SAN FRANCISCO — Sometimes, switches flip in an instant. That was the case on Thursday night. The Boston Celtics jumped out to a massive lead in the second quarter, completely dominating the Golden State Warriors.
Then, the fourth came along. Boston turnovers and Golden State threes led Joe Mazzulla to put his top rotation guys back in the game. But even then, the Warriors kept fighting.
What happened in between the lines?
1. Warriors fight back
Golden State knows how to swing momentum. “If you take a look at the Warriors as a team, they play a ton of close games, and a lot of it has to do with just their ability to go on runs and do that,” Mazzulla said post-game.
Boston opened the final frame with Payton Pritchard, Baylor Scheierman, Ron Harper Jr., Jordan Walsh, and Luka Garza. The Warriors went on a 12-3 run, and Mazzulla called a timeout with 9:49 to go in the fourth.
Obviously, the shots were falling for the Warriors. And they weren’t for the Celtics. But Golden State’s ball pressure had a lot to do with that. They upped their intensity and even broke out a press that Pritchard hasn’t seen in years.
Literally.
“I haven't seen a diamond press like that in a long time,” Pritchard said. “Maybe since college or even AAU days. So, definitely gotta do a better job of just handling.
For those wondering, this is a diamond press.
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via BasketballForCoaches.com
Warriors press vs. Celtics on 2/19
But it was more than that. The Warriors were up in the Celtics’ airspace. They stayed connected in the pick-and-roll. They bodied Boston off the ball, sapping their opponents' energy. They did everything in their power to make the Celtics uncomfortable, and it worked.
2. Then what?
Well, it worked up to a certain point. If it truly worked, then the Warriors would have won the game. So, what happened?
“At the end of the day, coming off the break, I thought our guys had a great attention to detail, had a great purpose to what we did,” Mazzulla said. “And in the last 10-and-a-half minutes, Golden State took it to a different level. And we were forced to be poised, we were forced to have to make plays, we were forced to have to make shots, and get stops. So, that's how they play.”
Boston. Made. Plays.
Basketball isn’t always pretty. If defense wins championships, then inherently, most wins are ugly. And that’s how the Celtics held on for dear life in the midst of Golden State’s fourth-quarter surge.
With the rumbling of the Chase Center crowd ringing in their ears, the Celtics, play by play, held their ground.
A Scheierman drive here. A Sam Hauser backdoor cut there. They found ways to score. But perhaps most importantly, they trusted Pritchard.
Pritchard was an absolute bucket in the fourth quarter. He had eight points on 3-of-7 shooting from the field and 2-of-3 from deep, but it wasn’t the quantity with which Pritchard scored that made his buckets stand out. It was the timing.
He assisted Hauser on his backdoor cut and then got a bucket of his own shortly after, halting Golden State’s momentum.
By the six-minute mark, the Warriors had cut a 29-point lead down to just 12. Then, Pritchard nailed two straight threes to pad Boston’s advantage.
He just found a way to slow down the Warriors.
3. The first quarter