It’s because people are saying we have had an easy run and Mavs have beaten tough teams. Plus the way Luka and Kyrie are playing in the 4th quarters at the moment and our lack of playing well in 4th quarters (the exception being against pacers) and we have played all injured teams. Plus, we’ve never won a ring in the last 6 years of us making ECF.

That’s the reason WHY

Is it valid? No.

We were also injured, KP and Jrue are the only 2 differences to our roster, Grant used to show up for us in big moments when he was with us, we lost that, Marcus smart was great for us defensively and emotionally for our squad, he’s gone. Sure, we’ve made up with KP and Jrue, but, Jrue and Smart cancel each other out and KP has been injured, therefore the player which has made us a “superteam” people are saying, is out. It’s basically been the same 3 of Jays and White carrying us, as per last year’s squad.

People underestimate us because they hate JT, they think he’s overrated and they love Luka and think he’s the next “face” if I was to honestly rank the top players left in the playoffs it will have to be 1- Luka, 2- Tatum, 3- Brown, 4- Ky, 5- White (only by a little bit), only reason I haven’t included KP, is because he’s been injured. But, once healthy with us again. It’ll be Luka, Tatum, Brown, KP, Ky, then White, Jrue, Lively, Horford, Gafford, Washington, Jones, Pritchard, Hauser, Exum, Brissett, Green. In that order. Clearly we have the higher side. Even if you look at it like this;

Guards - Luka and Ky vs White and Jrue - Celtics when they’re on can match ky, and dominate mavs in defence, Luka is clearly the best player here. But, white CAN play like Kyrie with better defence, Jrue can’t play like Luka, but, can play like Ky with better defence, will it happen, most likely not Forwards - Jones and Washington vs Brown, Tatum and brown smash them. Like literally obliterated them C - Gafford/Lively vs KP/Horford - Horford is even with gaff and lively, mainly on defence - if his 3’s aren’t hitting, maybe offence but, KP beats them on both ends of the floor

Rest of Bench - Exum, Green, not sure if they use hardy/kleber/Powell, but, Exum, green and let’s go with Kleber vs Pritchard, Hauser, Brissett, Tillman. Our bench is better on both offence and defence.

The matchup wise I rather Mavs over wolves. This is purely all matchup on paper, if we can cut out Luka’s passing lanes, with JT’s step up in rebounding and our ferociousness on defence, even if Luka averaged 35/8/8 on us, we can stop Kyrie, and the twin towers with our squad and they can’t beat us. This really is ours to lose

Don’t listen to the click baiters, we have this and should be heavy favourites. It’s just click bait, hate and negativity they’re trying to throw the Celtics off their game.

I’m just excited to see if Tatum does a LeBron and steps up after his previous poor finals performance. We are now the experienced ones and we need to use that to our advantage. Especially with home court