Falcon74 said:

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Luka with an epiphany. Post game interview. Don't talk to refs, play ball, have fun

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I really liked his answer, just wished he would have figured that out years ago.

Major props to Luka. Someone (no clue who) finally got through to him and told him not to act like such a *****. I didn't notice any complaining, whining, fake limping, etc. it was a noticeable difference in attitude the entire game tonight. And he was being much more aggressive and driving (instead of settling) more than he has been.

We need this attitude every game from here out. I really want to know what finally made it click after all these years. Hopefully it lasts.

That was a fun game. We are clearly the better team. Need to close them out on Saturday.

Draymond Green as a media darling makes me laugh. Literally everyone hates him, but he's not bad on the microphone.

mavsfan4ever said:

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Major props to Luka. Someone (no clue who) finally got through to him and told him not to act like such a *****. I didn't notice any complaining, whining, fake limping, etc. it was a noticeable difference in attitude the entire game tonight. And he was being much more aggressive and driving (instead of settling) more than he has been.

We need this attitude every game from here out. That was a fun game. We are clearly the better team. Need to close them out on Saturday.

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100%

MW03 said:

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Draymond Green as a media darling makes me laugh. Literally everyone hates him, but he's not bad on the microphone.

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Draymond is great as an analyst, his podcast is very very good. His off court personality appears to be entirely different than what you see on the court. The problem is that what he does on the court borders on felony battery at times.

PatAg said:

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we crushed the boards tonight

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Most of the rebound differential can be attributed to us playing good defense and getting more chances at defensive rebounds, which are obviously easier to get than offensive.

We only outrebounded them by 1 in terms of offensive rebounds, which is pretty wild. Much closer than what I would have guessed.

Infection_Ag11 said:

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MW03 said:

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Draymond Green as a media darling makes me laugh. Literally everyone hates him, but he's not bad on the microphone.

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Draymond is great as an analyst, his podcast is very very good. His off court personality appears to be entirely different than what you see on the court. The problem is that what he does on the court borders on felony battery at times.

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I want him to tackle someone on set so bad and marry both worlds

Need to bury the thunder on saturday. They are going to be a MAJOR problem for years but its not their time yet

Regarding his post game tonight…Luka has said this kind of stuff a half dozen times and reverted back the very next game. Sometimes it hurts him and the team… and plenty of times it fires him up and he goes scorched earth and looks like one of the best ever.

I'm as sick of people complaining about Luka complaining as I am… Luka complaining. We get it. He's a crybaby. It is who he is. So is Lebron. So was Duncan. Plenty of all time greats have been perpetual whiners.

Luka with 2 days rest between games 5 and 6.
Mavs in 6

That's fair.
Will never forget the look on Duncan's face when he got tossed while sitting on the bench.

9 championships in this group. Whine away. Hope it gets to 10.

Infection_Ag11 said:

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Duncan was largely a dead ball whiner though. The issue many have with Lebron and Luka is they sacrifice buckets on the other end with their whining fairly frequently.

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Exactly. If Luka wants to only whine during dead balls that's completely different. Would still be annoying but not nearly as maddening.

His entire game was different tonight bc he has a better attitude. So I'm not sure how anyone can say it doesn't matter or that he should keep whining. It was a noticeable difference.

W

Gotta start fining players for flops like this, and giving them techs when they do it in game.

PJ DELIVERS!!! *watch Dort's insane flop pic.twitter.com/2mMwznpCT8

— MavsHighlights (@MavsHighlights) May 16, 2024

I noticed that when it happened in the game and I was thinking he should have been called for it. I was seriously questioning whether or not it was a rule that a flop can be called a technical because Dort should have been hit with it so many times this series. Some of his flops have been comical.

Odds via fanduel sportsbook to win the series. All over the place.

Before game 1: Thunder -115, Mavs -105
After game 1: Thunder -300, Mavs +240
After game 2: Thunder +110, Mavs -134
After game 3: Thunder +198, Mavs -250
After game 4: Thunder -138, Mavs +112
After game 5: Thunder +310, Mavs -420

shack009 said:

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I noticed that when it happened in the game and I was thinking he should have been called for it. I was seriously questioning whether or not it was a rule that a flop can be called a technical because Dort should have been hit with it so many times this series. Some of his flops have been comical.

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Dort needs to stop. It's pathetic and embarrassing.

Something I wonder about with Luka, there was talks about him potentially being sick at one point in the Clippers series. So if he had the flu, or some upper respiratory thing, this is about when you would start feeling fully over it right? Or does that timeline not match up

I can't believe we're a game away from getting back to the WCF. We could be looking at back to back Dallas vs. Denver series. Man we are so close to getting this done.

That's interesting. Very possible. It could just be that he's getting back in to shape after nearly 2 weeks off also. And he has to be in 40+ minutes per game shape.

I think mostly is he has good games when he comes out on the attack and getting downhill in to the paint and he's taking 4-5 foot floaters instead of 7-8 footers. I think it's mostly just whatever his attitude is to start the game and if he keeps the attitude throughout.

Mavs are just flat out better than OKC. Shouldn't even be this close (obviously should have wan game 4).

I loved getting Hardy early minutes, even if he didn't make a huge impact.

Keep up a heavy dose of Gafford and Lively and win game 6 in the first half.

And pleeeease, give Markeif just 30 seconds to come in and punch Dort in the face.

Yep, we are better.

On Hardy, thunder are actually quite lucky that he missed two wide open 3s. I hope Kidd sticks with him and now that Hardy has got his feet wet, those open 3s will go. Because they will probably let Hardy try to beat them if he's in the game.

Exactly. Teams have to hyper focus on Luka and Kyrie so a guy like Hardy (and PJ and DJJ) has the potential to step up in a big way. Dare I say, like a 2011 JJ Barea.

He's probably the 3rd or 4th best overall offensive player on the team. He should be ready to capitalize on open opportunities or 1v1s against inferior defenders.

He made some really nice passes too, showing lots of signs of maturity. Looking forward to 10-15 more minutes if Hardy in game 6.

Especially because I didn't think Josh Green had a very good game. He does such weird things on defense sometimes. He overplayed Shai a couple times which allowed for a couple really easy driving buckets. Shai also just has no issue shooting over him. He continues to have really bad misses on open 3s, even though his one make felt like it was at an important time. Still 1/5 on the night.

So hopefully Kidd cuts in to Green's minutes with Hardy.

Something interesting last night is that Gafford was -10 in 25 minutes and Lively was +22 in 23 minutes.

Excluding Game 1, which is clearly the statistical outlier in this series, Lively has been a + in the box score and Gafford has been a - (in Game 1 they were both -).

Over the past 4 games, Lively is a combined +58 and Gafford is -31. Box score isn't everything, but you can just tell Lively is more impactful when on the court. He is clearly more of deterrent to OKC's drives.

Maybe there is some on/off matchup stuff they are doing with Lively and Gafford that I haven't noticed, but this +/- disparity is significant in a big enough sample now. Not saying Lively needs to start, because the dynamic appears to be fine, but Lively should definitely be getting more minutes than Gafford. So not sure what is going on with the coaching staff that they think Gafford should be getting more minutes than Lively.

shack009 said:

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He's probably the 3rd or 4th best overall offensive player on the team. He should be ready to capitalize on open opportunities or 1v1s against inferior defenders.

He made some really nice passes too, showing lots of signs of maturity. Looking forward to 10-15 more minutes if Hardy in game 6.

Especially because I didn't think Josh Green had a very good game. He does such weird things on defense sometimes. He overplayed Shai a couple times which allowed for a couple really easy driving buckets. Shai also just has no issue shooting over him. He continues to have really bad misses on open 3s, even though his one make felt like it was at an important time. Still 1/5 on the night.

So hopefully Kidd cuts in to Green's minutes with Hardy.

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He just took all of Exum's minutes in Game 5.
I would guess part of what hardy will have to do is prove he can maintain defensive integrity and intensity.

Yeah hopefully Kidd is fine with intensity rather than integrity (because realistically you won't get great defense from Hardy). I think you get intensity but not integrity from Green and you get neither intensity nor integrity from THJ.

Hardy definitely is not held to the same standard that others are.

Hardy is terrible. Y'all are nuts. Every bit as bad as THJ.

hph6203 said:

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Hardy is terrible. Y'all are nuts. Every bit as bad as THJ.

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Hardy shot better from 3 this year and is a better shooter in 2 years than THJ has been his entire career. And that is only talking about THJ's best skill.

Hardy can also dribble, has a decent mid range game, and can get to the rim. Hardaway has one discernible "skill." It's not even a comparison.

hph6203 said:

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Hardy is terrible. Y'all are nuts. Every bit as bad as THJ.

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at best you could say we havent seen enough of Hardy to know if he is better or not.

You should pay attention more.

The problem with Hardy is the same problem with Hardaway, he does not have an accurate self perception of his own abilities.

He believes he is substantially better than he is. He makes drives he has no business taking, because he's not that good at dribbling, he takes shots he shouldn't because he's not that good at shooting and he makes passes he has absolutely, positively no business making because he's not a great passer.

Hardaway thinks he's prime Klay Thompson.
Hardy thinks he's Kyrie.

If Hardy thought he was actually Hardy he might be a playable player, but as it stands he is wholly too mistake prone to be playing big minutes in the playoffs. Which is why he hasn't and he was a negative in the one game he did in this series.