However it ends, these Finals may be a classic
The series won’t end until Thursday, or maybe Sunday. A champion will be crowned, an NBA Finals MVP trophy will be hoisted, one side will spray a few gallons of champagne and the other side will head out into a summer of lament.
The winner: Still to be determined.
But this much is already clear: Even without a single game decided by single digits through the first five contests, these 2022 NBA Finals are on the brink of going down as a classic.
It’s Golden State 3, Boston 2 going into Game 6 on the Celtics’ home floor on Thursday night. The Warriors grabbed the lead in the series with a 10494 win on Monday in San Francisco, the latest entry on a long list of gut-check moments in this series and the first time either of these teams found a way to win consecutive games in this matchup.
“It feels good,” Golden State’s Klay Thompson said. “But we haven’t done anything yet.”
It looked easy early for his team in Game 5, with the Warriors up 16 before long and taking a 12-point lead into halftime. Boston roared back in the third, taking as much as a fivepoint lead before Golden State restored order and pulled away in the fourth — the latest entry on a list of wild back-and-forth swings that has defined this series.
The basketball hasn’t always been pretty. Even the most prolific 3-point shooter ever, the Warriors’ Stephen Curry, clanked all nine of his tries from deep in Game 5. The combined shooting numbers in these NBA Finals are the lowest for a title series since 2016, and so is the scoring average. But that’s more a byproduct of two teams with a propensity for cranking up defense when they must, more than lackluster offense.
“Our team came out with a lot of fight,” Golden State’s Jordan Poole said after Game 5.
Such has been the story of these NBA Finals — the guys with more fight walk off winners. Such has really been the story for Boston most of the way in these playoffs. The Celtics won a Game 7 in Round 2 to oust defending champion Milwaukee. Went on
the road in the Eastern Conference finals to win a Game 7 at Miami to get here. And now they know, they’ll need to win another Game 7 if they’re going to win this title.
“The message to the guys is to be confident going home, get your rest, let’s get ready to bring it back here,” Celtics coach Ime Udoka said. “For us, it’s really about consistency. That’s the thing we’re not having throughout a full game, consistent efforts, sustained effort, more so offensively than anything.”
The entire series has been a pair of heavyweights throwing knockout punches. The 48-18 run by the Celtics to turn a 15-point third-quarter deficit into a 15-point fourthquarter lead in Game 1. The 35-14 third quarter that the Warriors turned into an easy win in Game 2. The way the Celtics wasted a big lead, then outscored the Warriors 34-17 to close Game 3. Curry scoring 43 points, even yelling at the crowd along the way, to lead Golden State to a road win in Game 4.