Warriors-Celtics, NBA Finals Game 3 analysis: Golden State’s Game 2 momentum gobbled up at Garden
AS’ Juanma Rubio reacts to the Boston Celtics’ 116-100 win over the Golden State Warriors in Game 3 of the 2022 NBA Finals on Wednesday.
Welcome to the North End of Boston, to 100 Legends Way. Welcome to the Garden. After a 12-year wait, the NBA Finals returned to one of its great stages, one of the places where league history has been written. Just centimetres from the old Garden, the site on which the Boston Celtics won 16 of their 17 championship rings. Eight in a row, 11 in 13 years. Where the city’s pride in its franchise was born, where professional basketball first discovered the mystique of the Celtics.
On nights like this, when the season is at stake and glory is within reach, TD Garden is the old Garden: noisy, tense, hostile. A bonfire on which opponents’ dreams are burned to a crisp and on which Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, John Havlicek and Larry Bird warm their hands. When the illustrious family ghosts come alive, a tough night awaits the visitors. That’s the way it’s always been. The Golden State Warriors found that out on their first trip to the East coast in the 2022 Finals: Game 3 on Wednesday ended 116-100 to the Celtics, who take a 2-1 series lead.
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Golden State’s title-winning dynasty on the line in Game 3
The Warriors, of course, aren’t short on history themselves. They are, together with the Celtics and the New York Knicks, one of the league’s remaining founding members. Indeed, they were the inaugural champions in 1947. They also boast the NBA’s most recent title-winning dynasty. Game 3 on Friday will go a long way to determining whether that dynasty is still standing.
But we’ve seen this team come through situations like this a thousand times. We’ve seen them change the complexion of a series, silence crowds, freeze over hell. After all, the Warriors have won at least one game on the road in 26 straight Playoffs series. No other team has ever managed that, and it is their Finals X-factor, the hinges on which their battle for another NBA ring turns. What’s more, Golden State haven’t lost two consecutive games in this season’s Playoffs (they’re 5-0 after defeats). Nor had the Celtics, and they responded (they’re now 7-0). Will the Warriors do likewise on Friday? We’ll see.
Stats such as these speak for the competitive DNA that the Warriors must now call on as they bid to bounce back in time - something they have done so many times before. If they don’t, they’ll leave the Garden, the burial ground of many of the best teams in history, down 3-1 in the series. Golden State are also one of the best in history - perhaps the best - but Wednesday’s opening visit was a disaster for Steve Kerr’s men, who shed all the momentum built up in their sprint to victory in Game 2.
Celtics could have dished out a Game 3 thumping
The Celtics won comprehensively, and deservedly so. They were better in every department. There were points at which the Warriors could not live with them. Indeed, Boston were only a couple of turnovers, and a couple of better decisions from Jayson Tatum, from handing out a real mauling.
However, they lacked the speed and precision to kill the game off by half time, and lacked the composure to avoid another nightmare third quarter: they went from 77-64 to 82-83, as the Warriors claimed an unlikely advantage, Stephen Curry dancing in the spaces Ime Udoka decided to give him in his defensive plan. But despite that wobble, the Celtics chalked up a hugely valuable win, adding another plot twist to a Finals series whose direction has changed with every game.
Which team will manage to win twice in succession? If it’s the Celtics on Friday, they’ll have three match points. Only one team has ever thrown away a 3-1 lead in the championship series: the Warriors, of course, in 2016. A win for Boston in Game 4, and the Finals will be all but over.
See also - video: Why hasn’t Curry won Finals MVP?
