The Celtics have certainly surprised a lot of people this season and all of a sudden they are sitting 2 games away from their 18th NBA championship. After taking game 3 against the Warriors on Wednesday night, they look to maintain their home court advantage and possibly take a commanding 3-1 lead before going back to San Francisco.
Coming into this series, the one aspect that I viewed the Celtics heavily outweighed the Warriors in was their size and rebounding. They have certainly shown it off in this series as bigs Al Horford and Robert Williams have completely dominated the paint throughout the first 2 games and especially in game 3. The Warriors have always played small ball, especially in past playoffs when using Draymond Green as their big man and they have definitely succeeded using this method after winning 3 championships. But, this method has certainly not worked against Boston and the Celtics will definitely be looking to exploit this weakness that the Warriors possess in game 4 Friday night.
The two main duos for each team, Curry and Thompson for the Warriors, and Brown and Tatum for the Celtics both played pretty well for their respective teams. Brown was on fire right as the game started and Tatum soon followed him with another big night. The splash brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, put on a shooting clinic for the Warriors until the 4th quarter. The 4th quarter was the ultimate collapse for the Warriors as Curry and Thompson had combined for over 50 points before the quarter had started, and it looked like they really lost their magic touch once the final quarter had began.
The game was close going into the 4th quarter and the Warriors definitely needed to rely on their shooting to help them win the game, but their shooting magic just disappeared when they needed it most. They somehow only managed to score 11 points in the 4th quarter and ended up losing by 16 points. Golden State last lead 83-82 in the third quarter and ever since then they fell apart.
Whenever Golden State came down the floor with a basket, Boston always had an answer back and that is why they won this game by such a wide margin. Besides the 3rd quarter, the Celtics played perfect basketball on both sides of the ball as they limited the Warriors to just 100 points and bounced back after their struggles in the 3rd quarter.
Draymond Green was another big story in this game as he has definitely turned into an enemy of this Boston fanbase. He had an absolutely terrible game on Wednesday and he also fouled out. The Warriors are going to need much more from Green if they want to succeed in this series. Instead of focusing on throwing off other Celtics' players games he should focus on his own game and improve that. This Warriors team is going to need to improve their game a lot on Friday if they want to keep this series close and head back to San Francisco with this series tied at two apiece.
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