Boston clamps down to end Warriors’ winning streak.
BOSTON — The speculation amplified as the Warriors steamrolled through seven teams by an average of 19.9 points: When would they finally be threatened?
In a 92-88 win over Golden State on Thursday night at TD Garden, the Celtics showed that they can do more than steal a meaningless game from the defending NBA champions. The league’s stingiest defense gives Boston a chance at pushing the Warriors in a seven-game series come spring.
“It’s very, very likely, right?” Golden State guard Stephen Curry said when asked whether he expects to return to Boston for the NBA Finals. “They’re playing the best right now in the East . ... We’ll see, but I hear the weather is great here in June.”
Technically, Boston is playing the best in the NBA. It has won a league-best 14 games, all in a row, a stretch that spans
almost a month. A Warriors team that entered Thursday averaging 119.6 points — 8.2 more than any other club — failed to score 90 points for the first time since March 11. It was the 12th time during their win streak that the Celtics have held an opponent to fewer than 100, which is three more times than any other NBA team has done this season.
Boston benefited in the least entertaining of areas to storm back from a 17-point deficit Thursday. The Celtics went 33-for-38 from the freethrow line, including two from rookie Jayson Tatum that helped ice the game with 6.7 seconds left. Boston guard Kyrie Irving scored 11 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter and made all seven of his foul shots in the final period.
“We committed a lot of silly fouls,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “We kind of fell out of our rotation. They were just tougher and smarter.”
Cal alum Jaylen Brown, not Irving or Al Horford, powered the 15-3 rally that cut Boston’s deficit to five by halftime. Brown led the Celtics with 22 points.
When Curry headed to the bench early in the third quarter with his fourth foul, he had four points on 1-for-8 shooting. He finished with nine points on 3-for-14 shooting. Unlike most nights, when his mere presence is an asset for the Warriors, Curry returned to the floor with 3:46 left in the third period and Boston immediately unleashed a 13-2 run to knot the game 68-68 entering the fourth.
“It was just one of those nights,” Curry said. “You’ve just got to live with it and move on.”
The game had all the makings of a key early-season matchup: a national TV audience, the two conference’s top teams, at least two likely MVP candidates (Curry and Irving), the No. 1 defense (Boston) and the No. 1 offense (Golden State). In a regular season that has felt like an extended prelude to the Warriors’ fourth straight trip to the Finals, NBA fans finally could tune in with a measure of suspense.
The Celtics, an afterthought in recent years to LeBron James’ Cavaliers, look like the class of the Eastern Conference. Though people should be careful not to glean too much from a mid-November game, Boston reinforced that it is as capable as any team of making things interesting in the Finals.
“What does this victory mean?” Brown said. “It’s just a regular-season game. We’ve still got 60-plus games left to play.”
Meanwhile, Golden State has a day to correct old issues — blown leads and mounting fouls — before Saturday’s game in Philadelphia. The 76ers, perhaps the most promising young team in the East, are sure to want redemption after getting blown out by 21 points Saturday at Oracle Arena.
As Curry disappeared into the visitors’ locker room after his postgame news conference Thursday, a teenage boy standing nearby in a white Celtics hoodie shouted: “See you in June!”
“We kind of fell out of our rotation. They were just tougher and smarter.” Steve Kerr, Warriors’ head coach