Before the start of this game, although the Celtics had already taken a 3-1 lead, there were still many voices in the outside world that they could turn the boat in the gutter, after all, their opponent was a strong Mavericks.
The reason why people have such doubts is because Doncic and Irving have been very tough in their previous playoff games, and it is hard to imagine that they will be eliminated by the Celtics in a gentlemanly sweep in the Finals.
But after the game started, no miracles happened, even if the Mavericks tried their best, they were still swept by the Celtics with a huge advantage of 18 points.
So, what's going on? So that the Mavericks can defeat a strong enemy in the West, but have no resistance in front of the Celtics?
As we all know, the most powerful thing about the Mavericks is the backcourt combination of Doncic and Irving, it is precisely because of the super offensive ability of these two players that the Mavericks' lineup is particularly restrained, with a tall interior team, both players have a strong ability to punish mismatches.
This can be reflected in their games with the Clippers and the Timberwolves, judging from the comparison of the strength of the lineup, it is impossible for the Mavericks to defeat the Timberwolves, but because Irving and Doncic naturally restrained the interior line composed of Gobert and Towns, the Mavericks can easily eliminate the Timberwolves.
But in the Finals, they faced the Celtics, which is completely different from the Timberwolves' lineup, the Celtics' strongest point is in the rest of the positions except the center, their interior is the weakest link in this lineup, but the remaining four positions are all offensive and defensive players.
It is precisely because of this lineup configuration that they are well equipped to limit the Eastern European combination in a one-on-one defensive way against Irving and Doncic, which is simply impossible for other teams, even the mighty Clippers cannot do.
Every time Doncic or Irving is ready to attack with the ball, they want to create space to shoot through pick-and-roll tactics, but no matter how they block, the Celtics only need to change the defense to resolve the Mavericks' tactics.
For example, when Irving holds the ball at the top of the arc, and the interior player Gafford or Lively comes up to block him, the Celtics only need to change the defense, which is nothing more than replacing Holiday with Tatum, Irving Even in the face of Tatum, he can't take any advantage on the offensive end, so it is difficult for him to get comfortable offensive opportunities throughout the game, Tatum can always use the advantage of height and arm length to limit him to the outside, and Irving, who can't break through to the penalty area, can only barely shoot many times, There will also be a sharp drop in shooting percentage.
This is also a microcosm of the Mavericks' full game, when facing Irving, the Celtics resolutely used the strategy of switching defenses, keeping him in a one-on-one grappling battle.
When facing Doncic's offense with the ball, if it is a double probe in the case of defense, the rest of the Celtics players will not choose to help defend, although Doncic has a strong offensive ability, but in the face of the defense of the double probe, he did not show his ability to force the Celtics to use the bag to limit him.
On the contrary, many times, Doncic uses a bypass way to face the defense of the double tanhua, but the rest of the Celtics players will use a pinch attack when defending Doncic, and they will let go of Jones Jr. or Green, just don't want Doncic to open his offense.
Doncic obviously has some distrust of his teammates in the face of such defense, and many times even in the face of a pinch shot, he will not choose to pass to his teammates in the open position at the first time, but instead use his personal ability to force a breakthrough to create offensive space for himself, Doncic's way of handling the ball is exactly what the Celtics want to see.
In the game, Doncic repeatedly lost the ball in the face of multiple people surrounded by mistakes, the Celtics took the opportunity to counterattack to get an easy chance to score, in the first quarter of the game, Doncic dribbled in the face of three people, was directly stealed by the opponent, in a round in the third quarter, also in the face of the Celtics, Doncic directly passed the ball to the opponent, the Celtics took advantage of the Mavericks' mistakes, in the third quarter quickly pulled the score to more than 20 points.
And the Mavericks didn't dare to pinch at all in the face of the attack of the double tanhua, this is because the Celtics have elite-level shooters such as Holiday and White on the outside, even if many times, the Mavericks' players are difficult to control White's shot in a 1-on-1 situation, not to mention that they have to pinch the double tanhua, which makes them unable to limit Holiday and White's shots on the outside.
But if you don't pinch the double tanhua, Jaylen Brown and Tatum will always take advantage of the mismatch on the offensive end, and keep holding the ball to the restricted area, when the double tanhua arrives in the restricted area, the Mavericks' players must shrink the defense, otherwise, they will end up with a dunk or layup, which is completely unbearable for the Mavericks.
If you want to limit the Celtics' offense, you must first have a defense that can control the double tanhua outside, and can't let them hold the ball to the paint area, but unfortunately there are two players in the Mavericks' lineup who have natural shortcomings, Irving and Doncic are in a 1-on-one defense, and it is difficult to prevent the double tanhua from breaking through to the interior through their personal defensive ability.
Even when facing interior players Lively or Gafford Player, the Double Tanhua will take advantage of the misalignment and force the ball to the Mavericks' interior line, and it is impossible to expect the inside player to be able to limit the breakthrough step of the Double Tanhua in every round of the game, and can only take the way of helping to stop Jaylen Brown and Tatum, which is why the Celtics can always get a lot of three-point shooting opportunities in the game.
It's all about limiting the breakout of the double tanhua and shrinking the defensive line, which is why it is difficult for a team to have two cores to defend, when Tatum is restricted, Jaylen Brown will stand up to punish the opponent's defense, and in the same way, when the Mavericks' defensive resources are inclined to Brown, Tatum will stand up to help the team, which is like two bottles of poison, placed in front of the Mavericks, no matter how you choose, you will lose.
In the case that the double tanhua can't defend, the Mavericks can compete with them, only offense, but after 5 games, they have never been able to find a flaw in the Celtics' defense, in fact, the Celtics' defense has an obvious weakness, but the Mavericks' player ability cannot complete the punishment.
For most of the game, Tatum has actually been defending the Mavericks' interior players, which is an obvious misalignment, and Gafford and Lively can use their height and weight advantage to kill Tatum on the inside, but unfortunately these two players are a characteristic, belonging to the pie-eating center, and there is no strong individual ability.
Gafford tried to use his personal ability in the first quarter of the game to single Tatum on the inside, and once achieved good results, but unfortunately, he could not last the whole game, Gafford did not have too good passing ability, and in the case of a pinch attack on the inside, he could not pass the ball to his teammates who were in the open position at the three-point line at the first time, which is why the Celtics were relieved to let Tatum defend him on the inside.
Although Lively is 2.16 meters tall, it is because of his poor ability to hold the ball and his weight is too light, so it is impossible to pose any threat to Tatum's defense through his personal ability.
It is precisely because the Mavericks' interior line cannot cause damage to Tatum that Mazzulla has been using such a defensive style in these 5 games, and it is conceivable that when the Mavericks can't crack the Celtics' defense, they will definitely miss players like Embiid or Jokic very much, and if these two players are on the court, the Celtics will never dare to arrange such defensive tactics.
In addition to top interior players like Jokic and Embiid to break down the Celtics' defense, the Celtics also have a more obvious weakness, that is, the veteran Horford.
Obviously, Doncic and Irving in this round of the series, want to punish Horford by naming, the results are not satisfactory, Doncic in this round of the series three-point shooting rate is only more than 20%, Irving is also far inferior to the regular season, which is completely unexpected by the outside world, after all, before the start of the Finals, no one would have thought that Horford would be able to limit Doncic and Irving outside the three-point line.
Perhaps, only Curry in 2022 can complete the punishment of the Celtics' lineup, Horford was almost difficult to put down a three-point shot when he faced Curry on the outside, many times he knew that Curry shot three points, but he still couldn't stop it, this point, Doncic was obviously inferior to Curry, in this game, Doncic didn't hit a three-pointer in the face of Horford's defense, and the Celtics rarely gave him the opportunity to name Horford.
To sum up, since the Warriors completed the dynasty, in the next few years, the league's championships were completed by different teams, which shows that it is difficult for one team to dominate in modern basketball, and many times one team will have a similar style of play compared to another team, such as the Mavericks can defeat the powerful Timberwolves, but there is no way to face the Celtics, assuming that the Timberwolves face the Celtics in the Finals, maybe the outcome of the game will be different.
In other words, the Mavericks are not not strong enough, but they happen to be completely restrained by the Celtics in terms of style of play, in fact, the problem can be found from the regular season, when the Mavericks face the Celtics, most of the cases end in a fiasco, perhaps, because Jaylen Brown and Tatum naturally restrained Doncic and Irving.