The Celtics will now face their fourth elimination game these playoffs after losing Game 5 94-104 to the Warriors at Chase Center. After a slow offensive start, the Celtics had a Warriors-esque third quarter fueled by six threes, turning a 12-point deficit into a 5-point lead with 3:55 left in the quarter. But the Warriors responded dropping in four threes of their own, two each from Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole (including the banked buzzer-beater) to eke out a 1-point lead. Having eaten Boston's biggest punch, Golden State ran out to a quick 10-0 run to open the fourth and cruised to a comfortable victory.
Looking forward to game 6, the Celtics are 3-0 in closeout games in these playoffs, winning Games 6 and 7 versus Milwaukee in the ECSF and another Game 7 versus Miami in the ECF. On the other hand, the Warriors are 0-3 in road elimination games these playoffs, dropping one game in each prior playoff round. Let's take a look at some of the key takeaways from Game 5 headed to Game 6 in TD Garden.
Boston Done with Drop?
With Steph Curry coming off a 43-point and 7-three performance in Game 4, Coach Udoka scrapped the high drop coverage they were playing with bigs Al Horford and Rob Williams. In Game 5, both Al and Rob played up at the screen level forcing Steph to miss all nine three-pointers he attempted. While they were not nearly as aggressive in their coverage as we saw from the Cavs or the Raptors in prior Finals series, these schemes did limit the Warriors' lead scoring punch. Does anyone expect Steph to struggle as much in Game 6 if Boston rolls out the same defense? No, but it does make him work much harder and put more pressure on other Warriors to score the ball.
In fairness to Curry, he did do a decent job getting his teammates directly involved by dishing out 8 assists with only one turnover, but his biggest impact came in pulling Boston's rim protectors outside of the paint. Golden State averaged a touch above 44 points in the paint per game over the regular season and continued that trend through the first three series in these playoffs. In Games 1 to 4, Boston's deep drop kept the bigs ready to rotate in the paint and limited the Warriors' ball and player movement holding them to just 32.5 points in the paint per game, a mark that would have ranked dead last in the regular season by a wide margin. However facing the new scheme in Game 5, the Warriors scored a full 50 points in the paint due to that rim protection not being nearly as potent.
Turnovers and Turnovers Again
Boston has largely won and lost playoff games based on whether they take care of the ball. If they commit 15 or fewer turnovers, they are an amazing 14-3, but any more than that and they plummet to 0-5. In Game 5, the Celtics' big 3 ball handlers, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Marcus Smart committed four, five, and four turnovers respectively, combining for 13 of the team's 18 total turnovers. In this series, 49 of Boston's 78 turnovers have been live-ball turnovers allowing Golden State to run in transition for efficient early shot clock offense. Due to Boston's offensive plan to target Curry and Poole almost every possession, the Warriors have generally done a good job of overloading the strong side (bringing the help from the weak side low man early) and funneling drives into help defense and traffic, meaning those kick-out passing lanes become much smaller and tougher to connect on.
On the other hand, Golden State tied their season-low in turnovers committing only six all game, limiting Boston's transition attempts and forcing them to play in the halfcourt for most of the game.
Wings Carried the Load for Both Teams
The Warriors won this game because of their wings outplaying Boston's. Tatum himself had a well rounded and efficient scoring game going 5-9 from distance on some very tough pull-ups and going 5-11 from inside the arc, which while still not great is a marked improvement over the frigid 27.5% mark from two he was shooting in the previous four games. His co-star Jaylen Brown had a rough night, going 5-13 inside the arc and missing all 5 of his threes. Both Thompson and Wiggins seemed to do a much better job of gapping Brown a little to avoid blowbys while forcing him to his left hand, where he's a worse passer and ballhandler.
On the other side, the Warriors tandem had a very strong scoring output. Wiggins, in probably the best game of his career considering the stakes, scoring 26 points on 23 shots despite missing all six of this threes. While that's not the most efficient performance, Wiggins had multiple late shot clock self creations and was prolific in attacking the rim and getting in the paint. Thompson, on the other hand, had an excellent night from downtown, connecting on five of eleven threes. All other Warriors starters were 0-19 from deep.
Shooting Slumps Continue
Both teams shot the ball terribly overall, with the Celtics going 11-32 (34.4%) and the Warriors 9-40 (22.5%). To date, this is clearly Boston's worst shooting performance so far in the Finals, making fifteen or more threes shooting above 39% from distance in each of the prior 4 games so far. Boston experienced the full shooting variance roller coaster, opening the game missing their first twelve attempts before connecting on their next eight attempts consecutively, both of which are NBA Finals records.
The Warriors continued to miss the high quality perimeter shots their offense generated, making only 7 open or wide open threes out of 34 total (20.6%). With Game 6 on the road, they're probably going to need more production from beyond the arc than that.
Game 6 is do-or-die for the Celtics, and we've seen these playoffs how they respond to that pressure. Accordingly, the Warriors should come out with the appropriate energy and focus to beat a team that's desperate.
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