Dereck Lively was one of the biggest weapons off the Mavericks bench in their historic Game 4 rout of the Celtics. The rookie center posted his second straight double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds in 22 minutes including seven offensive rebounds that led to several key second chance opportunities for the hosts.
The Mavericks certainly took advantage of the Celtics’ worst offensive performance of the year in their blowout win. However, there may have been more to the turnaround than a bad shooting night for Boston and a stellar one for Dallas. During an in-game interview in Game 4, Lively hinted that the Mavericks staff had figured some things out after falling into an 0-3 series hole.
“Just coming out here and being the aggressor. We figured out what the game plan is, we figured out what schemes they like to run,” Lively told ESPN’s Lisa Salters. “Now, it’s going to come down to us, being able to guard. All of us are talking to each other. This is the type of basketball the Mavericks play.”
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The suggestion could have some merit given Jason Kidd made some notable changes in Game 4. After playing 11 players in a Game 3 loss, he tightened up his rotation to just nine players, focusing on defense off the bench while sitting scorers like Tim Hardaway Jr. and Jaden Hardy.
Dallas bigs also played more of a one man zone around the rim on defense that served as an effective deterrent on Boston drives. Meanwhile on the other end of the floor, Dallas’ willingness to play two bigs together Maxi Kleber and Lively, led to a host of mismatches in the post against smaller Celtics defenders on switches. Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving attacked Boston bigs and Lively crushed smaller Celtics guards repeatedly in switches on the offensive glass.
The Celtics clearly had the right formula for wins in the opening three games of the series but the Mavericks may have found enough counters to make Boston uncomfortable. Al Horford hinted changes could be coming after the ugly loss.
“Usually, you know, I’ve been in a lot of these, and usually by the second game, you’re making adjustments,” Horford said. “Third game, you’re making another adjustment, and that’s kind of how it is.
And for us, we’ve had the first three games, we didn’t really make any adjustments. So today, they did something. We have to see what we can – how we can be better and prepare for it. That’s kind of where we’re at right now.”
Without the return of a hobbled Kristaps Porzingis, it will be an interesting challenge for Joe Mazzulla to prove Lively’s statement wrong. Boston returns to practice on Sunday afternoon ahead of a Game 5 showdown at TD Garden on Monday night.
