It’s all tied up between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics after they split the first two games of the 2022 NBA Finals. The series moves to Boston for Games 3 and 4. Will the Celtics impress the home crowd and retake the series lead? Or will the Warriors move in front of the first time? Check out our preview below of this Warriors vs. Celtics 2022 NBA Finals showdown.
Stephen Curry stayed hot in Game 2 after a good individual start to the series in Game 1. The two-time NBA MVP led the Warriors with 29 points in Game 2’s 107-88 victory over Boston. Golden State showed that it can get whatever it wants on offense when Curry – and even if it’s just Curry – who is clicking, as the Warriors outscored Boston in the paint, 40-24, in large part because Boston’s defense reached a point where it did not know anymore what to do with him, which allowed his teammates to prosper as well. Curry should now be the frontrunner to win Finals MVP honors, as he is averaging nearly double than that of the next best scorer for the Warriors in the series, with 31.5 points through two games. Jordan Poole has also woken up, dropping 17 points off the bench, including some back-breaking baskets that really helped demoralize Boston. That’s the kind of win the Warriors needed, heading into Game 3 in enemy territory.
Just when it looked like Jayson Tatum has finally figured out the NBA Finals, it turned out to be a nightmare once again for him. Tatum finished with 28 points on 8/19 shooting in Game 2 but was a horrible minus-36 on the floor. How can Tatum be Boston’s leading scorer and still be that bad on the plus/minus department? In any case, it’s clear that Tatum needs to reconfigure his approach, but he also needs his teammates to be more efficient and more consistent, especially offensively. Al Horford went from hero in Game 1 to merely zero in Game 2 in which he scored just two points on 1/4 shooting. In fact, Horford, Robert Williams III, and Marcus Smart each scored just two points. Those are not the type of numbers that win an NBA championship, but perhaps going back to Beantown will spark them into a more productive night.
