One of the most intriguing questions in the NBA over the last decade is about to be answered: What if the Warriors had to beat the Celtics in the finals?
No team has given Golden State more trouble than Boston since Steph Curry and Co. they won their first championship in 2015. Regardless of the squad, no matter the talent disparity, the Cs will fight the Warriors like no other.
They will now meet in June, and just in time. The Celtics, behind young pistols Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, are on the rise. The Warriors, built around the 30-year-old troika of Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, could be making their final fight.
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What they are crossing at the moment is the dream of a basketball purist: the proud champions built around a surprisingly creative offensive against the young newcomers who play defense relentlessly like a tsunami. We haven’t had such an intriguing finale since the Warriors first met LeBron James and the Cavs seven years ago.
We have always wanted this confrontation. Since the Warriors became the Warriors in 2015, they are 7-9 (.438) against the Celtics and 499-219 (.807) against everyone else. If you start a year later with the first full season of Isaiah Thomas in Boston, when the Celtics became legitimate playoff candidates, the Dubs are only 5-9.
all of Achilles
% Warriors win over Celtics since 2015
% Warriors win over the rest of the NBA since 2015
The Celtics have NBA first-team talent in Tatum today, but most of them may have been with the Attleboro Y boys as well. In 2015, his five initials included Jared Sullinger and Amir Johnson. When they were beaten four months later for denying Golden State the first perfect home record in NBA history, they scored 21 points from Evan Turner and 19 effective minutes from Jonas Jerebko.
Even at the absolute height of their powers, the Warriors seldom vouched for victories. Aside from a 16-point win in 2016, they haven’t won the C’s by more than five points since 2015. Their games are invariably reduced to the final moments, even when players like David Lee or James Young are watching minutes. of crisis time. in green.
Now we talk about Tatum, and All-Star Brown, and Defensive Player of the Year Marcus Smart, and veteran stabilizer Al Horford, and the threat of blocking shots Robert Williams, and the tough Derrick guard White and Draymond … annoyance waiting for Grant Williams.
But on the other hand, the Warriors are more tested in battle than any team from the Jordan Bulls. Curry continues to dazzle at 34 years old. Thompson has returned from devastating knee and Achilles injuries to an average of more than 20 per night. Mercurial green has just put numbers 7-7-7, which perfectly capture its selfless value.
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This is a fantastic match because the respective forces of the clubs come together as opposing magnetic poles. The Warriors shoot all 3 better than any team, but they will also kill you at the back door. The Celtics defend the perimeter like attacking dogs and can change every cut.
Golden State will have to be patient to get the look it wants. The Celtics must remain disciplined to protect themselves throughout the clock as Curry and Thompson move across the screens. This series will have a mental impact unlike anything any team has come across this postseason, and that includes the Brooklyn-Milwaukee-Miami glove the Celtics ran to get this far.
It’s nothing new, because memorable matches abound even though teams only meet twice a year. The Celtics fell by 17 points in the Garden in 2017 before scoring 19 in a row in a furious comeback victory. A few months later, they almost won again on the road, in what appeared to be the most serious threat to the reign of the defenders.
The Warriors have been here before, but have never faced a team like the Celtics. The Celtics believe this is their year, but there’s nothing the Warriors haven’t seen. This is a clash of finals that has been going on for almost 10 years, and if the past is a clue, the NBA is about to close 2022 with a hellish show.
However, the Celtics lost the 7th game of the conference final against LeBron and the Cavs, who were briefly swept away. The Celtics believe they would have surprised Golden State, even without injured veterans Irving and Gordon Hayward.
“We would definitely have won Golden State that year,” Smart said on JJ Redick’s podcast this winter. While this is debatable, there is no doubt that they would have given the Warriors a better series.
That’s what they do. The clubs split this year, with Golden State making one close to Boston in December, and the visitors returned the favor in March not only getting a 22-point victory as part of their demolition tour of the state. second half, but also eliminating Curry. for the rest of the season when he suffered a foot injury while being hit by a loose ball by Smart.
Curry is fine now and the Warriors reached the final while losing only four games to the Nuggets, Grizzlies and Mavericks. The Celtics present a completely different test, however, as a relentless physical team with a size that is mounting a growing superstar and a sense of destiny.
The Warriors have been here before, but have never faced a team like the Celtics. The Celtics believe this is their year, but there’s nothing the Warriors haven’t seen.
This is a clash of finals that has been going on for almost 10 years, and if the past is a clue, the NBA is about to close 2022 with a hellish show.