The Western Conference Was Stacked. Dallas Won Anyway.
The Mavs weren't the team we expected to emerge from among the West's giants.
In this year’s NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics are the team that was supposed to be there all along. The Dallas Mavericks? Not so much.
The idea of a deep Dallas playoff run seemed laughable back when the team went 10-18 after acquiring Kyrie Irving at last season’s trade deadline, blowing 96 percent playoff odds to miss the postseason. It warranted only slightly fewer chuckles when Irving and Luka Doncic were still testing out their chemistry — along with their teammates — early in the season. And it still seemed pretty silly when Dallas was staring at a playoff bracket that set them up to play a collection of opponents that had been much better during the regular season.
To make the Finals, Dallas needed to beat an L.A. Clippers team that outranked them in net rating during the regular season, No. 7 to No. 14. Waiting, most likely, were the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder, No. 2 in net rating, and then either the defending champion Denver Nuggets (No. 4) or the upstart Minnesota Timberwolves (No. 3). It looked like a path that would be impossible to navigate for a Dallas squad that was only a bit better than league average this year.
And yet, here the Mavericks are, champions of a Western Conference that was filled to the brim with teams that appeared much more likely to emerge in the Finals.
Just how much competition did the Mavs have to overcome in their conference to get here? Let’s look at the state of things after the first round: The remaining four teams from the West were each of the top 3 seeds (OKC, Denver, Minnesota) plus fifth-seeded Dallas.
Aside from the Mavericks, the average Elo rating of those other three teams was 1685, with all of them rating above a 1670 mark. Dallas, at a mere 1622 Elo, was lagging far behind any of the other teams in the West. Among all NBA conference champions since the 16-team bracket era began in 1984, only two other teams went into the second round sitting so far behind the other three contenders while managing to win anyway:
Things looked even more unlikely if we consider Dallas’ regular-season net rating of +2.2, which paled in comparison with those of OKC (+7.4), Minnesota (+6.6) and Denver (+5.4). Looking at things again since 1984, only last year’s Miami Heat won with a net rating that lagged further behind the rest of the semifinalists in their conference.
Now, the Celtics await the Mavs in a Finals matchup that looks quite lopsided on paper. Not only has Boston been installed as early betting favorites, but the 9.4-point gap in regular-season net ratings between Boston (+11.6) and Dallas (+2.2) is the widest going into any NBA Finals since 1984:
If we’re keeping track, only one of the Top 10 favorites on our list above lost to the lower-rated team: the 1995 Orlando Magic against the Houston Rockets. The bad news for Boston, though? This Dallas team plays like those Rockets. And besides, the Mavericks haven’t cared all playoffs that they rank behind the rest of their competition. Why should they start worrying about that now?
Filed under: NBA
Broken record alert...while certainly not the entire picture of winning, I continue to think that the usage % of star players is a big piece and a proxy for team efficiency. Heading into tonight, Doncic's USG% in this year's postseason was 32% - a sweet spot. This, after leading the League for the regular season at 36% and over 40% for the past two disappointing postseason runs.
My sense in watching him is that he has matured beyond a great talent and into a great player who recognizes that to accomplish more, he needs to do less. The offense seemed to flow much more and involved other players to a much larger degree...and Dallas is moving on as a result.
Minnesota, on the other hand, struck me as oddly disjointed - not from over usage of Edwards, but from Towns seemingly struggling to fit into a new role in an offense where he was previously dominant. Interesting off season for them.
Boston is formidable as you have pointed out - with Tatum and Brown both sitting comfortably at 29% USG% in the postseason, Porzingis at around 25% during the regular season and Derrick White just shy of 20% in the Playoffs. That's a lot of balance - and weapons - to stop over a series.
Even if Dallas falls short, the future is very bright. Getting Gafford from the Wizards looks very smart in retrospect. Their off season will also bear watching to see what they can add to compete with the East, but this year a corner has clearly been turned.
In listening to a lot of glowing commentary on the Mavs over the past 24 hours, I can't help but be reminded of a book I read in the 1970s - by Tom Seaver, I think.
That book gave a simple piece of advice to young pitchers...hitters prepare for the next pitch by what they saw on the last pitch. Even though hitters try to clear their minds, they can't. The brain's insatiable search for patterns in the world will cause everyone to overvalue the last piece of data they experience. So, a hitter who faces heat up and in is vulnerable to an off speed pitch low and away regardless of their preparation.
That wasn't just baseball advice, it was life advice. You see this happening every day. Have a rough flight? You're much more likely to view your next flight with trepidation despite decades of previous uneventful flights. That last data point invariably becomes over magnified.
A few years ago, I read a completely different book by a famous stage illusionist who said the same thing. Namely, that audiences at magic shows always overvalue what they saw last before the sleight of hand - say, a false shuffle of the cards. Because of this, illusionists spend a lot of time after the sleight is over reminding the audience of the last thing they think they saw - which isn't actually what they saw. The audience leaves confusing their false anchoring to the most recent event as "magic".
To be clear, I like the Mavs and what they've done this year, but they also strikes me as a bit of a false shuffle by the media. Their ascension to supposed greatness was beyond sudden and seemed to intensify in just four games against the Timberwolves - who themselves, felt overrated in the Playoffs.
In terms of perceptions in watching the games - not data - the path for Dallas felt much easier than is being portrayed by many. At least to me. The Clippers were old, battered, broken and inefficient in Round 1. Despite their brand, that victory in 6 games was not particularly impressive or unexpected. Next came OKC, who looked great on paper in the regular season. However, the Playoff stage seemed way too big for them - too young, too inexperienced, and too many mistakes. With Chet Holmgren fading badly since April they seemed over matched from the jump. Again, a nice series for the Mavs but far from definitive.
That leaves the false shuffle of the Wolves. As I have said elsewhere, Minnesota appeared to be gassed, disjointed and thoroughly pleased with themselves in simply overcoming Denver who had injuries and lost key pieces from last year's roster. They weren't the same team as in 2023. Yet, it felt like that was Minnesota's entire goal going in - just beat Denver.
Like any young team they seemed to not appreciate the commitment and intensity required to win the whole thing. They were sluggish and sloppy against Dallas, and seemed to suggest after games that not getting swept was good enough for their season. Overall, that series was a bit of an embarrassment for Minnesota. Dallas, still relatively young and in good health, with good postseason experience and some solid additions, felt primed for a run through these three teams.
So that leaves Boston as possibly the first real test for the Mavs. Unlike the Timberwolves, the Pacers were vastly underrated by the media, and strangely continue to be so. Indiana felt like a real, authentic shuffle of cards. Universally dismissed the entire series, they played unbelievably hard from tip off to final horn to anyone watching their games. They battled and scrapped - and tested the Celtics. This, despite an exhausting prior series against the Knicks. Celtic players called out their fight.
Nevertheless, Boston proved that deep experience and learning from failure matter - they were consummate closers in tight games who won every clutch moment in the series. It was like they've been there before because they had.
Again, I really like the Mavs, and Luka has certainly matured into a top player these Playoffs. They've been impressive, and their future is incredibly bright. However, I'm yet convinced they've been anywhere near tested in the way Boston will test them.
Sure, the win over the diminished and Timberwolves "seems" impressive to folks in the media, but I'm not sure they didn't see a false shuffle and convinced themselves they saw real magic on the drive home.