What the Golden State Warriors did to the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night was the definition of “reaction.” Thanks to the terrible fourth quarter performance, the Warriors knew well that they needed to recover immediately after dropping the first game in the series in front of home fans.
The game was very close for the first 24 minutes, but in the third quarter the Warriors took it a step further and gained a serious separation. The Golden State beat Boston 35-14 that quarter and they never looked back. They inertially won 107-88 and in the process tied the series 1-1.
Stephen Curry led the road to the Golden State with 29 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, while Jordan Poole added 17 points from the bench. As a team, the Warriors forced 18 Boston turnovers and scored 33 points from those turnovers. That was a big factor in the results.
Jayson Tatum kept pace with the Celtics with 28 points and six rebounds, but his production wasn’t enough as only the other two Celtics scored in double digits. Now the series moves to Boston for games 3 and 4. This is the biggest point from Game 2.
Regression is a tough mistress
Draymond Green wasn’t very impressed when Boston shot 21-of-45 from behind Ark in Game 1. “They hit 213, with Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Derrick White combined for 15.” Green Said.. “They are good shooters, but what they joined together …. 23 to 15 from them? Yeah. We’ll be fine.”
After all, he had a point. Green spent much of Game 1 slacking from Horford focusing on help defense, but in Game 2 he set a new tone for his first possession. Green played Horford so aggressively that he forced a jump ball.
Boston still managed 19 hotstarts from behind Ark, but finished 14-3 in the second half. Horford and Smart scored 44 points in Game 1. In Game 2, I got only 4 points. In fact, even considering the garbage time, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown scored more than half of Boston’s points (45 out of 88). .. The role player who led Boston to victory in Game 1 became icy in Game 2.
There is a neutral position here. Boston is better than three-fourteenths deeper and less than ten-nineteenths, as all teams in NBA history are halfway between these two extremes. But with the exception of White and occasionally Grant Williams, the Warriors were much more willing to catch Boston archers. In that sense, the number of three pointers Boston made barely tells a story here. It’s true that the Warriors kept the Celtics down to 12 fewer attempts (45 to 33) in Game 2. The Celtics didn’t have a counter. As a result, 90 points could not be reached.
We are starting to understand who these teams really are
As the playoff series progressed, rotations tended to get smaller and smaller, and tonight was a perfect example of why. The Celtics want to be able to play four big names. Robert Williams III was hurt and Al Horford was just 36 years old. I am very grateful for whatever Daniel Theis can give them. The Celtics managed to score 12 points in the 7-minute game they played in the game. The moment he decided to drop coverage against Stephen Curry would have been the moment Ime Udoka decided to expel him for the rest of the series.
Steve Kerr’s revelation was forced on him. Andre Iguodala was excluded before Game 2 due to knee inflammation. It allowed him to give Gary Payton II, who was the DNP-CD of Game 1, 25 minutes. It’s no coincidence that the Celtics have committed 18 turnovers in Game 2 and 5 more than in Game 1. Statistically, this was a fairly predictable development. The Warriors produced 3.3 more turnovers per 100 possessions in the minutes of Peyton’s regular season than when playing without Peyton. Coincidentally, it’s the exact margin between winning and losing the Boston playoffs. The Warriors scored 33 points in Game 2 turnover, 18 more than the Celtics. They won the game with 19 points.
The problem with the extension of Peyton’s minutes is that Boston has little interest in protecting him around him. Peyton supplements it in other ways. He’s a great cutter and a nuclear athlete, but Golden State had to inject spacing in other ways. In particular, considering the limits of the green as a shooter, they tried Nemanya Bierica. He played against Luka Doncic in the previous round and against Boston in Game 2.
The Warriors and Celtics seem to have a good idea of which players can and cannot survive in the series after the two games have played, as they tend to play in the finals. is. Boston seems to have landed on Tatum, Brown, Smart, Horford, White, Pritchard, and two Williams. There are eight Golden State Warriors: Curry, Green, Peyton, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, Kevon Looney, Otto Porter Jr. and Jordan Poole. Bjelica had a compelling discussion about slot 9 tonight. Iguodala’s achievements may give him an edge. But the days when the Golden State punishes Theis seem to be over. From this point on, you will only see the best players these teams have to offer.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Thompson
Klay Thompson shot four-nineteenths from the field in Game 2. It’s a tough night, but there are few unusually bad nights. Thompson shot less than 40% of the field in 15 of his 32 regular season games. He stinks one or two per series this postseason, and even though the full-game statline looks decent, he often needs to save the miserable first half in a better second half.
This is not to say that Thompson is a wreck of some kind of train. The high price is still high. His 32-point explosion that concludes Mavericks was vintage clay. He still averages almost 20 points per game in the postseason. But the Warriors are anxious for a second consistent scorer. Jordan Poole wasn’t there yet and had a hard time in Game 1. Andrew Wiggins has a late start to the finals. Today, Curry is producing almost everything with a Golden State attack. Thompson isn’t exactly a frequently used ball handler, but if the Warriors can at least rely on him to create open shots and create his own look inside the arc, the attack will run much smoother. ..
He couldn’t compete with Boston’s stellar defense in the final, and so far in the series he’s shot only 30.3 percent off the field. The Warriors may have had enough defense to stop Boston tonight, but if Thompson shoots this way, he won’t be able to win three more games. Their championship hopes depend on his best version appearing more often than the worst version, but night after night, the warrior doesn’t seem to know which one to get.
