3 Mavericks Most to Blame for the Disastrous NBA Finals Collapse

Jason Kidd

In Kidd's defense, he coached an excellent playoffs so far. He pushed all the right buttons in the first three series. Dallas was locked in, executed well, and didn't make many mistakes. He also has a much worse roster to work with relative to his counterpart, Joe Mazzula.

It is still fine to say that Kidd hasn't done a good job so far against the Celtics. A few rotation decisions have been baffling.

Dante Exum has played well in his minutes throughout the series. The Mavericks are +7 in his 18 minutes so far but Kidd only trusted him with 3 minutes on Wednesday.

Instead, he used Tim Hardaway Jr, who was a complete disaster in Game 3. He went 0/5 in 19 minutes. That is way too much THJ for a high-level playoff game.

Hardaway Jr. over Exum was indicative of a larger problem with Kidd. He played a whopping 11 players in Game 3. This shows that he was pressing all the buttons at the same time. He wasn't sure about what would work, so he basically threw everything at the wall, hoping to see something that stuck.

However, Exum and Jaden Hardy each playing three minutes make no sense. No player can get into a rhythm and show what they are capable of in such a small spurt. He insisted on starting Daniel Gafford or Dereck Lively while it was made clear in the first two games that Lively is the better matchup in this series.

Kidd seemingly lost his cool and tried to do everything in Game 3 without a clear vision. Would it have changed anything if he had a better plan? Probably not but he certainly hasn't covered himself in glory.

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