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00:00Let's bring in Matt Lutovsky and get his opinion on this.
00:06Matt, thanks again for coming on Newswire.
00:08It would appear that the Boston Celtics are going to be the NBA champions, if not tomorrow,
00:14maybe Monday or maybe early next week.
00:16I mean, no one comes back down 0-3, so it's just probably a matter of when, not if.
00:20I don't know if you feel the same way, but it certainly feels that way to me.
00:24What was your opinion of last night's game?
00:26Let's start there and then we'll get to the negative side of it.
00:29Because obviously, Boston is just such a boring team to talk about, right?
00:32All they do is win, and we just find some other narrative for some other team to talk
00:35about.
00:36Yeah, exactly.
00:37I'd love to sit here and analyze a matchup, or there's this, that, and this is how Boston
00:44is really getting an edge, and if Dallas does this, it just feels like they're too good.
00:50And I know that's not a great piece of analysis, but it really does.
00:55And even without Porzingis, we all got excited.
00:57Okay, no Porzingis, Dallas has a chance now.
01:02And all that good stuff.
01:03And then we sit there and watch the game, and we just come away, you know, same conclusion.
01:09It was kind of a rollercoaster of a game.
01:11It really went up and down, but at the end, same conclusion.
01:15And you know, when Tatum and Brown get going, and neither of them shot that well last night,
01:21that's the thing.
01:22They scored a combined 61.
01:24And I think if you told Mavericks fans, or well, anyone, that Iluka and Kyrie would have
01:29a combined 62, and it wouldn't be enough to get the win, or it would only be one point
01:36more than Brown and Tatum, you'd just sigh and kind of hang your head, because you know.
01:42And there's not really that third guy at all for the Celtics, or excuse me, for the Mavericks,
01:47but the Celtics have numerous guys.
01:49And they get guys who just come in and give them a flurry, like Sam Hauser hitting three
01:53threes, or even, you know, the Xavier Tillman little flurry, where he hits a three, gets
01:59some boards, gets some blocks.
02:01And they just have so many guys who can do it.
02:04They're so good defensively.
02:06And you know, Luka, I think Luka was playing like he knew he had to play, and that sort
02:10of led to some of the fouls.
02:12And yeah, at that point, it was just, they didn't have an answer.
02:16And all Boston needed to do when you build up that big of a lead in the second half is
02:19just hit one or two key shots, and you can hold off the Mavericks.
02:24So it's just, yeah, it's just tough.
02:27They've been the best team all year.
02:28I think people doubted them for a long time, because they hadn't won the big one yet, even
02:34though their star players are still pretty young in the grand scheme of things.
02:39And here they are, and they're on the verge of completing the job.
02:42Yeah, no one's doubting them now.
02:44And inevitably, when they do win, or if they do win, the Mavericks will look back at game
02:48three with the chance to win, and I'm sure that Matt Luka Doncic will look back and say,
02:54that shouldn't have happened.
02:55I shouldn't have picked up my sixth foul in that game.
02:59Now, we see this in the past, Matt.
03:01And here's kind of the moving forward question for me with this, is that, you know, I remember
03:05LeBron James losing in championships, learning from that, coming back and winning championships.
03:10I think Michael Jordan in the Eastern Conference Finals talked about that going up against
03:15Detroit.
03:16This has happened throughout the history of the NBA, where star players initially struggle
03:20in the bright moment, and then they come back, and then they win.
03:23Do you think that this can happen for Luka?
03:25Is that sort of where we're at on the trajectory of his career?
03:28Yeah, it certainly can.
03:30I mean, he's good enough.
03:31He's a legit top five, probably top three player, you know, might be number one pretty
03:36soon if he's not already.
03:38He's right there.
03:39Put it that way.
03:40The thing is, I don't know how good his Dallas team is, obviously.
03:46They were great last series.
03:48They look good.
03:49But how much of that was the Timberwolves just not playing well, not being ready for
03:53the moment, similar to what you're saying, where they had to get over that hump, and
03:57they had to take some bruises and some scars before they could eventually get there, Anthony
04:02Edwards specifically.
04:05This is a very solid team.
04:06They're in the NBA Finals.
04:08Luka is just, you know, a quintessential star player who can lead a team.
04:12But I do think they need to fill in around him a little better.
04:16And you know, look, they have good role players who really came through the last two rounds,
04:20aren't coming through as much, but that's because they're up against an elite defense.
04:23They were up against an elite defense the last two rounds, to be fair.
04:27But you know, this is raised, and the team they're playing has experience, has gone through
04:33the scars, has lost in a finals, has lost in a conference finals.
04:36So there you go.
04:37That's probably the difference.
04:39So this is going to help.
04:40There's no question about that, but it's still going to be a long road to the top when
04:46the league is as stacked as it is right now, the West is as stacked as it is, and it doesn't
04:50look like this Boston team is going anywhere for at least the next season, maybe beyond.
04:55Yeah, it's really a great team.
04:57As you mentioned, several players, high caliber, four, five, six guys that they could play
05:03at any point.
05:04Chris Tapps Porzingis did not play in the last game.
05:07I think, Matt, it's fair to say that he's very questionable to play in the next game
05:12with them up 3-0.
05:13So two-part question here.
05:16I guess the easy one is, would you say that the Celtics would be doing the smart thing
05:20by sitting Porzingis in the next game again?
05:22And then on top of that, how many games do you think Boston wins at this point?
05:26They're minus 105 to win it in four on FanDuel.
05:30And if you want to try and stretch beyond that, which is possible, the games in Dallas,
05:33it's plus 160 in a five-game win.
05:37Yeah, I mean, I think Dallas will come out hair on fire.
05:39It's what the Timberwolves did, you know, last round against them.
05:43So I wouldn't be surprised if Dallas won game four, but I do think it's going to be Boston.
05:48I mean, we haven't even seen a really good Tatum shooting game yet.
05:52So I think it's going to be Boston in winning it in four.
05:56I don't think Porzingis will play.
05:58I don't think they have a reason to play him.
06:00I don't know if he'd be back all series if it did extend.
06:03It's just a weird injury.
06:05That gives Dallas a chance.
06:07I do think it does.
06:08And if Boston has a really cold game like they seem to do, Dallas has a chance.
06:14All right.
06:14Well, Matt, we certainly will find out when the next game tips off.
06:18And I think the only shot that Dallas has to, you know, in my opinion, Matt,
06:23is they got to be up at some point early in this game.
06:26Like, I mean, they are just falling behind in every game that they play.
06:29It's almost impossible to play that way.
06:30Great stuff, Matt, as always.
06:32Have a great rest of your week.
06:32Thanks for coming on.
06:34All right, appreciate it.
06:35Thank you.