BSJ Game Report: Warriors 132, Celtics 126 (OT) - Curry goes off, Celtics go cold

Everything you need to know about the Celtics overtime loss to the Warriors, with BSJ insight and analysis.

IN A NUTSHELL

Jaylen Brown and Derrick White teamed up to help Boston put up a 40 point first quarter, though they gave up 30. Neemias Queta stepped up early in the second with some good minutes, but Golden State’s 15-2 run erased Boston’s lead. Boston answered with an 8-0 run of their own to retake a three point halftime lead. The Celtics came out strong in the third, getting Steph Curry into foul trouble but the Warriors hung around with him on the bench. Boston built a 17 point lead but Curry returned and he, along with Klay Thompson, went off in the fourth to force overtime. The Celtics missed good looks throughout the fourth and OT, and once again fell to the Warriors.

Box Score

HEADLINES

- Another tough loss: Welp, the reaction to this one is already manic. And I get it. This is the one game everyone wanted Boston to win. The Warriors haven't been good and Boston was on a complete high. The Celtics had a 17 point lead and Curry went to the bench with his fifth foul …

… and then it slipped out of Boston’s grasp. I’ll get more into this later, but I don’t think it’s the “same old Celtics.” I think the Celtics got a lot of good looks that they just missed. They also got some that maybe could have been better looks, and that's where they need to improve.

- Steph Curry … yeesh: The Celtics had him on the ropes with five fouls and missed a couple of opportunities to attack him with Jayson Tatum early in the fourth. Then when they did go after him, it didn’t work, which sucked for them because he was his vintage self on the other end. Some of the 3-pointers he was hitting (Thompson, too) were ridiculous. You knew he was going to have a bounceback after a rough night where he didn’t make a 3-pointer for the first time in years. 

- Role players vs. role players: Yes, Curry and Thompson finished the Celtics off, but this game was won by Jonathan Kuminga (17 points, 7 rebounds), Trayce Jackson-Davis (10 points, 13 rebounds, 3 blocks), Dario Saric (11 points, 6 rebounds), and Moses Moody (10 points). Golden State’s bench, a strength for them this season, beat Boston’s 50-27. 

TURNING POINT

Curry sat with his fifth foul with Boston leading 83-70 at the 6:07 mark of the third. They scored a couple of buckets to make it 17 with 4:34 left, but then they seemed to relax a bit. The Warriors finished the quarter 16-10, ultimately winning the non-Curry minutes by a couple points. That missed opportunity sent the Celtics into the fourth up just 11, not nearly enough pad to hold off someone like Curry. 

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE

- Relaxing in the third: That stretch there was a killer. While everyone is focused on the fourth quarter, for good reason, the close to the third was where the Celtics really lost their way.

- Jayson Tatum’s final shot: I’m fine not calling the timeout. Curry and Chris Paul were on the floor and a timeout would have brought them off. So I’m not too worried about that. But what should have happened was either Jrue Holiday or Derrick White coming over to set a pick for Tatum with :07 on the clock. 

via GIPHY

What are they going to do? Blitz Tatum? Great! One of those guys will have a few seconds to dribble into an easy shot or make a pass to someone when the defense converges. I just feel like holding the ball until the only shot is a contested 3-pointer isn’t the best idea. Any basket will do. 

Even if Tatum wants to iso, why hold the ball at the logo like that? Get the ball up a little further and then make your move. Poor execution there and a bad shot. 

- Sam Hauser: He had never gone more than five 3-point attempts without a make until this game. He finished 0-6. They mostly looked fine to me, though there was at least one early one where I might have probed to get something.

- Fourth quarter shot selection: The fourth quarter is about making baskets. Boston was 4-12 from 3 and 2-10 from 2, so I’m not sure just complaining about the 3-pointers makes a whole lot of sense. But there were definitely some that could have been ditched for maybe better looks. 

- What is a tech, anyway? I’ve seen the Celtics called for techs for a lot less than Curry’s two ball slams early in the game. Brown got tossed for less. Can we get some consistency here?

THINGS I LIKED

Derrick White: People are going to look at the 18 3-pointers and lose their minds. I think there might have been two or three that were ill-advised, but the rest were fine. Welcome to 2023-24, where there have been 17 games of 15 or more 3-pointers taken by a player. I think the rest of his game was really good, including some really nuanced point guard reads that show how advanced his game is. 

Neemias Queta: First career double-double, with six of his rebounds on the offensive glass, most of them off his own misses. He had great energy for Boston in this game and was huge early in the game. 

Jaylen Brown: A seven assist night for Brown who should have been more involved down the stretch. Only two fourth quarter shots for him isn’t enough considering how well he’s been playing. 

HIGHLIGHTS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER

- It’s similar, but not the same: I understand the frustration, but this isn’t the same as every other Celtics loss. 

The Celtics lost their way in the fourth. There's no doubt about that. They had chances to attack Steph Curry with his five fouls and missed those. Then they tried too hard, which might have been a sort of overreaction. 

Did they take too many 3-pointers? Yeah, they could have passed up a few. Maybe they would have gotten to the line. Maybe they could have gotten better shots. Or maybe it’s one of those things where the misses color our opinion. Even Jaylen Brown wasn’t sure. 

“I thought we had open looks, and we encourage our guys to take those looks,” Brown said after the game. “But I did think at times we had some numbers, we had an advantage, and we could have got layups and we settled for threes. But I felt good about, for the most part, our looks tonight. We just missed some easy ones. I missed some layups. Our guys missed some layups.”

I’ll get more into this separately because there's a lot to unpack when it comes to this fourth quarter and overtime. There's a lot they can do better, without a doubt. But if they play that exact same fourth quarter over again a hundred times, they will win a majority of those games. Even though they could certainly execute better, and even though there are plenty of nits to pick, the exact same decisions played the exact same way won’t lead to 27.8% from 3 and 20% from 2. 

They just needed a couple of shots to fall and this would have been a win, and a win without Kristaps Porzingis against a team that is always going to give Boston a fight. Again, many of your complaints about what kinds of shots they got are valid, but at the same time, the shots they got were mostly good, and simply making a normal amount of them would have salted this game away. 

Next up: The Celtics take on the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night on a back-to-back, their sixth game in nine nights.