How Are Celtics Doing in the NBA Finals What The Timberwolves Could Not?

The Dallas Mavericks defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals in just five games, completely flipping the script on a Timberwolves team coming off a Game 7 victory against the defending champion Denver Nuggets.

Luka Dončić and Kyrie Irving were able to completely dismantle the Timberwolves league-best defense while Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford were able to slow down Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and the Wolves’ offense.

Through two games of the 2024 NBA finals, they have not been able to find nearly the same level of success as the Boston Celtics have taken a 2-0 series lead heading into Game 3 on Wednesday night in Dallas.

For all the struggles the Timberwolves had on both sides of the ball against the Mavericks, the Celtics have maintained complete control of the series to this point.

Boston has completely shut down the Dallas offense, holding them under 100 points in each of the first two games. The Celtics have limited the Mavs to only 6.5 made 3-pointers per game, down significantly from the 12.2 per game they made against the Wolves.

On offense, Head Coach Joe Mazzulla’s group has used their spacing and ball movement to generate good looks far more often than the Timberwolves, especially from long range. Boston has made 13 3-pointers per game on an astounding 34.5 attempts per game, 85% of which have been considered open or wide open by the NBA’s tracking data.

Boston has been able to do everything that they could not, and it has led them two wins away from a championship.

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Celtics’ Offense

In the Western Conference Finals, the Mavericks were able to undermine the Timberwolves offense using their rim protectors of Lively and Gafford to limit open looks near the basket.

Right from the first possession of the series, the Celtics were able to generate open shots using their 5-out offense to draw the Mavs bigs away from the rim where they are far less comfortable.

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The spacing on plays like these has put significantly more pressure on the bigs of Dallas to guard both the 3-point line and the rim simultaneously. On the play about, Gafford does not want to give up an open shot from the corner and it only takes a simple pump fake from Al Horford to go right by him for the dunk.

Not only do the Celtics play with five shooters on the floor, but they also have four players on the court who can create off the dribble, which leads to stellar ball movement and passing. Boston also uses this to their advantage by attacking Dallas defenders on switches.

Here Lively is switched onto Jayson Tatum, who is able to drive by him to the rim and kick out to an open Derrick White.

The main defender the Celtics have attacked is Dončić, who, while defending well against the Timberwolves, was largely allowed to camp in the corner while guarding Jaden McDaniels.

Boston has not allowed him to do the same as they have attacked him throughout the series when he’s defended Tatum or Jaylen Brown. Here, Brown goes right by Dončić leading to an open 3-pointer for Tatum.

Here, Dončić half-heartedly swipes at the ball as Tatum drives, draws an extra defender, and kicks to Jrue Holiday who is able to pump fake Derrick Jones Jr. out of the play and score around Gafford in space.

Here are two more plays where Dončić provides little resistance who provides little resistance for Tatum who gets to the rim and scores.

To a lesser extent, Boston has also been able to attack the mismatch of Irving guarding Tatum. Dallas has far too easily been willing to switch lesser defenders on to Tatum and the First Team All-NBA forward has made them pay.

In the play above, Lively does not realize Brown is his responsibility after the double-team of Tatum, which leads to an easy pass and a wide-open dunk.

Part of the reason for the missed rotation by Lively is the shooting ability of Kristaps Porziņģis who has been spectacular so far in these NBA Finals. Like Tatum, Porziņģis has been able to punish the switch-happy Mavs by scoring over every non-center he sees.

With Porziņģis doing most of his work in the mid-range, the Mavericks are unable to send a double team to help out the smaller defenders.

Dallas could help off of the nearest Celtic Derrick White, but that would almost certainly lead to more wide-open 3-pointers for a great-shooting Boston team.

Even when Porziņģis gets the ball in a more traditional low box post-up against a bigger defender, he has shown no problem breaking out the post moves to get an open shot.

Boston’s offense, using their shooting and playmaking, has found ways to pick at all the weaknesses of the Mavs defense. Whether it be attacking Dallas’ switching defense or scoring in the post with their seven-foot shooter, the Celtics have excelled in all the ways the Wolves failed.

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Celtics’ Defense

During the Western Conference Finals, the Timberwolves opted to defend the Mavericks with their traditional matchup by putting Rudy Gobert on the Dallas non-shooting centers, allowing him to stay near the rim.

Boston’s defense has gone with a much different strategy by putting their big, whether it be Horford or Porziņģis, on the streaky shooting Jones Jr. while having Tatum guard the Dallas centers of Gafford and Lively.

This has allowed Boston to switch the Dončić pick-and-rolls which limits Luka’s effectiveness in that action while also not giving a mismatch to attack as Tatum can guard Dončić as well as anyone.

Here, Tatum picks up Luka on a switch after Gafford screens Brown. Tatum is able to lead Dončić into traffic where he turns it over.

Notice that Horford is guarding Jones Jr. and helping way off of him as Boston is seemingly either willing to give him an open 3-point shot or believes they can rotate to him if that pass is made.

In this play, Boston’s center, this time Porziņģis, is guarding a wing player, Josh Green. Tatum is switched onto Luka and forces him into an ugly-looking travel.

Here is another play where Green is again being guarded by Boston’s center. When Luka drives, Holiday and Horford are both there to help and when Luka kicks it out, Horford is about to help back and make a good contest on the shot.

Even with the Celtics playing great defense, Dončić has still been able to put up great numbers in these first two games, scoring 31 points per game on 51.1% shooting from the field. The player with the largest drop in scoring output for Dallas has been Kyrie Irving who Boston has been able to completely shut down through two games of this NBA Finals.

Irving had come into this series averaging 22.8 points per game on 48.5% shooting in the playoffs, but Boston’s defense has completely limited his effectiveness, allowing him to score only just 14 points per game on a putrid 35.1% from the floor and 0-8 from three.

Boston and their overwhelming number of great wing defenders have dominated the former Celtic to this point in the Finals. White, who was named Second Team All-Defense, has often been his primary matchup and made this outstanding block early in Game 2.

In the play below, it is again Tatum, who has been tasked with guarding players at all five positions, forces Irving into a tough shot, which he misses.

Even when Kyrie has gotten a more favorable defensive matchup to attack, he has still been unable to take advantage, often missing with the same left-handed shots that so often put daggers through the hearts of Timberwolves fans a round prior.

Here he is guarded by Payton Pritchard who Irving is able to get by before missing the layup.

In the next play, Irving gets the slow-moving Horford on him and just misses his patented lefty floater that seemed to go in every single time against the Wolves.

The play that has represented this series up until this point is this final one. The pick-and-roll with Gafford gets Holiday out of position, Irving takes the pull-up shot in space, and Porziņģis, using his 7′ 6″ wingspan, blocks the shot.

That block immediately leads to a runout for Boston as Holiday finds Sam Hauser in the corner who knocks down a tough shot to put the Celtics up 17 in the first quarter of this series.

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Timberwolves Takeaways

Much of the difference between what Boston has been able to do and what Minnesota was unable to do is player personnel.

The Timberwolves play much of their minutes with a non-shooting Gobert. While the Timberwolves offense is better with Gobert on the floor than off, the Wolves have been unable to have an above-average offense in the two seasons with Gobert on the team.

On the other side of the floor, the Wolves were built upon playing two bigs, which worked wonders against many opponents, but as Boston has shown, the Mavs are much easier to guard

In many ways, the Timberwolves can take aspects of what Boston has done to Dallas as possible options for a potential matchup in the future.

On offense, Porziņģis’ ability to take advantage of Dallas’ smaller defenders could be replicated by Towns if he wasn’t playing so poorly and if he were put in better spots on the floor.

On defense, having Gobert guard one of the Dallas wing players with Edwards guarding Dončić and McDaniels guarding the Dallas center may have allowed the Wolves to better slow the Dallas offense.

In other ways, this Boston team matches up much better with Dallas than the Wolves ever could. In a similar way to the Wolves roster being well set up to handle Nikola Jokić and the Nuggets, this Boston team, when healthy, is well suited to take down the Mavs and capture their first NBA championship since 2008.