The Warriors’ core of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are on the verge of capturing their 4th NBA title in 8 seasons.
• Complete coverage: 2022 NBA Finals
BOSTON – Just being on the brink of doing something special hasn’t been enough for the Golden State Warriors in this 2022 NBA postseason.
Each time the Warriors got to this point – a close-out game – in the first three rounds, they indulged a bad habit of “playing with their food,” losing and needing a return home to get the job done.
It happened in the first round against Denver, a sweep eluding them when the Nuggets won Game 4. Golden State dragged the Nuggets back to San Francisco before eliminating two-time Kia MVP Nikola Jokic and company.
It happened in the conference semifinals against Memphis, when the higher-seeded Grizzlies – without star point guard Ja Morant – proudly clobbered the Warriors at FedEx Forum in Game 5. Golden State ended the series back at Chase Center two days later.
And it happened in the Western Conference finals against Dallas, Golden State going up 3-0 by outscoring the Mavericks by 43 points in the first three, only to have its starters get outscored 86-58 in Game 4. The Warriors were heading home regardless but hauled the Mavericks with them. There, they jumped on Dallas to lead 69-52 by halftime, managing the margin the rest of the way for their sixth trip to the Finals in eight seasons.
“I just think this is the NBA,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said ahead of Thursday’s Game 6 (9 ET, ABC). “You’ve got talented teams. You’ve got talented players you’re going against. You’re in somebody else’s building. It’s just not easy to close anybody out in the playoffs.
“There’s no common thread. We are just going to have to play really well to win. It’s as simple as that.”
The difference from those previous series? There is very little margin for error. This time, letting this chance to clinch slip away would throw the Warriors into an anything-can-happen Game 7. That’s when one tweaked ankle, some early foul trouble, unanticipated cold shooting (or hot by one or two Celtics) or a dozen other possible hiccups could swing momentum, tilt the scoreboard and flip a championship.
History provides some lessons. Teams that have led 3-2 in the Finals have won the championship 81.3% of the time (39-9). So far, so good.
Where it gets tricky, though, is when the team lets that next game slip. Since the league’s merger with the ABA in 1976-77, 29 of the 45 Finals have gone at least six games. Teams leading 3-2 have closed out in Game 6 on 21 occasions.
But of the eight that did not, six of those came to regret it by losing both Game 6 and Game 7. Seattle in 1978, Detroit in 1988, New York in 1999, Boston in 2010, San Antonio in 2013 and Golden State in 2016 all failed to take care of business in six games – and had their championships slip away in seven.
Only Boston in 1984 and San Antonio in 2005 lost a 3-2 series edge, then rallied to win the series anyway.
That’s something the Warriors would prefer to avoid. But just as the Nuggets, Grizzlies and Mavericks were stubborn about their exits, the Celtics are in no hurry for the offseason.
Boston has history on its side, too. The Celtics have participated in 21 Finals, winning 17. Of the four they have lost, only once – a 111-100 Game 6 loss in 1985 to the Lakers – were they closed out at home.
Celtics’ playoff constant? Inconsistency
Given that the Celtics can’t reliably tell how they’re going to play from one quarter to the next, it’s probably a reach to expect them to know what to expect in Game 6, never mind Game 7.
Certainly, that’s the one thing they don’t want to hear: “Never mind Game 7.” Pushing the Finals back to San Francisco, keeping this alive for whatever might happen, is their only priority.
For much of the postseason and in dropping three of the first five games in the Finals, Boston has repeated mistakes in key areas. After the 104-94 loss Monday, media members who have covered the team all season pointed to bad habits that the Celtics largely had put behind them when they turned around their season starting in January.
In Game 5 alone, they started poorly. They got distracted a few times by the officiating. Finishing at the rim was a struggle.
Boston’s two young stars, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, combined for 45 points but shot 15-of-38 with nine turnovers. And oh, those turnovers: the Celtics had 18 worth 22 points to Golden State. That put them at a 13-point disadvantage in that category in a game decided by 10.
Through 23 games this postseason, Boston is 1-7 when it commits 15 turnovers or more, but 13-2 when they have 14 or fewer. Taking care of the ball is mandatory against the quick-strike Warriors attack.
Asked for two or three keys to cutting down on turnovers, Boston coach Ime Udoka said: “Not over-penetrate is one. One or two dribbles too many can get you in trouble. … Spacing is a big part of it, knowing where your outlets are at. … The physicality, like I talked about, being strong with the ball. Those are all things we emphasize.”
Dropping Games 4 and 5 has zapped one of the Celtics’ force fields – it’s the first time since January in games that mattered that they have lost two in a row.
They experienced losing to the Warriors with Steph Curry getting only minimal help offensively, then lost to the Warriors with Curry looking not at all like his usual sharpshooting self (7-of-22, 0-of-9 on threes). Curry, in fact, saw snapped his streak of 132 playoff games with at least one 3-pointer. Didn’t hurt his team, though.
Boston point guard Marcus Smart believes a season that has demanded resiliency of the Celtics for nearly eight months has generated some in reserve now.
“You kind of have to [be],” Smart said. “For us, we’ve been doing it all season, just for the simple fact we’ve been really on that back end of catching up with everybody else. We’ve kind of been forced to play with our backs against the wall.”
Boston was down 3-2 in its East semifinals series against the Bucks, went into Milwaukee to win Game 6, then took it in seven back home. It blew a Game 6 clincher at home in the conference finals, then went to Miami and won Game 7 there anyway.
“We got real used to it where it’s kind of part of us, in our nature now,” Smart said. “It’s nothing new to us. It’s another tough game.”
‘Game 6 Klay’ is a thing
By coming up big for the Warriors repeatedly at this particular stage of a playoff series has earned guard Klay Thompson the unofficial nickname of “Game 6 Klay.”
So, showtime Thursday night?
“I realize I’m on a really good streak right now of Game 6s. I don’t know how long that will last,” Thompson said. “Hopefully, obviously [Thursday].”
Thompson has appeared in a dozen Game 6s in his career, averaging 20.7 points on 44.6% shooting – but 49.5% on 3-pointers.
Many fans recall Thompson’s Game 6 against Toronto in the 2019 Finals. That’s the night he scored 30 points on 8-of-12 shooting but suffered a torn ACL as the Raptors won that night in Oakland.
Thompson also took a while to breathe life into the pattern, averaging 10.2 points on 33.9% shooting in his first five Game 6s.
His breakthrough came in the West finals in 2016, with Golden State already climbing out of a 3-1 hole to trail 3-2. Then Thompson exploded for 41 points with 11 threes, scoring 19 points in the fourth quarter.
Starting with that one, Thompson has averaged 28.1 points in seven Game 6s, hitting 46.8% overall and 65.8% from the arc. That includes his previous Game 6 in this postseason, when he scored 30 with eight 3-pointers in the clincher over Memphis.
Said Thompson: “It’s obviously a nickname I earned. I want to live up to it. At the same time, I don’t want to go in there and play hero ball. I’m just going to be in there and be myself, do what I’ve been doing the last few games.”
The stars who eat together …
On Golden State’s long flight to Boston Tuesday, president of basketball operations Bob Myers noticed Curry, Thompson and Draymond Green sitting at a table on the luxury aircraft, sharing a meal.
“He’s like, ‘Man, y’all are funny, y’all still sit together,’” Green said. “Y’all don’t understand, it’s 10 years. Like this does not happen. Guys still sitting together at the same table. He’s like, ‘Guys not even on the same team for 10 years, let alone still sitting there at the same table and enjoying each other’s conversation and presence.”
The three have been teammates since 2012-13, when Green – as the No. 35 pick out of Michigan State in 2012 – joined Curry and Thompson. With three rings already and six trips to the championship series in the past eight seasons, the trio won their 20th Finals game Monday. That puts them two behind the “Showtime” Lakers crew in the 1980s of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Cooper.
It is a testament to a contender whose core was homegrown, drafted, developed and chasing titles for most of a decade. Not everyone got so reflective, though.
“I owe Draymond some money in dominoes, so I don’t want to see him too many times,” Thompson teased. “I was half asleep. Draymond and Bob were chatting their hearts away for six hours on a plane ride. I was just trying to get some sleep. Good times.”
* * *
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Twitter.
The views on this page do not necessarily reflect the views of the NBA, its clubs or Turner Broadcasting.