Stephen Curry scored 29 points, Jordan Poole connected from the center of the court to crown a great third-quarter run and the Golden State Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics 107-88 Sunday night in the second game to tie the finals of the NBA.
Poole finished with 17 points for the Warriors, who beat Boston 35-14 in the third quarter to turn a two-point lead at halftime into a 23-point lead. And when the Warriors scored the first six points of the quarter, the Celtics waved the surrender flag and emptied the bench.
Golden State also got 12 from Kevon Looney on 6-of-6 shots, and 11 each from Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson. Jayson Tatum scored 21 of his 28 points in the first half for Boston. Jaylen Brown added 17 for the Celtics, but struggled for a night of 5 of 17 shots, and Derrick White scored 12.
As in Game 1, a great run decided everything. The Celtics made a 48-18 run in the second half to decide the first goal; the Warriors didn’t wait that long in Game 2, and went 43-14 from the end of the first half to the beginning of the fourth quarter to turn a game into a draw.
Curry had 14 of his points in the third, making three of his five triples in the fourth. Boston were 4-for-15 in the quarter, were beaten 21-6 to three, and let the Warriors turn five losses into 11 points.
Poole provided the exclamation point at the close of the third quarter, making a pass in the final seconds, dribbling over the half-track strip, creating space and letting it fly. Curry greeted him with a smile and a hug, the Chase Center fans jumped up – if they weren’t already on them – and the result was decided practically there.
And for the first time, the crowd in the new Warriors building finally saw the Celtics lose. Boston went into the Warriors’ three-year home run 4-0 at night, the only team to have won the first four games in the arena.
The Celtics opted to join only two more teams, the 1993 Chicago Bulls and the 1995 Houston Rockets, on the list of clubs that swept two road games to open the final. Those Bulls and Rockets won the championship, and 31 of the previous 36 teams that opened with a 2-0 lead ended up holding a title.
Not all is lost on Boston, of course. The Celtics only need to win their remaining home games to win the title, though that won’t be an easy task against a Warriors team that has won at least one road game in a consecutive 26-game playoff series. the NBA.