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Booy was he right. This is the finals and he came out ready to win. Just look at how he snatches the ball right out of Poole’s hands.
And right here, he follows the action on the opposite end, with 2 Celtics jumping on Curry, they trust their backline rotations, and Marcus does just that as he anticipates and steps in, ready to make a play on the ball and get the steal.
Boston shocked the Warriors at home and there were a few key reasons for that. Let me show you. What up everybody, my name is Stefan and this is Heat Check. Let’s get into it.
First of all, it’s counterintuitive to say that Boston played great defensively knowing that Golden State shot 42.2% from downtown, and had the lead most of the game.
But a lot of those shots were contested and the defenders were always attached to the hips of the main weapons: Curry, Thompson and Poole.
Look at this sequence the tight defense completely disrupts the offensive set and it ends up being a turnover.
And watch Pritchard fighting hard over a screen, staying in front, then a re-screen and he still manages to contest this shot.
And the most interesting thing to me were examples like these from both Smart and White where they wouldn’t even look at what’s happening on the court, keeping their eyes focused on Steph.
Check out how the play just goes on in the background and there’s a whole different story right here where it’s watching for every movement, even an eye blink from Curry.
After those initial couple of miscommunications defensively that Steph punished in the first quarter, they were solid the rest of the way.
And another reason for this win that might also sound counterintuitive to say is Jayson Tatum.
He only had 12 points on 3 for 17 a horrific shooting percentage but his playmaking was possibly the best that I’ve seen from him.
Watch the patience here from him as he gets the screen and the switch, the great in and out dribble to penetrate into the defense and the Warriors shrink in the paint right here, so Jayson, sees this skip pass all the way to the corner, and as we let it roll, you see that he provides a wide open look with his penetration and ball movement, and we got the 3. Tatum knew exactly what he wanted to do as soon as he penetrated and attracted the help defense, he kicked it out to the open guy and it seems like everyone else on the team besides him had a great shooting night.
Speaking of that, the third reason of course was the fact that Boston picked the perfect game to have the absolute best shooting performance hitting 21 threes on 51% especially the 9-12 barrage in the 4th quarter by both White and Horford.
When you hit a shot like this one you know you’ll win the game. And while I don’t expect the Celtics to repeat a 51% shooting from downtown, it’s going to be key for them to at least be decent and not have lapses like in the Miami series.
Another key moving forward is Jaylen Brown who had a terrific game and both made shots but attacked inside as well, which makes him hard to guard on nights like this..
Let’s see if these pull up jumpers continue to fall for him because if they do, he is deadly.
Boston stole game 1 and Golden State had control for almost the entire game, so I guess both teams have something to be confident about.
But this series started completely opposite of how I and many others picking the Warriors saw it developing so now let’s wait and see what’s next in game 2.
That’s it for now, subscribe and talk to you in the next one. Peace out.
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