POST GAME - PLAYOFF ROUND 4 - FINALS - GAME 3 - GOLDEN STATE - HOME

Good news, bad news, good news:  Good news is that we went up 18 with 6:27 left in the 2nd.  Bad news is that we lost that lead and went down 1 with 3:45 in the 3rd, wiping out a 12 point halftime lead.  Good news is that we clawed back into the lead and kept it for the next 15:35 of the game.  It takes real ganas to lose an 18 point lead on just insanely lights out shooting by arguably the best pair of shooters to ever play in a back court together and just shake it off and grind out a convincing win nevertheless.

And convincing it was.  Our high water mark was 18 and we won by just 2 points below that.  It was so convincing that Steve Kerr pulled The Splash Brothers and Wiggins with 2:19 left and the score 114-100 (pretty pathetic that 2:19 minutes of garbage time produced just 2 points total by both teams).

Turns out we're a pretty decent team when we take even reasonable care of the ball.  16 turnovers vs 12 for them and we still won convincingly.

Draymond Green fouled out with 4:07 left because he dived on top of Marcus Smart in a scrum where half of both teams hit the floor.  And then complained about.  Not even an attempt to get the ball, just a Touchdown dive.  We've now seen him trying to pull on Tatum's shoulder.  His thug life basketball style is not what the league wants, especially not in the playoffs.  The whole reason why it is considered a flagrant foul for not giving a landing spot for a shooter, like the flagrant Al was called for when Steph landed on his foot, is because they saw what happened to Kawhi Leonard, and the Spurs, when Zaza Pachulia stuck his foot under where Kawhi was going to land.  Marcus Smart and Draymond Green are both fierce competitors and elite defenders.  The difference between Smart and Green is that Smart doesn't lose his mind.  Unfortunately, since that pull on Tatum's shoulder wasn't called for a foul, the league probably won't review it.

But Karma's a bitch.  After Draymond tried to hurt Tatum he fouled out in that scrum and in that scrum Steph Curry was injured.  Reports out of GSW today is that Steph has "re-aggravated" (his word, in his post-game presser) the foot sprain that made him miss the last 12 games of the regular season.  That original injury, coincidentally, happened in a game vs the Celtics.  I don't wish injuries upon players.  It's bad karma for me and, besides, it feels a lot better when you beat them at full strength, but I cannot deny it wouldn't be helpful if Steph's mobility and/or lift on his jumps were impaired.

I watched the game in a sports bar out here.  It was loud.  Not TD Gahden loud, but loud.  When GSW made their run in the 2nd to cut our 18 point lead down to under 10, and to finally end up at the half by 12, it got real loud.  When they took the lead on an insane Steph 3 in the 3rd it got deafening.  In the final few minutes I was able to have a conversation with the person next to me in a normal speaking volume, and we were sitting at the bar with the majority of the people, and their sounds, coming from behind us.  Ah, the Sounds of Silence.

The biggest oohs and ahhs from the heavily pro-Dubs crowd at Sneakers were for The Time Lord.  They cursed and grumbled when the Js did stuff but there were nothing but "why can't we have a player like that?!" for Robert Williams.  4 blocks and 10 rebounds in 26 minutes.  Who wouldn't want him?  The first play of this highlight film is him keeping an offensive rebound alive.  Who wouldn't love that?!





The Warriors in the playoffs are a +43 in the 3rd quarter.  The Celtics are a +40 in the 4th quarter.  The difference, therefore, is in the first half.  A good first half is necessary to stave off their 3rd quarter charge until our 4th quarter rally kicks in.  We lost Game 2 with an icy first quarter and we never fully recovered from that.  We were only down 2 at the half but then their 35-14 blitz made any 4th quarter rally by us moot.  Starting hot is essential for us.

Jaylen probably did more to help us win this game than anybody because of his hot start.  Not just his 27 points and 9 boards but because his scoring came early.  He had 17 of our 33 first quarter points and it was our hot start out of the gate that put us in a position where GSW needed their strong 3rd quarter just to catch up.  Imagine if we had only been up 6 at the half because Jaylen "only" had 11 points after one?  Klay Thompson isn't the Klay Thompson of old, not on defense.  He can't stay with Jaylen anymore, not if Jaylen is aggressive.  Brown also had 5 of his 9 rebounds in the 1st and 2 of those were offensive.  3 assists.  He did it all and even though it was only the first frame it set the tone for the whole game.  The Dubs had to expend tremendous energy to rally back to only be down double digits at the half and for a small, brief lead in the 3rd because they were so far down after 1.  Curry played 37 minutes and Thompson played 39.  They are 34 and 32 years old.  Curry has been averaging 34mpg in these playoffs (646 total minutes so far) and Thompson has been averaging 35mpg (670 total minutes so far).  Jaylen has played 33mpg (793 playoff minutes over 5 more games than The Splash Brothers), so quite a few more, but he's also only 25mpg and isn't coming back from injuries like Steph and Klay.  GSW can't put Gary Payton Jr. (the mini-Glove) on both Tatum and Brown.  Whomever he's not on should go off like a rocket.




Tatum with 26 on 9-23 but 9 assists and only 2 turnovers.  We are really seeing the maturation of Jayson's game these last few weeks.  He still forced a few too many shots for my liking but he was aggressive and drove on them.  A few forces, but a lot more kick outs for open shots.  He also blew a few bunnies.  We'd have won by 20 if he hit those.  I know I'm quibbling but it's quibbling only because we won.  If had lost we'd be talking endlessly about those misses and on shooting only 71% from the line.  This time we got away with those missed opportunites.  Next time we may not, and the ferocity of this series is only going to get more so.  A beautiful give-and-go, basic fundamental basketball like James Naismith drew it up, with RWill and Tatum at about the :34 second mark of the highlight film (loved the matador defense by Otto Porter on that play too.  Ole!).




Never doubt the heart of a Champion.  "Non-shooter" Marcus Smart with 24 on 8-17 and 3-7 from 3.  I loved hot he was backing his man down.  They were working to get a mismatch on Steph all game (pretty much everybody except for Pritchard is a mismatch with Steph) and Smart tortured him.


Chris Forsberg @ChrisForsberg_
about 54 minutes ago
Steph Curry when defended by Marcus Smart in Game 3: 0 PTS, 0-4 FG, 0-1 3PT, 2 TO, 4:57 matchup time. Curry vs everyone else: 38 PTS, 15-23 FG, 7-12 3PT, 1 TO, 8:00 matchup time.




Speaking of Pritchard, it seems to me the way I think Kerr was defending him was interesting.  They were throwing doubles at Tatum all series, trying to get the ball out of his hands.  That leaves someone open, right?  The remainding 3 defenders have to play a zone to try and stay connected to the 4 Celtics waiting for a pass and a catch-and-shoot or backdoor cut opportunity.  Well, I'm wasn't seeing Pritchard's man leaving him to play zone.  Did anybody else notice this?  They didn't seem to switch much on him and, when they were running at Tatum with 2 players, two of the remaining three defenders spread out but Pritchard's man always stayed in closing distance with him, never falling too far off him.  If I'm right, that's respect.  If that's true then Pritch is providing valuable playing time because he is keeping the middle of the floor wide open for 3 of his teammates to overwhelm those 2 Warrior defenders playing back.

Big Al is playing his everlovin' heart out.  Not an amazing boxscore, except for the 6 assists and zero turnovers, but he seemed to be everywhere.  He was, I believe, the first Celtic to the floor with Steph in that 4th quarter scrum (I think he fell on Steph's leg accidentally).  Man, that's a long way down on a hard floor for an old man.  Championships aren't usually won by young teams but a young team with good veteran leadership that the kids buy into?  We're two wins away from finding out.

Grant is another one that is playing his heart out.  His boxscore doesn't show it (10 points on 4-7, 5 rebounds) but his play was pure grit.  3 of his 5 rebounds were offensive and you all know by now how much I love that.  At :34 of this short highlight film is the sequence with the score 89-86 and only 1:20 left in the 3rd (so this is after they stormed back and took the lead) and Grant got fouled and went to the line for 1-2.  He starts out at the arc, cuts to the paint on the shot (a forgotten art in this NBA), taps the board to Robert Williams who gives it back to Grant.  In the next sequence, with the score now 90-86, he hits a 3 in the corner to put us up 7 with < 1 minute left in the 3rd.  We were down 1 with 3:45 in the 3rd, 83-82, and then went on a 11-6 run to finish the quarter up 4 and Grant was 4 of those 11.  No Grant, we're tied after 3.




Derrick White had a crappy scoring night, 3-9, but he was sticky with Curry (no culinary metaphor intended).  It wasn't his fault that Steph went unconscious.

We had 15 offensive rebounds vs only 6 for them.  That's a net 9 additional possessions.  We took 9 more ftas than them.  I don't have the time but I'd sure be interested in knowing how many of those 9 additional ftas came from those 9 additional offensive rebounds.  God Help Me, I do so love offensive rebounding.  They give us more chances to score before the defense can get set, they hamstring uptempo fast breaking teams because they don't have to ball to run with.  Kerr has played Bjelica a few minutes.  I think that's because he wants more offense but also because he knows we're bigger than his team and he wants Bjelica's 6'10".  At 6'10" Bjelica is the tallest active player on the Warrior's roster (James Wiseman is taller but has only played in 39 games and none of the playoffs).  Imagine that.  Your tallest player is 6'10" and not a particularly noted defender, while your starting center Kevon Looney is good for setting screens for your shooters but not much else.


When your team loses and your stars have bad nights fans usually say "that won't happen again because our stars are stars and they won't be playing this poorly next game".  What about when you lose by double digits and your stars are 19-39 and 11-24 from 3 and that's good for a combined 56 points?  The Splash Brothers cannot do it alone just as the Js cannot.  Wiggins with 18 but the next top scorer for the Warriors was Jordan Poole with 10.  We had 5 players in double digits.

Sean Grande @SeanGrandePBP
about 5 hours ago
BOSTON CELTICS - LAST 56 GAMES (Regular season & Playoffs) 2007-08: 41-15, +8.3 scoring differential 2021-22: 42-14, +11.4 scoring differential


14 down, 2 more to go and only 4 games left to do it in.  The next game is HUGE.  If we win we're up 3-1 and they need to sweep us 3 games straight.  I don't think they, or anybody else, can do that.  If we lose we're still tied at 2-2, and it's a 3 game series with 2 in SF, but we're an excellent playoff road team.  We won 2 in Milwaukee and 3 out of 4 in Miami.

As of this morning fivethirtyeight.com gives the Celtics an 87% chance of winning the Finals.  From their statistical model to God's ear...

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-nba-predictions/


Bob


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