On Sunday, the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors faced off for the fourth time since their 2022 NBA Finals series. Coming into the game, the Warriors held a 2-1 lead over Joe Mazzulla’s team.
However, this isn’t the same Celtics team that lost that playoff series. They’re older. They’re more focused. Simply put, they’re better and not just because of the recent additions to the roster. Yes, Jrue Holiday makes this team better. And yes, if he were on the floor, Kristaps Porzingis would have melted the Warriors’ minds on the defensive end. But they’re better because of their loss in that series. They’ve grown. They’ve improved. And now, they’re hungry.
The Warriors tried to bait Boston. They chose to sag off Jaylen Brown on the perimeter. From a basketball standpoint, you can see the thought process. Brown gets the majority of his offense in the paint or around the rim. Sag off, and those drives become more challenging to navigate.
So the Warriors chose to dare Brown. Dare him to shoot. Dare him to try and take over. Dare him to be him. Golden State wanted to kill Boston’s ball movement. They wanted to test their commitment to playing for the team rather than themselves.
“It’s the first time it’s ever happened to me,” Brown told the media after the game.“Honestly, I was a bit surprised. Took a little bit of adjusting. But I think we just took advantage of whatever that attempt was and just made the best of it…I get to the paint and I usually open it up for everybody else. But, if you wan’t to dare me to shoot, we can do that too. I thought it was a little disrespectful. But we took advantage of it.”
Two years ago, that plan might have worked. Brown was younger then. Tatum was younger, too. The narrative surrounding the All-Star duo was still focused on whether they could play together. The media continually tried to drive a wedge between them. Fastforward to today and we know what this duo can do. More importantly, we know they can not only co-exist but thrive alongside each other. Daring Brown to slip into a bear trap was always a risk.
Still, that defensive decision wasn’t the only talking point from the game. There were plenty more. Like how the Celtics suffocated Steph Curry’s space. How they got physical with him at every opportunity. They didn’t come into this game looking to make friends, or pay homage to a dynasty that is slowly watching the lights fade out. They came in to make a statement: there’s a new juggernaut in town, and you helped create it.
We’ve seen Curry’s movement cause havoc throughout his career. His non-stop running often creates confusion among the defense. However, the Celtics continually found ways to keep track of him. They clogged his airspace, got hands in his release area, and ensured he was consistently off balance when getting his shot off. This happens when a team has been learning from what you did to them. The Celtics know how the Warriors play. They’ve suffered against Curry on the biggest stage. They didn’t want to allow them to happen again.
On offense, the Celtics went against the grain. Coming into the contest, the Warriors were the sixth-ranked perimeter defense in the NBA. Yet, they sat 21st in the league for defending the rim. Golden State lacks size in the middle of the floor. Logically, you would assume the Celtics adopt a gameplan similar to the one we saw against the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday, Feb. 27, where they took just 22 threes and dominated in the paint.
Nope. You can’t send an emphatic message by attacking a weakness. If you want to be taken seriously, you need to hammer your point home. What is the best way to do that? Beat someone in an area they excel. Go against where they’re at their best and dominate. So, that’s what the Celtics did. They cooked the Warriors from three. They did what Golden State has done to teams on countless occasions.
“When you have a creative idea and it doesn’t work and you’re taking the ball out of the basket and they’re hitting 10 threes in the first quarter. That’s what we used to do to teams,” Curry told Bobby Manning and CLNS Media. “It’s kind of demoralizing … then you feel like you have to play home run basketball on the other end to try to make it up and that’s where the momentum shift kept going their way … every little play goes their way and you look up and you’re down friggin 40. It’s one of those nights.”
The Celtics took 49 shots from deep in their win over the Warriors, converting 25 of them. That’s a 51% conversion rate.
Everything came in rhythm. Everything was a product of attacking the defense. Even in the second half, when both teams emptied their bench, the Celtics stuck to the game plan. Oshae Brissett’s energy allowed the Celtics to pressure the rim. Sam Hauser and Payton Pritchard’s shooting continued to cook the Warriors from deep.
Coming into the game, nobody expected such a dominant result or performance. Sure, there was hope and belief that the best team in the NBA would handle their business against an aging Warriors team. Yet, a beatdown of this magnitude certainly didn’t appear to be on the cards.
The Celtics last beat the Warriors on January 19, 2023. That game was a hard-fought contest, with Boston securing the win by three points. Yes. that game likely helped erase some of the memories from 2022, but it didn’t make things right. Destroying Golden State on Sunday is the type of win this Celtics team needed. They’re been on a championship path all season. This win felt important. It felt like the platform to build everything around heading into the playoffs.
Boston erased the demons of the NBA Finals past with this victory. However, their redemption arc won’t be complete until they’re holding the Larry O’Brien trophy in June and hoisting a new championship banner into the rafters. When that happens, we will be looking back on this win as the launching pad. The Celtics and their fans, needed this win. Now, they need to do the same to the Milwaukee Bucks when they face each other on Wednesday, March 20.
