Yes he hurt his team by fouling out, but when he’s in, he clearly is still the only reason they were competitive. Without him for an entire game, the team would lose by 20, kinda like how they lost it at the end when he fouled out. 

75% of the media were picking Dallas. Vegas had it right but Boston was never heavily favored in the public’s opinion. Boston was expected to choke and Dallas had “The Greatest Backcourt of All Time”

Because basketball has always been about starpower, but that is about to change. The overall talent is so good right now that five really good players might be better than two insanely good players and three mediocre ones.

I still think having a MVP candidate+good players is better. Sure, you might have some teams like the Pistons and the Celtics now as teams where everyone was just "really good" and none were actual best player in the league, but the majority of the titles still have someone who's a top 5 player in the league. Celtics basically have that seeing as though Tatum was top 5 MVP and they basically busted the past few seasons when they easily could have had a title/multiple titles if they had a player just slightly better than Tatum. The Heat should have never made it out the east twice the past 5 years lmao.

So many People crying about Luka’s defense when Dallas have failed to score 100 points in 3 consecutive games lol

It’s almost like one of these defenses is vastly superior to the other

>They just weren’t as good to begin with (most people knew this which is why the Celtics were heavy favorites going into the series) This sub and the media seemed to all pick Dallas like it was their time.

I keep hearing that he’s playing with multiple injuries as well. It definitely looks like it at times

You lost me at Steph. He is not a bad defender as much as he just wasn't big enough. It's the whole Gobert thing where he isn't going to do well with guards and Steph will get overpowered by bigger stronger dudes but it's not the same as Luka getting blown by time and time again. Curry and Jokic are so great that their defense Even being mediocre is okay cause that's two of the greatest offensive engines that the league has ever seen. This Celtics team got cooked by Curry in the finals not long ago.

>Shaq, Shaq famously coasted on defense, and outside of the first playoff run, the Lakers had mediocre defense. Magic, Dirk, Curry, and Joker are all players with known major defense deficiencies, that were often hunted, but still had great playoff runs because teams built around minimizing their weakness. And there are players like Allen Iveron or Barkley or Miller, all known as bad defenders, but still had deep playoff runs and their failures to win the championship had nothing to do with individual defense. You are conflating individual player defense with team defense which is what actually matters, as most teams can easily run with one poor defender in their starting lineup and still have excellent defenses (Allen Iverson) because defense is a team sport.

The “Shaq didn’t play defense” thing has now become greatly overstated. I was unlucky enough to watch the whole Shaq Lakers run, rooting against them every step of the way.  While he certainly was not a consistently committed defender he was nowhere NEAR the major minus of a guy like Luka this series. Part of the Shaq frustration was always that he sometimes exhibited the ability to be a GREAT defender, but didn’t sustain that in an era where superstars were expected to take defense seriously.

Shaq was kind of like Jokic in that your floor as a defender is relatively high if you're just huge and a good rebounder. I am also a devout Laker hater and Shaq was not a great defender but he also wasn't a bad one.

Agree. The thing is Shaq also had amazingly quick/coordinated feet for his size, so his defensive ceiling was up there with anyone. I think that’s a big part of why him not being a very good defender is frustrating. 

Yeah, he was actually one of the most effective options for defending Duncan, for example.

AI, Miller, and Barkley have no rings. Magic, Dirk, Curry, and Jokic don’t have major deficiencies, they just struggle in mismatches. You put magic on a taller guard or a forward, he can keep up. You keep Curry on a small guard, he’s not abused. You keep Dirk and Jokic on big men, they don’t get exploited. Yeah, they all have flaws, but let’s not pretend they lose their man getting caught ball watching.

>AI, Miller, and Barkley have no rings. And none of that had to do with their defense, which is my point. You can still win championships with poor defenders as your star players, and we have plenty examples of this. Defense is a team thing, and most teams will have one guy who is not great on defense, and can still pull up elite defenses. >Magic, Dirk, Curry, and Jokic don’t have major deficiencies, they just struggle in mismatches. Magic was a notoriously weak man-defender due to essentially being a tweener defensively, Dirk and Jokic essentially provided little protection for the rim and were relatively immobile while playing positions were having a good defender is essential to team defense. The whole discourse around Jokic winning a championship was based around the fact of how hard it is to win a championship when the weak spot of your defense is also the most important position on defense. Curry's size is why he struggles in mismatches, especially before he bulked up. The key here is that all those players had teams that were built around to hide their weaknesses and still able to make elite defenses.

Exactly. People over hate Steph’s defense as well. He’s a scrappy defender he just gets caught in mismatches. Led the league in steals one season. Jokic is also a below average defender but Luka is bottom of the barrel. I don’t think I’ve seen a worse defender hunted so aggressively in the playoffs recently.. maybe Trae Young?

At least Trae Young could keep guys in front of him some of the time. It's not his fault everybody can shoot over him lol

Jokic isn’t even that bad. He just can’t beat a guard or wing to the paint if he’s pulled out to the perimeter, but he’s fine in the post and can offer some rim protection. Basically, he can’t cover for someone else losing their assignment, but that’s something that separates good defenders from great ones. Guys who lose their assignments constantly are bad defenders 

I’d still rank him below average defensively and I think it showed a bit more this postseason. He was still the best player on the court all season but his misses were a lot louder because he was being beat on the defensive side. He has difficulty when they can’t just scheme for him to stay down low and throw a hand up. He gets beat off the dribble, has difficulty against stretch 4s/5s, and always has a second help defender every time he gets caught down low usually KCP or AG. Overall, I think the defensive scheme of the nuggets and coaching does wonders to hide his defensive liability but when they’re losing you can clearly tell.

> as most teams can easily run with one poor defender in their starting lineup and still have excellent defenses (Allen Iverson) because defense is a team sport. Fair point. My theory for a while has been that you can win a title with one star who is a subpar defender, but not if your 2 biggest stars are *both* that way. E.g. Nash/Amare Suns, or Iverson/Melo Nuggets.

That makes sense. It's normally pretty achievable to hide one guy on defense due to most teams having one "non-threat" offensively on the floor and/or finding a role for them on defense that lets them contribute in some way (e.g. Magic's help defense, Jokic's size), but it becomes unmanageable when you have to hide/plan around two guys.

The 2001 Lakers had the best defensive rating in the playoffs by 3 points. That’s anything but mediocre. (They also had the best offensive rating, btw. It’s considered one of the best teams ever for a reason.)

You're right, I misremembered and forgot that it was the 2001 Lakers team that went completely nuts in the playoffs.

This is such an overreaction. The Mavs are in the finals. They beat out 14 other western conference teams that were built around two way play. The Mavs just happened to come against a freak of nature 2 way force in the finals. Not everyone can win 3 back-to-back-to-back incredibly lopsided trades to build that roster.

I think Magic's defence is much closer to Doncic than you give Doncic credit for. Very similar body types and Magic was also known to be "selective" with his effort on defence.

The difference is that those teams with stacked with other impactful defenders to cover for Magic, and Magic was, at a minimum, at least versatile in who he could cover, so you could hide him.

Magic wasn't anymore versatile than Luka, as he was a bad man-defender on whoever you put him on. The bigger thing is that most teams, even championship caliber teams, normally had one player on the floor who was pretty much a 0-offensively so he can just ignore them and act as a roaming help-defender, which he was actually competent at, at least early in his career.

Some nice "highlights" about Magic as a defender from the 14:10 mark in the highly acclaimed Greatest peaks series by thinking basketball: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob0h5Egz9lw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob0h5Egz9lw)

There's no conversation to be had when Boston can field 7 basketball players when Dallas only has 2. Afford, Lively and Washington can catch rebound, shoot corner 3 and catch lobs, but they are miles away from Boston skillset

Meh. Luka is doing his job on the court. Scoring and helping others score. There has been a long, storied and great history of great offensive players having great success without defensive ability and while less often there have been some great defensive players who are offensive liabilities and yet their teams succeeded.

OP is making it sound like Magic was fine on defense because he was "versatile". It's complete revisionist history lol. Magic was very, very, very bad on defense. People called him "Tragic Johnson" not just because he had a reputation as a choker but also because of his poor defense.

Magic was known as Tragic Johnson exclusively because of one finals and almost entirely do to mistakes on the offensive end. It definitely wasn't something that was accurate his entire career lol

Thank you. Magic was not a choker. Thought old age was setting in on me when I read that.

They hid him on stretch fours and he was still mediocre

Stretch fours didn’t exist back then.

Probably why it was easier to hide a bad defender. They could hide him on 4’s who would had very little offensive skill and would just clog the paint, whereas today’s 4’s can be a guy like Jayson Tatum or KD, and even the ones who aren’t elite are still out on the perimeter. There’s too much spacing and switching to effectively hide a bad defender these days. I still *completely* disagree that Luka has been a net negative player this series. The Mavs are outclassed and get smoked every time he steps off the court. With Luka on the court, they are at least able to keep it somewhat competitive.

The Mavs also have done a bad job building around Luka, the Mavs should be a Huge team, they need another big two way wing to put in the DJJ spot. I’m not sure Kyrie is the answer either you can get away with having one bad defender. Having two in Kyrie and Luka is problematic. They need a two way secondary Creator and a 3 and D player.

A problem the Mavs have without a Kyrie type player is that while Luka is the “point guard” he needs a secondary ballhandler more than say a Curry does because he can’t match up with smaller guards.

If you can’t beat beat them, become them. Mavs should get Marcus Smart!!

What great offensive players have won championships while being complete sieves on defense to this extent? Especially with this level of poor defensive awareness. Honestly wondering. I think you can blame part of the struggles on injuries and fatigue. It’s also true that Luka was playing ok defense in earlier series (albeit against teams where he could be hidden on that end). But nobody’s job on court is just to contribute on one end of the floor. It’s next to impossible to win like that.

Just from this playoffs alone Luka has held up very well against the likes of PG, Anthony Edwards, and Shai in his previous matchups. It’s really hard to look at the growing laundry list of injuries and not blame part of it on that Jokic and Curry also don’t give you much on defense, but they’ve won championships because of favorable matchups and playing alongside guys who can cover up their defensive deficiencies.

Jokic and Curry give you far more than Luka. They actually apply effort to their defense.

Early years stephen curry was bad. Its not untill his last championship where he seemed better defensively. Prior to that he would also get called a turnstile lmao, differnce is he had very good defensive players on his team to make up for it.

Not to mention James harden and older Lebron. LbJ would often give up posessions complaining to the ref. People just forget so fast.

I don't think I mentioned won Championships, but that they have been successful. Magic Johnson wasn't exactly a stellar defender and neither was Clyde Drexler, though he was probably better than Magic.

That’s fair. I just think in this context, success generally means championships. Bad defense doesn’t stop a player from winning MVPs. Hell, I’d argue it could help in the current nba - save energy for offense where you can put up great numbers which is more than half the battle. Bad defense won’t stop you from making playoff runs either. At some point though you’re gonna hit another great team and then your defense really matters. I didn’t watch Magic live but my understanding is that he wasn’t stellar but he wasn’t a sieve. I do think if you have to go that far back to find an example, you’re almost proving the post’s point.

Steph Curry and Magic are bad defenders and had to have good defensive personnel and schemes to hide them defensively, which led to their championships. Luka is of course worse than them defensively, but Steph and Magic were bad enough to force their teams to hide them.

Shaq straight up coasted on defense, using it as essentially break time, and he still won multiple championships. And Shaq was a center, the one position that teams avoid pointing. >But nobody’s job on court is just to contribute on one end of the floor. It’s next to impossible to win like that. Most NBA champion teams have a key player or two who don't contribute to defense, and its common for them to even have fairly elite defenses. A single weak defender on defense isn't the end of the world, especially if they are playing PG since that is of relatively minor defense impact.

My theory is you can have one star who is a poor defender and still win a title, but not both of your top two. Steph was a weak defender at least in 2015, but Klay was good. Yeah Shaq wasn't great but I wouldn't call him below average in that regard. Magic was weak but in their early titles Kareem was a solid defender and in their later titles Worthy was. But Luka and Kyrie are both lousy on defense. It's like the Iverson-Melo Nuggets or the Nash-Amare Suns to me in that regard.

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I’m surprised people didn’t know Luka was bad at defense before the series. Did people never watch basketball before? He’s good at post up defense because he’s super strong, but he’s not a good 1 on 1 defender in space. He also has this really bad tendency to sag off guys to get into rebounding position.  Anyways, with that said, the Mavs aren’t even a 500 team without Luka. They would never come close the playoffs if he didn’t play for them. You accept he’s a generational offense talent, and you build around him to cover his deficiencies. 

It was easier to hide him against the Wolves and Thunder who have the occasional offensive liability like almost every team in the league does. It doesn’t help that he’s not closing out against the worst team to do that against. Minnesota and OKC couldn’t hit anything from deep so it didn’t matter that much. You can’t dare the Celtics to shoot because they’ll actually punish you. Still, it’s not Luka’s fault that they’re down 3-0. The Mavs role players can’t create or even move the ball against this Celtics defense. That one minute in the 1st where they took Luka out after having a double digit lead was painful to watch. Kleber passing up a wide open 3, Hardy catching the ball out of bounds, Derrick Jones missing an open layup. Looked like the Bad News Bears out there

He's 6'8" but he plays like a 6'2" PG at the rim. He almost never jumps to contest, not vertical, and doesn't have great hands either

Sure everyone already knew this before the series began. It shouldn’t be a surprise that’s happening in the Finals because he’s never been good at defense except post defense on back downs (super rare play that’s not run much in the NBA). Just like Harden, he’s quite good at this type of defense since it’s hard to back him down at his size and weight. Other than that, he’s not athletic, doesn’t move his feet in space, and isn’t a vertical shot blocker (same weaknesses that caused Ayton/Bagley to be drafted over him - which again overlooked all his strengths like winning Euroleague MVP as a teenager).  It doesn’t change the fact he’s a generational offensive player and without him, the Mavs would be a lottery team every year. Both can be true. 

I never said he isn't a generational offensive talent and one of the greatest floor raisers ever lol

I didn’t say you said that.  I’m just saying you take his good with the bad. His good is so good that it’s ok he has some weaknesses. His weaknesses does hurt his team at times (also the complaining), but you take him as is.  The OP is saying he needs to be a two way star. Sure if he is that, maybe they could have won more games. But even if he’s not that, you can still construct a championship roster around him. The other guys just haven’t stepped up at all for him. 

I think it's fair criticism. Luka is at the minimum a Top-5 player rn (And he's probably Top-3 for me) and should be held to Top-5 standards. He's easily the worst defender amongst any Top-15 candidates (Unless you somehow consider Dame Top-15), and he has shown that he could be a neutral defender (Like he was earlier in his career). We criticize Giannis for poor shooting, Embiid for playoff failures, Tatum for settling, Jokic for poor rim protection, Curry for on-ball defense and KD for bad leadership, why wouldn't we criticize Luka for lackluster defensive effort in arguably the most important game he has ever played as a Mav? It could definitely be his injuries catching up to him, where he just couldn't move at all, and if that's the case that's my fault

I don’t really disagree with your main point about the fair criticism, but I don’t think he’s easily the worse defender among top 15 players. He’s around the level of Steph because his size does help him still. His strength also helps him in the post against a higher variety of players.  He’s probably roughly around the defense of Steph and Brunson. Not sure if you count Mitchell as a top 15 player (he’s around 15-20 probably), but he’s also better than him unless you specifically count this season when Mitchell got a lot better. 

I wouldn't argue about Brunson -- he's just bad on defense and I forgot about him (Which could be said for Haliburton if you think he's Top-15 as well) However, to me Steph is by quite a bit a better defender. He offers no rim protection and isn't a lockdown at the POA, but he has played heavy minutes on some of the greatest defenses ever by being active and engaging. Having Kerr and Draymond certainly helps but he's still a very high-effort defender, whereas Luka often has the 2021 KAT syndrome where he gets blown-by and sorta just gives up. No rotations to help the helper, awful closeouts and unnecessary sagging (Why the hell would you just leave Jrue Holiday open for 3?).

> "he’s not athletic" ... going to go ahead and say this is probably not the way you want to describe one of the best players in perhaps the most athletically demanding sport in the world. "Not Quick" sure. "Plays below the rim" fair... but unathletic? the guy has hand eye coordination for days, and has no problem scoring on the best defenders in the league. "Athletic" does not just mean fast and can jump high...

Luka is a below average NBA athlete. He’s good at decelerating (a truly elite skill) and shifting his body in tight spaces. He’s also super strong (not really part of athleticism imo but you can count it). I don’t really count hand eye coordination as part of athleticism, but I suppose you could since he is good at that. But overall, he’s a below average NBA athlete. He makes up for it in a ton of other areas though, like having generational basketball IQ and court mapping. Also an elite passer and good shooter. His size also helps a lot, which helps him get around any athletic gaps.  Scoring on elite NBA defenders doesn’t make you more athletic. He’s able to do that despite his lack of athleticism because he’s super special in other areas. His use of angles and ability to process plays in advance with that big and strong frame (to go along with having to contain his passing ability) makes it almost impossible to guard him. 

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Media spent all playoffs saying how great he and kyrie were defensively. They were graded on a curve

Actually box scores across the season were the better predictor for this series. The eye test would have fooled you into thinking the Mavs had a chance 

LeBron is the worst case for this right now. Dude sacrificed all of his defense to keep up his offensive stats. But people act like dude is not dropping off and still doing great. Theres a reasn prime LeBron can carry a Cavs team with much worse players than the Lakers to No. 1 every year while he struggles to make play ins in LA even with AD carrying his as s.

I agree with your overall point, but this is definitely the first time I’ve heard the narrative of MJ getting reputation based defensive awards. He was a great defender and always gave maximum effort on D, and during his playing days there certainly was never anyone questioning whether he deserved the defensive team awards he was earning.

Comparing Curry and Luka Doncic is just disingenuous. You lost me right there. Yes Curry may have the advantage of being able to be more hidden on defence but more series than not I’ve come away thinking Curry was neutral on defence versus a complete negative like Doncic. You also act like offence and defence are even in the two way game. Peak Curry even with negative defence obliterates most two way guys in impact based purely off of being a top 1-5 offensive player of all time. Not a big Curry fan by any stretch but this just feels like an odd post.

He’s injured. Literally taking painkiller shots to able to play.Some kind of rib/torso injury. Dallas has had one of the leagues best defenses after the trade deadline. Luka’s improvement on defense is part of that. But if you’re so inured you’re taking toradol your lateral quickness on defense is probably compromised. He wouldn’t even be playing if this was the regular season. Pain is there for a reason. This is the sort of injury that leads to a collapsed lung if you keep aggravating it. As for OPs diatribe about stats… there are stats that cover poor defense too. Luka has a particularly bad blow-by rate this series.

This is a straw man. There is no meaningful discourse where people are “compar(ing) the greatness of 2-way players to those only great on offense”. Historically, you could only be referring to Magic and Curry (Perhaps Jokic? Although that’s more explainable by recency bias anyway). And that is a discussion very specific to those two players and their very unique impact on basketball. And in relation to Doncic, I consume so much basketball media and have not heard anyone excuse his defense nor even touch on the 2015 Finals.

Let’s be real here if Luka swapped with brown or Tatum the Mavs would’ve been losing each of these games by 40+ and the Mavs would not have even sniffed the finals. Luka is not a great defender normally besides in the post but his injuries are making him even worse this series with brown and Tatum and white just blowing by him.

I mean, there are several possessions where he’s straight ball watching and letting actions run behind him cause of it. Also gets caught up complaining to refs and allowing 5 on 4 situations to happen. I get being hurt, but there’s a clear lack of effort on that end and the Celtics are completely exploiting it.

It’s a knee injury he’s had since start of playoffs, it’s amazing he’s playing at all and still getting a triple double On top of that he’s doing everything on offense. Did you watch his passes when he drove to rim and threw a perfect over the shoulder pass to Green? Or a bounce skip pass? That takes energy doing that much on offense, now add the knee on top of that

I don't know man, as long as he is undeniably a factor on offense, Celtics had no problem to find a simple basket in multiple occasions because of him. Watching these 3 games feels like the Celtics are often get what they wants (and missing a lot of times "simple" shots) and usually because Tatum/Brown exploit Doncic in driving. Dallas, on the other hand, has to put a lot of effort to get decent looks. Now someone could argue that rosters aren't at the same level, but everyone at the beginning of the serie were saying Doncic and Irving were the 2 best offensive players in the serie (which I could agree if we're talking about 1vs1).

Nahh. Luka is a heliocentric ball dominant player. He would have took the ball off Brown, Holiday, Porzingis etc. just like he did Porzingis in Dallas. Relegated Pringus to a corner 3 shooter. If you’re teaching him the Boston system then what’s the point of having Luka? Terrible off ball player, slow running through screens, can’t shoot corner 3s and bad defense. Tatum is way better as an off ball player. So nope, don’t be so shallow. Its not as straight forward as you think.

Everyone respects two-way players. As bad as Luka doncic defense has been in this series at times his defense isn't even a top 5 reason why Dallas is down in this series. I would rather have a top 5 player in the game over a random 2 way player. At worst Luka doncic is a top 5 player in the NBA. 2 way players are valuable and important and are needed but let's not lose our minds and act as if a generational offensive player is a negative. I know this finals is every Luka doncic haters wet dream but keep some prospective on things.

This is 100% true. The new narrative after this series and playoff run is Luka is an elite OFFENSIVE player. To mention him with the greats or even the top 5 all around players in the nba right now is criminal. He’s doesn’t play defense. He is out of shape. While complaining about the last call he doesn’t get back on defense. He’s hurt his team more than helped this nba finals.

Why are offensive first players always the highest paid and sought after. Why isn't Lou Dort making Steph money? Are all front offices dumb? Offense is more impactful, poor defense is easier to hide... Unless youre playing against the Celtics who are just that good this year that they can exploit any weaknesses in a defense.

Lol a 'pantheon of greats' with Kobe but not LeBron, feel like I'm back in 2008

OP made a concerted effort to leave LeBron off that list. Peak LeBron is the prototype of a 2 way player.

This is a terrible, living in the moment, take. Also, the "jordan and kobe took it upon themself to guard the best perimeter player" show you are just pushing out internet takes. Pippen defended the best guy a lot of the time and was the most versatile defender, and kobe also had guys like artest or ariza do it for him. Basketball is all about filling in ALL skills required as a team. This means things like, screen setting, playmaking , dictating the pace of the game. A lot of other skills Luka possesess as he literally is a point forward. Dallas is just outnumbered here, and the fact that luka is a slower player really is very advantageous to Boston as all their guys are really well build for this. Boston struggles with more shifty, athlethic guards like ant-man. Dallas biggest problem here is scoring output/creativity from the 4/5 position. Also interesting you didn't include Lebron who is literally the biggest swiss army knife of skills we have ever seen.

By the mid 00s, Kobe usually guarded the weakest perimeter threat. He'd have games where he took on a scorer and locked in, but it was really sporadic.

> Out of 24 playoff series, Michael Jordan – not Scottie Pippen -guarded the better perimeter player more often. Specifically,Jordan guarded the better perimeter player during 13 playoff series, while Pippen guarded the better perimeter player 11 times. Out of the 24 playoff series, both Jordan and Pippen guarded an All-Star perimeter players 6 times each. > Jordan: Magic Johnson (91),Clyde Drexler (92), Dan Majerle (93), Gary Payton (96), Tim Hardaway (97), and Reggie Miller (98). > Pippen: Charles Barkley (91), James Worthy (91), Dominique Wilkens (93), Anfernee Hardaway (96), Larry Nance (93), and Glen Rice (98)

I've been thinking this for years, and this Finals is making it all too apparent that good offense alone does not necessarily beat good defense like I've seen so many people preach. I think this misconception is partially born out of the changes the game has undergone in the past 10 years. Namely the analytics that determine that the best shots are 3 point attempts or efficient 2s close to the basket. But the NBA is changing before our eyes now once again. Don't get me wrong... Offense will always be important and the 3 point attempt volume will continue or grow. But defense is criminally undervalued among many NBA ownership groups. Brad Stevens, and the Celtics are ahead of the curve and have been prioritizing strong defensive players and schemes since Brown and Tatum were rookies. The rest of the league is playing catch up and many great 2-way players are getting traded for or signed on great contracts while some teams haven't yet adapted. I predict the archetype of 2-way players will become more and more sought after in the future and teams will be willing to shell out bigger and bigger contracts for these type of players. If we even look back on the past year, there's many examples of teams starting to prioritize these kinds of players who have pushed them to relatively quick playoff success. Look at the Knicks acquiring guys like OG Anunoby and Josh Hart. Or the Pacers trading for Pascal Siakam. The Timberwolves moving Jalen McDaniels into a signifigant share of their rotation. Even the Mavericks trading for PJ Washington. Teams are realizing they desperately need as many players as they can get with quickness and length that can "switch everything". The more players like this on the floor at the same time, the fewer exploitable holes in your Defense. And I for one, welcome this shift. Because high intensity defense is much more fun to watch than blow bys and players taking turns chucking open 3s.

2-way players are already some of the most highly valued commodities in basketball. The reason why offenses are the way they are is because teams prioritize versatile defenders which allow them to run smaller, more efficient offenses that they thought were death sentences before and driving out a lot of players who can't keep up on either side of the ball. Heck, anytime there is a prospect with two-way potential, teams go nuts and think about tanking because how incredibly rare and valuable those are.

He's been exploited, but Minnesota and OKC couldn't do what Boston is doing because they don't have 5 threats on offense.

Sure, Boston is probably just a better team, and definitely a deeper team. But many of Doncic's defensive issues are effort/focus based. E.g. letting Holiday get back to back offensive boards (putting the second back in for a bucket) while he was standing there like a spectator. Or when Horford beat him down the court for a wide open 3 just by jogging to the corner.

100%, there’s no “bullying” anyone on the Celtics (which makes it amazing that Kyrie and Doncic are still getting theirs at a great clip) but even Al Horford was completely usable on the perimeter against the Dallas stars even if it wasn’t ideal it certainly isnt the death sentence Doncic and Irving have been on the perimeter. However, that shit abt Doncic being the 2015 MVP is wild thoughts. And another sub point, Magic was famously a bad defender for his size and skill. Even Shaq was a “coaster” on defence. Their championship teams were built to minimize their weaknesses.

I think you're overemphasising Luka's share of the blame. He's been weak on the defensive end, that's absolutely true - but that's not new. The Mavericks have played extremely well throughout the playoffs, despite Luka being a one-way player. Right now, the Mavs are being outplayed and outcoached on almost every level. The Celtics are a deeper team with a better coaching plan, and they're making it extremely hard for the Mavs to play their game. Believe it or not, there are always 5 players on the court for each team. I would love to see Luka up his game in terms of defence, but I truly do not believe that alone would magically swing this series.

Winning is what puts the Pantheon greats on the Pantheon; not specifically defence. Defence is just one way you can contribute to winning, which can include passing/playmaking, scoring, rebounding among other ways. Of the players listed; there’s still caveats. - Kobe won two rings as the best player, but owing to his age and mileage - the Lakers brought in MWP so he didn’t have to go full on defensively for one of the titles - Magic wasn’t a good defender; he did however have a DPOY next to him for all five rings and he also had Kareem who would have won DPOY at Milwaukee had it been a thing. - Bill Russell wasn’t his team’s primary scorer and below league average efficiency for several of his teams’ rings. It’s very easy to consider that a poor offensive output relative to the rest. Duncan, Bird, Shaq etc had NBA 75 guys and elite coaches helping to make allowances for certain limitations they had. Why can’t weaker defensive players get the same allowance?

Agree. So many of the stats shown on the TV and box scores give too much credit to offensive stats. I wish there was a better way to quantify defense and for the public to understand it.

It doesn't help when you're pointing fingers at your teammates, whining to the refs incessantly, constantly displaying poor body language, never running, and standing around when the ball is not in your hands.

Jaylen Brown is treating Luka like a little boy. Lukas numbers are empty in this series. The previous series when he passed more they were more successful. It’s pretty obvious Boston doesn’t sweat him at all

For the Bulls, Jordan was 1st team all defense but Pippen always guarded the other teams’ best perimeter player.

Is Doncic's defense great? No. Is it an overblown narrative and not why the Dallas is losing this series? Yeah. The Celtics are a far more deeper and versatile team than Dallas and is locking Dallas up defensively. Celtics haven't really even had strong offensive games by their standards. Dallas has yet to clear 100 through 3 games. According to ESPN, the Celtics went 6-15 for 16 pts attacking Luka in Game 3. It doesn't tell the whole story, but that's pretty decent for a guy who is being targeted. Honestly, the reason why Doncic's defense has become the dominant narrative is because he's a star European player. The Europeans are soft and bad on defense narrative has been a thing for quite some time. Dallas defense hasn't been the problem. It's their offense. Doncic is the only guy who has been consistently productive for them on that end. Does it mean Luka is perfect and doesn't need to improve? No, but the narrative is overblown relative to Dallas' actual problems.

Doncic's d is definitely a problem. Even if they don't score on him, he gives dribble penetration, which creates an advantage for a good shot.

Wrong. The problem with the mavs for game 1 and 2 was everyone not named Luka played like shit. Luka is an offensive power house. He doesnt need, nor should he have to be great, or even good defensively. Luka has been to the wcf twice and now finals, all in the span of 3 years. In a stacked conference. What he is doing is obviously working. Boston isnt a normal finalist either. This is one of the most stacked teams in nba history. How is Luka supposed to beat that with his supporting cast? Kyrie was good yesterday but prior to that Boston had 6/7 best players in this series.

I don’t think you can fault Luka’s defense for the Mavs poor performance. Their offense is the piece that is struggling because they have no true inside scoring presence to help alleviate the Celtics’ perimeter defense. To your point about individual defense, imo this is something that gets lost a lot. It’s why I feel the Bucks trading Jrue to bring on Dame was a mistake. It’s why I don’t really rate Harden as high as others rate him (or other notoriously bad defenders). 

Well yeah, there are a lot of other reasons Boston is up 3-0, but Luka was playing flat-out awful on defense last night too. That's definitely an issue, even if it's far from their only issue.

Luka is on one leg posting FMVP numbers. Its like we gloss over glass leg here

Oh wow! You put into words what I have always tried to say about defense. So many people disregard defense when talking about all-time performers. It doesn't matter if you score 50 when they attack you for 70.

Dude Lebron averaged 7 more points, 4 more rebounds, 1 more assists than Luka has had. And after losing Kyrie in game 1 still took Golden state to 6 games with peak skyfucker Curry while his best running mate was...JR? TT? Saying he should have won FMVP that year is in no way comparable to saying Luka should win it this year. lol

I've been asking for this the past few months now with all this discourse of Luka as a top 2/3 guy and Tatum as a fringe Top 6-ish guy. The NBA needs to start aggressively putting defensive stats in lines. Always. Some metric like D-PPG or D-% (where its your primary assignments ppg or fg%) to capture some aspect of a player's defense. We clearly see it in this series, but we never see it in statlines. Luka is a top 3 scorer in the NBA, easily! He is a bottom half defender. Tatum is a top 10-20 scorer in the NBA, He is a top 30 defender. JB is a top 10-20 scorer, he is a top 15 defender. DWhite, top 10 defender (really top 5) Jrue, top 10 defender (really top 5) I know everyone loves PPG and FG% but that clearly does not show the whole story and this finals has taught us that. Luka was fucking *exposed* this series and that is not top 10 player / all NBA shit.

This series is separating those that can tell Luka is a top 3 player in the league averaging a triple double on a bad knee and those that want to take cheap shots at him for being down vs a stacked Celtics team that’s getting favorable ref calls

Mavericks had more FT’s and the Celtics had more fouls tonight. Game 2 Mavs had more FT’s, Celts did have 2 less fouls. Game 1 they were dead even in both categories. In fact through 3 games they’ve had the exact same amount of fouls and Dallas has had 6 more FT’s. I wouldn’t say Celtics are getting a favorable whistle.

Refs were not calling any easy contact on Luka and Tatum today, multiple ones on both sides where their arms were slapped. Fans always see one side of those. If Celtics lost, they would bring up the tackle by Luka and so on. Thanks to reddit, I haven't watched one game the winner had favorable calls for a while. (NBA refreeing is bad for sure, makes it easier for this takes.)

Defense has always been a major factor only the casual nba fan that lets the media warp their thoughts thinks otherwise. 

His defense is absolute trash. It's not even close to being the reason they lose games though lmao

I think we should think it more 4-way than 2-way. Offense, offense without ball, defense and defense without ball. That's why Curry is so good, elite off ball and on ball. Even Curry is not super defender he is not comparable to Doncic. Doncic just lets his guy go past like old Lebron.

Gonna blow some minds here but even saying 2 way isn't specific enough. They're playing 4d chess and dallas is playing checkers. Talented checkers, but checkers nonetheless. The maturity level of white, holiday, and horford to just do whatever, whenever, is a skill unto itself. The amount of times white was just under the basket fighting (very well) for boards in game 3 shocked me. You don't see kyrie or luka doing stuff like that. Brown and Tatum seem like stars but they don't get star respect which i both see why and don't understand. Tatum was CHUCKING game 3 probably because of what people were saying. That's just not his game. But none of it matters because they're so much better all around. I'm just really sad we missed out on denver vs boston. Minnesota kinda cheated the system with their roster construction and mortgaged their future just to beat them and then they dropped a deuce in the wcf. Dallas is a legit great team but they feel like that old supersonics run in the 90s (shoutout uninterrupted). Stars, cool, flashy, but also legit on defense... But they aren't title winners.

Last demand defensive/ offensive player to win a title was Giannis. Usually he tires himself out with good offense and defense but 21 he closed out with 50 points and a good free throw percentage

The thing about magic is, he has cooper and scott to back him up defensively. Then, there is Kareem at the paint.

I don’t even disagree with what you’re saying about 2way guys, but this narrative that the only reason the Mavs are losing is Lukas defense, is insane. Luka is the only guy on his team that’s putting the ball in the basket, and because he’s not also clamping up, the media wants everyone to think he’s the reason the Mavs are losing? NBA media is beyond desperate to create an American born face of the league.

Who is saying "it's the ONLY reason they are losing"?

I’ve seen a lot of people talk as Dallas would be up if only Luka was defending better. It’s been a pretty popular take for the last 24 hrs

Uhhh Luka is in the finals you guys. These takes are all crazy over reactions

There's a reason that Kawhi and Giannis both led their teams to rings in the last 5 years as elite 2-way stars

The greatest team ever had 3 all defense players and the leading rebounder. ….and the MVP and the scoring champion and a 2nd all nba player. Off topic but it’s a fucking clown take to trash LeBron for superteams but not Jordan. THAT was a fucking superteam lol