NBA Playoffs: The Celtics Seize What The Warriors Take For Granted.
Let’s Roll The The Calendar Back For A Moment.
In May 2016, Kanye released The Life Of Pablo Otherwise 2016 Felt like An Uneventful, Average Year. Except For The NBA playoffs That Year. In May Of That Year, The Kevin Durant Lead Thunder Took On The Goliath 73-9 Warriors In Game One Of The Western Conference Finals. The Warriors We're In The Big Business Of Forcing Fans To Scape Their Franchises Off The Pavement. Now Only One More Team To Steam Roll Remained On Their Way To A returned Trip To The Finals And A Legacy Defining Championship.
The Series Got Off Classic Flair Of Superiority And Hubris Ended In Collapse. The Warriors Took A large Lead Over A Team That At Time Looked To Have No Business Playing Basketball Much Less Matchup With The Best Team in League History. Then The Mystique Faded
Kevin Durant Scored 26 Including A Number Of Crucial Buckets In The Thunder's 38 points the third Quater to Dash Away The Warrior’s Hold On The Game. Durant’s Batman (B), Russell Westbrook, scored 24 To Help The Thunder Beat The Odds Against The Champion Warriors.
“We Got Rush And Tried To Go For The Hope Run Plays” MVP Steph Curry After The 108-102 Lost.
Nothing Too Dissimilar From Their Most Recent Playoff Defeat In More Ways Than One.
The “Chef” Finished With 26 Points But Couldn’t Find The Stoke Or The Poise In The Fourth. The Warriors Gave Up A 13 Point Lead On a stretch “Characterized” By “Too Many Missed Shots” And Eagerness To Barrel Down More Despite Well Running Dry.
The Warrior’s Approach Contrasted The Thunder Who Found The Shots They Wanted And “Knocked Them Down.”
Durant Preached Resiliency, Westbrook Preached Good Old Fashion Head Strong-Ness. The Warriors Proposed To Keep Doing What We Do Because It's Work So Well For Us To This Point.
Again, The Warriors Steamed Rolled The Competition In The Postseason In 2016. This Lost In Oracle Served As Only Their First Giveaway At Home In Seven Runs At home in those playoffs.
The Last Time The Warriors Lost To The Thunder At Home, Three Years Prior.
Warriors Head Coach Steve Kerr And His Team, Famous For Rolling Off Of Opponents And Focusing Rather On The Teams Performance Instead Of The Chess Match With Other Coaches, Shrugged off The Loss Off And Moved To The Next Game. The Warriors Would Win.
The Warriors Would win Game Two. But the Thunder Go On To Push The Series To A Now Famous series 3-1 Lead.
We Already Know the Story.
The Warriors Would Stare Elimination In The Face and Win Three Straight, Including A Game 6 Gob smacking Performance By Klay, The Game That Earns Him The Repute “Game 6 Klay”. Then Go On To Lose In The Finals and Recruit Kevin Durant. No, The Warriors Won’t Recruit Tatum If They Lose.
Speaking of...
The Warriors Won 13 Straight Home Playoff Openers Since That Eventful series, The Longest Active Streak According To ESPN, Until Game One Of These Finals.
Despite Starting The Game As The Odds On Favorites Upon Being The Odds On Favorite. The 2nd Best Offense Of These Playoffs Took Off To A Rousing Start. No Other Play Proved more Emblematic Than Stephen Curry Turning His Back As Klay Thompson Drained A Three A Early through The First. Curry Would Later Jump Into The Action With a Three Of His Own To Help The Warriors Climb Out To An Early Lead. The Celtic Could Switch, But It Narrowly Mattered Who sTep For Servings, Steph Continued Cooking.
The Warriors Offense Forced A Switch With Robert Williams(Seven Points Surrendered To Curry) Or Al Horford (Six Points As The Closest Defender) Or When The Celtics Left Guards Devin White( Five Points)Or Marcus Smart(Eight Points) To Chase And Cover One On One, Buckets.
Curry Caught Grant Williams And The Celtics Defense Lacking A Few Times In Drop Coverage. All Curry Of The Celtics Perplex Defense Could Do, Shake Them ahead In Wonder.
Each Deep Bomb That Tickled The Twine Set The Crowd A Roar. All Apart Of A Six Three-Pointers Made Quarter. Curry Finished The First With 21 Points, On A Record-Setting Six Three-Pointers In The First Quarter.
But The Warriors Had Other Parcels In Stock. After Four To One Series Win Over Mavericks, The Return To The Finals Juggernaut Warriors Earners A Week OffTo Get Healthy. Both Gary Payton Jr. and Andre Iguodala Missed the Great Portions Of These Finals; Payton Hadn't Play Since The Second Round, and Iggy Didn't Play At the All Run Series. We’re Available Along With Otto Porter Jr., Who Missed The Past Two Game With Foot Soreness. Payton Would Continue Sitting Out The Iggy ENTER late In The First And Porter Would Enter To Bring A Barrage Of The Threes.
But First, The Celtics Had A Response. Kudos To Andrew Wiggins, Who, Despite a Quiet Night Offensively, Gave Jayson Tatum Fits. The Young Celtics’ Star Finished The Game with 12 Points On 3-17 Primary Confronted By The Maple Jordan, But Tatum Missed a Few Open Jumpers, just One For Five From Three. The Celtics First Points. He Blanked Out In The Celtics Turn Around Fourth Quarter Run But Finished The Game With 13 Assist.
“Bad Shooting Night. I Just Tried To Impact The Game In Other Ways.” Tatum Told Reporters Afterwards.
With Jaylen Brown, Yet to Found His Rhythm, The Celtics Turned To Al Horford.
I’m Old Enough To remember Al Horford Dominating The League As One Of The Best Out Of position big Men In The League. The Hawks Played Horford at Center Full Time Despite The Former third pick Traditionally Slated To Fit At Power Forward. No Matter, He Dominated. Nevertheless, I Never Saw The Stretch Four He’s Become.
Horford’s Been Crazy Stupid Efficient On Corner Threes These Playoffs, and He Made His Mark quickly, Felt In His Finals Debut. Hitting From All Angles, Even Given The Celtics The Lead Going Into The Second. The Celts Hit 21 Threes On The Game. Including Nine In The Fourth Quarter. Daniel Theis Got In On Action Early and Payton Pritchard Late In The Fourth. Soon The Warriors Would have Their Hands Up and Z their Faces Smeared By Confusion.
Celebrated for Their Defensive combatants and Their Dominant Dynamic Duo, The Celts Proved They Could Win In A Shoot Out, “Set It Off” Style Game.
The Warriors, Despite Having One Of The Best Fourth Quarter Offense(Offensive Rating 130.) Found Themselves Flabbergasted Finding Buckets Late.
“I think I found a lot of space obviously in the first quarter and just was trying to ride that wave as long as possible,” Curry said. The Wave Rounded Into One Of those Allegorically Famous Warrior’s Third Quarter. The Warriors crushed The Third, Outscoring The Celtics By 14. The Head Nodding Started again. After The Celtics Blank Curry In The Second Quarter, Steph Lit The Up The Hibachi and Started His Flow State Again, Or So It Appeared. He Hit A Three Over Jayson Tatum In Third that Stretches The Warrior Lead. His Last Three Of The Game. The Celtics Continued To Hold Him In Check The Rest Of The Way. He Tacked On Another 13 points From The First Quarter and Ended The Game With A Game High 34. Beneath Curry, Very Few Warriors Made an Imprint On This Game. The Celtics Had Three players with Twenty Points Or More, Including Jaylen Brown, Who Finished With 24 On A Strong 10 Point Fourth Quarter Performance. Brown And Curry Traded Jabs, But The Younger Brown Had The Touch Late.
The Highest Scoring Warrior? Andrew Wiggins, Who Finished With A “Spectral” 20 Points. Despite Some Good Moments, Particularly A Few “Don’t Jump Me” High Rise Rebounds And Rim Attacks, For A The Discussion About A Resurgent Wiggins, His Presence On The Game Felt Feign.
Speaking Of Feign and And Ghostly. After Hitting An Early Three, Klay Thompson Vanished After Hitting A Early Three, He Finished With 15, But He Made A Negligible Dent On The Scoreboard. Although His Celebrated Return, Klay Hasn’t Return To the All-Star, As Expected. Few Players Coming Off Two Of Basketball’s “Fatalistic” Injuries Can Re-Emerge In Premier Form, But Most Writers And Plaudits Still Consider Klay “Elite.” The Combination Of He And Curry Versus Tatum and Brown Looks To Serve As A Touchstone For This Series For Each Team.
Of course, The “Duos.”
I played A Mostly Dull Game outside Steph’s, Pulling Out All The Shots Striving For ThAt Final’s MVP. His And A Few Other Individual Performances Outshined Each Team's “Core Contingent” Of All-Stars. Still, The “Two-On-Two” Simulacra Battle Will Remain A Point Of References As The Series Moves On.
As It Moves On, We Have To Think In Terms Of Trios. Conspicuous Absent From the Nights Splash Effects Jordan Poole’s. The Heralded Third splash Brother Had An Ugly Game. No Coming Into The Finals “Poole Party” Just One Of Five, Four Turnovers and A Negative Nineteen Plus- Minus. He Hurt the Team’s Performance for Nearly Everyone of the 25 Minutes He Played. Between Carelessness Handling To Otherwise Absent-Minded Phlegmatic Approach To Attack The Celtics Defense. Curry Acknowledges Poole’s Experience As The Possible Culprit In The Struggles. “It's his First Finals Game.” Poole Played Electric Against The Celtics During The Season In Curry’s Absents. He Should Be Able To Have His Way Versus Any On of The Celtics Second String Guards. “He’ll Settle In.” When Poole Klay and Curry Got We're In The Line Up Together, They Compiled a Net Rating Of 32.6 During The Season. An “Apocalypse” lineup Given The Trio Achieved A Greater Offensive Potency Than Any Previous Warriors Wing Attack Unit.
With His Contract Situation Looming This Off-Season, I wouldn't Be Surprised If He Showed Up Sooner Than Later.
“We’ve Responded In The Past.” Steph Curry and The Warriors Have Faith Not In The Shots But In What They’ve Manage To Achieve Time And Time Again. Even with a Cast Of New Players, The Warriors, Trump The Celtics In This Terrain.
“Not a single player on the Celtics' roster has ever competed in an NBA Finals game, while the current Warriors have 123 combined competitions of Finals experience.” (Espn)
When The Game Boils Down To Making Shots, Experience Can Turn Into A MUTED metric. But The Experience Breeds Confidence Can Take The Warriors To Another Plateau. If They Can Make Shots As The Celtics Did.
When Draymond Green Took His Turn To Down For Report, His Face Bear A Veneer Of Misgiven. In His Hand, the Score Card Of The Night. The Celtics Reserves Put On Rousing show. "They hit 21 3s.” Marcus Smart, Al Horford, and Derrick White combined for 15," Green said Dismissively.
I Believe Green Took The Correct Approach. Outside Of Al Horford And Grant Williams, This Celtics Team Hasnt Shown The Next Level Of Marksmanship display In Game One. The Shot 35.6% On The Season Compare To 51% “Scorcha”(Shoutout Sean Paul) They Put On Thursday.
"Those guys are good shooters, but they combined for 15 out of eight, Smart seven, eight, 15-for-23. Is my math right? Eight, seven, and eight. Eight, seven, and eight. Yea, that's 23. 15-for-23 from those guys. Eh. We'll be fine." Draymond’s Comments Are Certainly Smug, Almost Snide, And Incendiary. You Can Almost Hear Him Snickering Beneath His Bravado. No Schematic Remarks. No “We Need To Rotate Better,” “Be Discipline,” “Don’t Jump On Pump Fakes,” We Don’t Expect Another “Sizzling” Performance From These Celtics.
Later, Green Would Visit His favorite Opinion Dispensary Hub, Twitter, To Further Embellish His Inflammatory Disillusionment With The Celtics Three-Point Sucess.
But Green Struggle On The Night. He Missed Two Crucial Free Throws as The Warriors We're Losing Momentum. On Top of Just four points and five assists, missing ten shots In Total, Which Surprised Me; Green Didn't Look Particularly Aggressive. He Finished 2-12 Overall, 0-4 From Three, turned the ball over three times, and then fouled out. The Warriors Have several Veterans Still Ailing in The a case Of Porter, Who Started Hot But Played Sparingly Late, And Others—reentering The Lineup Like Iguodala. The Warriors Will Need Green To Step Up And Perform. “I didn’t play well.”
To Give more Credence To Draymond’s Panache, The Celtics Staunch Defense 2nd Best Efficiency In These Playoffs, Didn't Suddenly Flip The Switch— the Warriors Got The Shots They Wanted. Curry And Others Just Couldn’t Get The Lid Off. Steph Still Took Switches On Defense To Court. Meanwhile, Jaylen Brown Made A Crew Of Tough Shots. “The Celtics Just Have To Do This Three More Games.”
Green’s Comments Aren’t One Bitten By Vacuity He’s Aware Of The Odds And The Law Of Averages. He Watches films.
Let's Not Forget That In The Finals, The Best Players Tend To Rise To The Top Like The Heavier Elements In A Separated Emulsion. Discerning And “Separating” The “Best Players” This Deep Into The Season Isn't As Simple As Sorting Nuts And Bolts Or Measurements And Samples.
The Warriors Have The Best Players. When Or If Hot Players Cool Off, The Best Player Will Be The Status Barriers For Their Teams.
