There's a reason Kawhi Leonard has won the NBA Finals MVP Award twice in the past seven years, and it was on full display Friday night in Dallas.
Leonard's masterful two-way performance in Game 6 of the first-round series between the LA Clippers and Dallas Mavericks saved his team's season and set the stage for a huge Game 7 matchup on Sunday in Los Angeles. But Luka Doncic and his teammates are playing well, too, and the outcome of this game hinges on multiple factors.
Let's go through the five biggest keys in Game 7.
Kawhi Leonard's offense
Leonard is the hottest player in the world right now, and if you think that's an exaggeration, here are the receipts. Leonard is the second player ever to average 30 points on 60% shooting through his first six games of a postseason, joining Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who did this three times.
The Clippers star is combining scoring volume and efficiency in ways we have literally never seen in the playoffs. Through six games, he's averaging 32.8 points per game, shooting 61% from the field, 43% from 3-point range and 88% at the line. Out of 21 players who have attempted at least 50 jumpers in these playoffs, nobody has been more efficient than Leonard, who has a silly eFG% of 64.7% on his 68 jumpers in this series.
The biggest reason the Mavericks have lost all three of their home games in this series is that Leonard has been unstoppable in Dallas, shooting 73.7% on the road in this series. It's not an exaggeration to say that these are arguably the greatest road shooting numbers we have ever seen in postseason history.
If Dallas wants to win, it needs Dorian Finney-Smith and Maxi Kleber, Leonard's primary defenders in this series, to put a damper on the flames bursting off of Leonard's shooting hand.
Kawhi Leonard's defense
Here's the scary part for Mavericks fans: Leonard is just as good at defense as he is at offense. His ability to control both ends of the court as a wing in this series has been downright Jordan-esque, and his power to contain Doncic could be the biggest key in Game 7.
Leonard's defense has been the determining factor in more than one big series, and with all due respect to Doncic, Leonard and his defensive arsenal deserve the benefit of the doubt here.
The biggest adjustment in this series has been simple. Coach Ty Lue started throwing the Klaw at Doncic at a much higher rate. According to Second Spectrum data, Leonard was the primary defender of Doncic 38 times in Game 6, more than he was for the first three games combined.
Here's why that matters: In the 131 instances in which Leonard has guarded Doncic in pick-and-roll actions, the Mavericks are managing just 0.84 points per possession. In the 218 instances in which any other Clippers player has guarded those actions, the Mavericks are scoring 1.21 points on average. That's a massive difference, and another testament to Leonard's game-changing impact on the unglamorous end of the court.
Thanks to his unique blend of balance, size, strength and savvy, Leonard's perimeter defense is arguably the best on the planet, and it has been for almost a decade now. It's coming in handy against one of the best offensive players in the game.
This isn't the first time we've said this. Leonard's seminal moments on the big stage came in the 2014 Finals when he locked up LeBron James to help the Spurs win the title that year. Doncic was just 15. Leonard did it again in the 2019 Eastern Conference finals, switching on to Giannis Antetokounmpo in Game 3 of that series, and driving the Raptors to four straight wins en route to Toronto's title. You can bet that Lue and the Clippers are going to fasten Leonard to Doncic in Game 7 and challenge the phenom to do something even James and Antetokounmpo could not: make winning plays against the best perimeter defender in the world.
Luka Doncic's offensive production
Doncic has clearly been the biggest factor in this series from the Mavericks' perspective. There have been multiple games in this series in which the 22-year-old Slovenian has clearly been the best player on the floor.
For example, his offensive performance in Game 5 was a face-melter. At Staples Center on Wednesday night, Doncic either scored or assisted on 31 of the Mavericks' 37 total field goals. That's 83.8%, and that's the highest such figure in ANY NBA game EVER. Not only did Doncic hit 17 buckets in that game, he assisted on 14 more.
Luka Doncic scored or assisted on 31 of the Mavs' 37 field goals last night (83.8%).
That is the highest such percentage in a game in NBA history, regular season or playoffs pic.twitter.com/8BzkuxhSN7
— Kirk Goldsberry (@kirkgoldsberry) June 3, 2021
Nobody stirs the drink like Doncic, who plays with a kind of deliberate playmaking brilliance that evokes James Harden and Magic Johnson. Regardless of what happens Sunday, Mavericks fans should feel good about the next 10 years. But to win Game 7, Dallas needs Doncic to overcome Leonard's defense and to produce both as a scorer and as a distributor.
In Dallas' three wins in this series, Doncic is averaging 37 points and 11 assists, which is great. However, Doncic has been inefficient in the fourth quarter, shooting just 31% from the field and 25% from downtown.
Bottom line: There's simply no way Dallas can win this game unless Doncic paints another masterpiece in Game 7. Leonard is all that stands in the way.
Dallas' 3-point shooting
The biggest wild card in this series involves Dallas' shooting from 3-point range. In their three wins, the Mavericks have shot 46% from beyond the arc, scoring 48.9 points per game on 3s alone. In their losses, they've been average, shooting 35% and putting up just 36 points per game on those triples.
When Doncic is hitting his step-backs and Tim Hardaway Jr. is knocking down his catch-and-shoot chances, this team is hard to beat. When those shots aren't falling, they are beatable. It's that simple.
Hardaway scores a majority of his points from downtown, and in the Mavericks' three wins, he has averaged 23 points per game. In their 3 losses, he has scored just 13 per contest. If the Mavericks' shooters go cold, it might not matter how good Doncic is. They need those triples in Game 7.
Will the real Paul George please stand up? George's reputation is teetering on the brink, but this Game 7 provides him with a unique opportunity to show the world he's more of a puncher than a punchline.
George played an absurd 46 minutes in Game 6, which is admirable, but admirable might not be enough from the third-best player in this series. Simply put, this is the biggest game of his Clippers tenure, and he needs to play like it.
George's performance is critical in the minutes when both Doncic and Leonard are resting and he's by far the best player on the court. He thrived in those exact moments in Game 6. Early in the fourth quarter, the Clippers trailed 77-73 with Doncic and Leonard on the sidelines. George showed up, played aggressively and helped LA tie the game at 79 before the two superstars checked back in.
Those big minutes early in the fourth propelled the Clippers to a 31-20 quarter and helped them extend this series.
Although Ty Lue denies it, many observers believe the Clippers intentionally tanked a few games during the last week of the season to land this matchup with Dallas in Round 1. Now, we are at Game 7, and it's not hyperbole to say that the Clippers' entire future hangs in the balance.
By late Sunday afternoon, either Leonard and George will have escaped disaster and advanced to the second round or their entire time in Los Angeles will be deemed a massive failure that has resulted in two awful postseason performances.
If that happens, Leonard, still one of the best players in the league, could realistically walk away from this team. He has a player option this summer, and if he were to opt out and sign with another team, it would leave the Clippers undermanned and deep inside what might be the worst team-building predicament in the entire league for years. The Lawrence Frank-led front office has control of only one of its first-round picks over the next seven years (the No. 25 pick in the upcoming draft).
The Clippers need a deep run this postseason, which means Game 7 is one of the biggest single games in this franchise's history. This game will go a long way in determining whether these new-look Clippers are gonna be contenders or if they'll revert back to the laughingstock status they owned for years. No pressure, guys.
"five" - Google News
June 06, 2021 at 06:22PM
https://ift.tt/2TPE1Sd
NBA playoffs 2021 - Five keys to Mavericks-Clippers Game 7 - ESPN
"five" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2YnPDf8
https://ift.tt/2SxXq6o
No comments:
Post a Comment