SAN FRANCISCO -- After struggling through a tough third quarter, the experienced team with championship DNA and banners hanging above them called on their well-earned poise to put away the upstarts with clinical execution on both ends of the floor.
[looks down at papers]
… Wait. No. They're the ones who fell apart …
[rifles through papers]
… the script clearly says Golden State was the team with the experience and the poise. Boston was the young blah blah blah …
[crumples up papers and throws them into the trash]
Okay then. I guess this script calls for a rewrite.
The Warriors did their Warriorsy thing and dominated the third quarter, putting them in a position to calmly walk off the Chase Center floor with an easy home win in Game 1. They had just outscored Boston by 14 and, like a champion golfer walking up to the 18th tee with an eight stroke lead, they just had to play a normal final hole to hold on.
Then Jaylen Brown took advantage of Jordan Poole, reducing to a puddle of ineffectiveness and forcing Steve Kerr to reinsert Steph Curry. The Warriors tried to respond and put the game away, but by then their trademark final flurry was matched over, and over, and over again. For 10 consecutive possessions, Golden State and Boston put on a shot-making clinic. It felt like the first team to finally get a stop was going to win the game.
Boston got one, and then another. After each, Al Horford showed that his experience in the league meant something too by drilling 3-pointers.
“It was the way that we were moving the ball on offense, just being in those positions,” Horford said. “I felt like the guys kept finding me time after time. Also Derrick White hit some tough shots there, too. Yeah, it was just get the looks, knock 'em down, that's that.”
That's that, he said. Boston didn't just “knock ‘em down,” they hit seven 3-pointers in a five minute stretch. They hit four of those in a two minute stretch.
Of course a barrage of 3-pointers was going to be what put a team away at the Chase Center. But instead of Curry and Klay Thompson, it was Horford, White, and Smart.
“That's kind of who we've been all year,” Ime Udoka. “Tough grinders, resilient group … They had another big third quarter due to some of our mistakes, lack of physicality on our part. Then we locked down again and played great in the fourth.”
Resilience. That's what this is. Yeah the Warriors fell apart a little under the weight of Boston’s shooting, but really they were doing everything they could to win this game in the fourth. That back-and-forth trading baskets session really should have been the Warriors taking control of that game again. They got buckets from Curry, Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala. That's BINGO on the Warriors closing card.
Boston refused to let it happen, even on a night where Jayson Tatum scored none of Boston’s 40 fourth quarter points.
“The message at the start of the fourth was, we’ve been here before. We know what it takes to overcome a deficit like that,” Tatum said. “It's not going to be easy. But just knowing we've been in that situation before and we've gotten ourself out of it. We had a lot of time left, right? It wasn't time to hang your head or be done, it was time to figure it out.”
That might be the most interesting part of this whole game. Boston came out of this amazing fourth quarter basically thinking that the comeback was nice and it’s great that guys got hot, but they weren’t great for most of the game so there's a lot of room for improvement.
“We pride ourselves on everybody being able to contribute on both ends. That's rewarding, especially on a night when your best guy has an off night,” Udoka said. “So it is rewarding, and knowing we can play so much better, that's the main thing. Didn't have a great three quarters and kept ourselves in the game, then locked down when we needed to.”
The Warriors were defiant after the game, which is something they've probably earned after the type of run they’ve had. They may be proven right if they're able to come out in Game 2 and reassert their dominance.
But let’s be clear about this: They have to reassert their dominance. Green can talk about how long they were great in this game all he wants, but the fact is he’s part of why Juwan Morgan’s sneakers can now be classified as “NBA Finals game-worn.” The Warriors didn't finish the job, and now Boston has an opening.
“We got to get ready for the next game. We win as a team,” Brown said. “It's a team game. The best team is going to win, not the best individual player. We just got to keep playing as a team and we'll be all right.”