Warriors Tie Up The Series At 1-1

Welcome to the NBA Finals edition of For Three! I want to start this one off giving a shout out to Conor Geelan of the Enjoy Basketball newsletter. I had a conversation with him and he gave me some advice for my writing. So make sure to check out that newsletter to support him. We've seen some great basketball from these first two games, and I'm ready to talk about some hoops!

The first game of this finals was a rollercoaster. In the first quarter, the inexperience of this Celtics team shone through. Their defense was nothing short of catastrophic in route to giving up 6 threes to Steph Curry, most of which were wide open. They seemed to struggle with their schemes allowing him to get wide open a number of times. Even with this lackluster defense, they remained within four heading into the second quarter.

The third was where we saw the Warriors team a lot of people were expecting to see. They were firing on all cylinders, and they outscored the C's by 14 in this quarter. But none of this mattered when the fourth came around. This quarter was headlined by three Celtics, none of which were their all NBA first team player. Those three heros were the aforementioned Jaylen Brown, Al Horford, and Derrick White. All three hit bigs shots and played stellar defense, and Al Horford in particular took this game over, going on a nine point run by himself to put the game strongly in the favor of the men in green.

The warriors disappointed in the fourth, playing sloppy and trying to be the one to end the run instead of making the easy play. This lead to their collapse in the fourth quarter of a game that they were in control of, and a loss in a game where the other team's best player shot 17%.

Game Two

The first half of this game was similar to the first one. The two teams battled it out, staying close the whole time. Jaylen Brown started out hot and cooled off, but in this game Tatum seemed more like himself. He was hitting those tough shots we can he can make and playing stout defense on the other end. For the Warriors, Curry was his usual self and the steady Wiggins was solid. Klay and Poole both seemed to struggle mightily in the first half, not being able to get space or hit shots. Draymond was running around playing his typical role, with some questionable choices that some will argue should have gotten him removed from the game. After watching the first half, many NBA fans were expecting another close game.

But that is not what happened. Out of the break, the Warriors seemingly flipped a switch. Jordan Poole went from looking like he couldn't get playing time to looking like one of the best players on the court. Steph was amazing like always, stroking it well from downtown in the way we have grown to expect from him. Klay even hit a couple of shots, looking like the Klay we know and love. The Warriors basically player perfect on both ends of the floor, not only scoring well but also not allowing the Celtics any easy looks either. They rode this quarter all the way to a win to even up the series. If they are able to play like this for the rest of the series, it might be a wrap for the Celtics season.

That's all for the Finals edition of For Three! I am going to try to put one of these out even two games discussing what happened. As a basketball fan, I'm hoping that we get a long series of games like Game 1, as it might be the best basketball we've seen this playoffs. Keep watching and enjoying this game that we love. Good NIght!