The Golden State Warriors are, shockingly, down 0-1 in the NBA Finals despite entering the fourth quarter of Game 1 on Thursday night with a 12-point lead after a dominant third quarter performance.
It seemed as though the Warriors would follow the script of so many of their games this postseason of spending the first half feeling things out before jumping on their opponents in the third and then cruising to a victory. However, this Celtics team is no stranger to fourth quarter comebacks as their resilience has been on display throughout this postseason, and they put forth their finest work yet in the final frame of Game 1. Jaylen Brown got himself going early and then Al Horford carried them down the stretch as they turned a 12-point deficit into a 12-point win.
After the game, Draymond Green clearly had one message he wanted to get out there: “We’ll be fine.” Green repeated that on a number of occasions, pointing out how they “dominated” the first 41 or 42 minutes — which wasn’t really true as they trailed by two at halftime — and that Boston’s “others” shot a rather unsustainable 15-of-23 from three-point range.
"We pretty much dominated the game for the first 41, 42 minutes. We’ll be fine." pic.twitter.com/4en6N9hQNO
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) June 3, 2022
"They hit 21 threes and Marcus Smart, Al Horford and Derrick White combined for 15 of them… 15-23 from those guys so, we'll be fine"
Draymond Green after Warriors Game 1 loss pic.twitter.com/wDYZZzVRFx
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) June 3, 2022
The Warriors dominated one quarter of play, not the first 40 minutes, and were solid to good in the first half, headlined by Stephen Curry’s 21-point first quarter, but there are some genuinely concerning things for Golden State moving forward. For one, the Boston defense really turned it on in the fourth quarter and bothered the Warriors with much more aggressive switching, and Golden State’s propensity for sloppy turnovers proved costly for once as the Celtics capitalized on some early fourth quarter mistakes from the Warriors to quickly close the gap.
On top of that, while the Warriors defense deserves credit for bothering Jayson Tatum in the opener, he will surely shoot better than 3-for-17 going forward and make up for some shooting dropoff from the role players. Green’s not wrong that the Warriors can make the adjustments and go on to win the series, but that’s only if this insistence that things will be fine is simply publicly trying to keep panic levels down, while putting the work in behind the scenes to make the needed adjustments and be ready for the Celtics to do the same (which I’m sure they’ll do, as he notes they need to watch film and make some changes).
Losing Game 1 isn’t the end of the world, which Green clearly wants Warriors fans to recognize, but losing a good Curry game and a bad Tatum game certainly narrows the margin for error going forward. We have seen Boston use this type of game to propel them forward in a series before (Game 4 against Milwaukee saw Al Horford go crazy and steal a road game while Tatum struggled shooting) and the Warriors will have to tighten the belts and recognize that this Celtics team won’t simply concede defeat after a big third quarter avalanche like some others might.
