BSJ NBA Finals Game 1 report: Celtics 120, Warriors 108 - 4th quarter explosion steals home court

SAN FRANCISCO — Everything you need to know about the Boston Celtics win over the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, with BSJ insight and analysis.

IN A NUTSHELL

The Celtics struggled defensively in the first quarter, leaving Steph Curry incredibly open way too often and allowing him to score 21 points in the opening period. Amazingly, they were only down 4, thanks to their own hot shooting. Marcus Smart and Jaylen Brown combined to bring Boston back from a 10 point deficit and the C’s defense stepped up to hold Golden State to 22 second-quarter points and give Boston a 2-point halftime lead

Things got a little ugly in the third quarter, notoriously Golden State’s money quarter. Golden State nearly doubled their second-chance points from the first half (12) with 11 in the third alone. That helped fuel a 38-24 quarter and a 12 point lead heading into the fourth. Brown took over at the start of the quarter, scoring 10 points of a 26-11 run to give Boston a 3-point lead with 5:08 to go. Al Horford, Derrick White, and Smart closed things out with a barrage of 3-pointers. Boston outscored Golden State 40-16 in the fourth.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Holy hot shooting: They shot 9-12 from 3 and 15-22 overall in the fourth, 21-41 overall in the game. The Celtics shot better than 50% from 2 and from 3. I’m sure the Golden State side will say this type of shooting night won’t be duplicated, which is probably right. But that it happened once in this series is enough. Now Boston has home court and if they can hold that, they're the champs. 

Rolling with the hot hands (on defense): The Celtics stayed with Payton Pritchard for an extended run in the fourth quarter where he was guarding Curry and doing a pretty good job of it. Smart didn't check back into the game until the 3:47 mark. 

“Credit to Marcus, the Defensive Player of the Year, on the bench, while Payton, Derrick and other guys are stepping up on both ends, and we can bring him in to close it,” Ime Udoka said after the game. 

Resilience: “Being resilient has been the word for this year. I think it showed tonight,” Pritchard said after the game. It’s hard to overstate how tough this team has been, but coming back from down 12, on the road, in Game 1 of the first NBA Finals for all of these guys, is some real intestinal fortitude. 

Calming the nerves: The Celtics spent the first half looking unprepared for the moment. They looked overwhelmed a bit in the third quarter. But then they settled down and made their run. 

“It's a confidence builder because we didn't play our best at all,” Udoka said. “Obviously Jayson didn't play his best. Every time we looked up, 32-28 after the first quarter, only down four at halftime. We hadn't played well at all. They finally stretched the lead a little bit to get it to 92-80 going into the fourth. We had a huge quarter there.”

Now the Celtics can just relax and play ball.

TURNING POINT

Boston had already cut into the Warriors lead and it turned into a back-and-forth game until Horford checked back into the game with 6:34 to go. What followed was two 3-pointers for White, two 3-pointers and a baseline jumper for Horford, and two 3-pointers for Smart in a 16-6 stretch that built Boston’s lead to 14. 

FIVE UP

Al Horford: This man wants some new jewelry. He was 9-12 from the field, 6-8 from deep, while adding 6 rebounds and 3 assists. 

“That's what we need. That's what we want. We want that veteran leadership to carry us,” Brown said. “Al had a bunch of great looks. We encouraged him to keep taking them. He came out his first Finals game and played amazing. He carried us and led to a victory.”

Jaylen Brown: He was great in the fourth quarter. One play stood out in particular when Brown spun, rejecting a screen from Pritchard, avoiding the double team, and getting to the rim. 

Those kinds of plays weren’t available against Miami or Milwaukee. Also, nice idea making Pritchard the screener and forcing someone to account for him. 

Derrick White: Part of that closing punch that put this game away, but he did so much more over the course of the game. He is on a roll, and we knew that the earlier bad shooting would level off at some point. 

“Play making, shot making and defense,” Udoka said. “To get 21 from him when other guys were struggling, 24 -- even Payton's eight, 24 from Al, 26 from JB, because it was on a night when JT is not going. We needed that from them. That unit kept us rolling in the fourth quarter to start and defended extremely well.”

Marcus Smart: At first, I thought he was just taking too many quick ones, but they kept falling. Then he was a little more composed offensively as he settled in and had a really good stretch in the second quarter where he did a bit of everything. He finished shooting 64% and scoring 21 points. 

Jayson Tatum: He shot poorly, but really, that's all he did poorly. He had a career-high 13 assists, just two turnovers, and he got to the free-throw line a game-high 7 times. The most impressive part of Tatum’s poor shooting nights are that he has gotten away from the drop-offs in the rest of his game.

ONE DOWN

Grant Williams: He did have 3 assists, but otherwise was kind of a no-show, which is probably why he only played 16 minutes. 

TOP PLAYS

THREE TAKES KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- Payton Pritchard, Steph Curry stopper? 

I’m not going to overreact to one game, but I’m very curious to see the job Pritchard can do on Curry the rest of the series. Curry moves a lot, and Pritchard happens to be the one guy quick enough -- and probably rested enough -- to expend the energy chasing him around the floor. 

I know I just phrased this section “Curry stopper?” but I think Pritchard is more of a Curry pesterer. He’s a good change of pace from Smart and White. I think Pritchard might get some extra minutes here moving forward to see if he can keep this up. 

- Someone owes Tatum an apology

An anonymous Eastern Conference assistant coach told ESPN in November that “Jayson Tatum is about Jayson Tatum … I don't think he cares about winning now, and if he does, it is on his terms.

"He doesn't want to score 15 and win. He wants to score 39 and win."

He scored 12 in this game on some terrible shooting he never really forced the issue late in the game. He only took 3 shots in the fourth and had 4 assists. He scored zero points in the 40-16 close to the game. 

Afterwards, he said he felt “Ecstatic, right? 40 points in the fourth quarter? J.B. played big. Al, Payton, D-White. Those guys made big shots, timely shots as well. And we won, right?

“I had a bad shooting night. I just tried to impact the game in other ways. We're in the championship. We're in the Finals. All I was worried about was trying to get a win, and we did. That's all that matters at this point.

“So I don't expect to shoot that bad again. But if it means we keep winning, I'll take it.”

I don’t know who that coach was that said that about Tatum, but he owes Tatum an apology. He knowS how to find Tatum. Tatum is the guy still playing basketball in the NBA Finals, as opposed to that coach, who is on vacation right now. 

- The Warriors are going to be on a mission Game 2

I thought Game 1 was going to be a problem for Boston. Instead it might be Game 2 that's the problem. 

“It's far from over, right? It's just one game,” Tatum said. “And we got to be ready for them to respond as if we would if we lost the first game. They're going to come out, they're going to make adjustments and things like that. So we have to be prepared and just approach it one game at a time.”

The Warriors know that if they lose that and go to Boston down 2-0, they're in a lot of trouble. They will come out firing.