Through four games of the NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors, we've seen miraculous comebacks, expected and unexpected heroes, and some questionable defensive coverages. With the series tied 2-2, Game 5 at Chase Center is crucial to either team's hope to hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy. Historically speaking, this is the 31st time the NBA Finals have been tied 2-2; the winner of Game 5 in the previous 30 went on to win the series 73.3% (22-8) of the time. While Vegas has the Warriors as a 4-point favorite at home, ESPN's BPI and FiveThirtyEight's RAPTOR currently predict the Celtics to have a 52% and 53% chance of winning respectively. Let's take a look through some of the key storylines in this series:
1. The Ever-Combustible Steph Curry
Where do I even start? Through four games, Steph has scored over 30 in every single game with the exception of Game 2, where he scored 29 and didn't play in the 4th quarter of a Warriors blowout win. He's averaging 34.3 points a game on 50% from the field, 49% from three, and 86% from the line, good for a 66% true shooting. He's torching the league's best defense as a one-man offense to an extent we haven't seen from another superstar these playoffs:
| Player | GP | Pts/75 | True Shooting | On-Court Team Offensive Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stephen Curry | 4 | 35.0 | 66.0% | 117.0 |
| Jimmy Butler | 7 | 26.7 | 58.6% | 108.8 |
| Giannis Antetokounmpo | 7 | 31.6 | 52.0% | 105.4 |
| Kevin Durant | 4 | 22.7 | 52.0% | 112.1 |
His scoring volume and efficiency dwarf the other stars who've faced the Celtics this postseason. But perhaps most importantly, Steph's been able to elevate the Warriors' offense to elite levels. The Jazz had statistically the best offense this regular season, posting a 116.7 mark. The Warriors with Steph on the court have been more efficient than the league's best offense versus Boston's defense, despite non-Steph players shooting a pedestrian 43% from the field and 34% from beyond the arc (more on this later).
Much has been made of Boston's bigs dropping back on Steph's ball screens, their dominant strategy for much of the regular season and these playoffs. While Robert Williams and Al Horford have started their "drop" coverage sometimes even two feet above the three-point line, it's just not cutting it. Steph is attacking the soft spot in the defense and taking the pullup jump shot that drop coverages are vulnerable to. He currently has a scorching hot effective field goal percentage (which controls for the added value of a three-pointer) of 74.1% on unassisted pull-up shots this series (10-14 on 2s; 20-40 on 3s).
2. Boston's Been Bombing Away
Despite Steph having an incredibly dominant scoring series so far, Boston has managed to match or even surpass that collectively with their own perimeter shotmaking, ramping it up over this series:
| Season Segment | 3PM | 3PA | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Regular Season, since Jan 1 | 14.0 | 37.4 | 37.4% |
| Playoffs, First 3 Rounds | 13.4 | 37.1 | 36.2% |
| Playoffs, Finals Games 1 to 4 | 16.0 | 37.8 | 42.4% |
Over the regular season, the Celtics were a slightly above-average three-point shooting team. But in these Finals have started as a team shooting the three as well as Steph Curry has in his career. You might think that the Warriors aren't defending the three properly, but over the four games, that's not the case. Boston's shot distribution on threes is essentially identical to what it was before: they aren't suddenly generating higher quality looks, they're just making more of the same shots they were getting.
| Closest Defender within | 3PM | 3PA | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playoffs, First Three Rounds | |||
| 0-4 feet, Very Tight/Tight | 1.9 | 6.7 | 27.2% |
| 4-6+ feet, Open/Very Open | 11.7 | 30.4 | 38.2% |
| Playoffs, Finals Games 1 to 4 | |||
| 0-4 feet, Very Tight/Tight | 2.8 | 6.0 | 45.8% |
| 4-6+ feet, Open/Very Open | 13.3 | 31.8 | 41.7% |
If you're the Warriors, you have to keep playing the way you have been and hope that shooting variance eventually swings in the other direction. Playing the three too aggressively is only going to open up the paint, where the Warriors have both a size and athleticism disadvantage with personnel. In the final 5 minutes of game 4, Boston took 8 threes and only made one of them, and you can bet the Warriors hope some of that carries over into the final games of this series. Many analysts argued that the nonstop chucking of threes was poor offensive process, but that exact process swung Game 1 in Boston's favor. The Celtics overcame a 12-point deficit in the fourth quarter by going knocking down seven straight threes to open the quarter and finishing 9-12 in the quarter as a whole.
3. Tatum's Struggles Inside the Arc
In the first four games of the series, Jayson Tatum has been great defensively and creating looks for his teammates, but his scoring dip has been significant. From scoring 27.0 points per game on 46% from the field, 38% from three, and 83% from the line (58.8% true shooting) in the first three rounds of these playoffs, he's plummeted down to 22.3 points per game on 34% from the field, 45% from three, and 73% from the line (47.3% true shooting) in the finals. He's actually been shooting the three-ball extremely well in this series (just as all the other Celtics have been). Inside the arc, he's been borderline incapable of scoring well, converting on just 27.5% of his two-point attempts.
Some of the credit here goes to Andrew Wiggins, who the Warriors have used as their main perimeter defender, sticking him on Ja Morant, Luka Doncic, and now Jayson Tatum. His unique combination of size, length, and springiness allows him to match the physicality and quickness of Tatum's post and driving game while having the length and verticality to contest both jump shots and shots near the rim. Even when Tatum is able to beat Wiggins off the dribble, both Draymond Green and Kevon Looney, the Warriors' main rotation centers, are able to contest and deter easy layups and dunks despite their size and athleticism deficits.
For the Celtics to feel confident going into the final games of this series, Tatum has to be better finishing when he drives into the paint. Only being 12-34 (35.3%) in the paint and an even worse 2-17 (11.7%) from the midrange, will probably not be enough to get it done.
4. Warriors Woes from the Outside
Steph is cooking. We already know that, but the other Warriors have largely struggled to score the ball. The Warriors as a team still haven't scored 110 points in a game yet. A lot of that is a credit to Boston's defense exploiting these guys' weaknesses. Thompson has never been known as a great self-shot creator as a limited dribbler, so Boston's been forcing him to put the ball on the floor, where his effective field goal percentage goes from a very good 56.8% on possessions he doesn't dribble down to a terrible 31.7% on possessions he takes more than 1 dribble. With Poole, Boston's length and ability to disrupt his somewhat suspect ballhandling ability have severely limited his shot creation.
On the other end of the floor, the Celtics have done a good job of targeting and making both players work defensively, tiring them out and getting them in foul trouble. In Game 3, Poole looked like he was about to have his first great game of the series before he picked up his third foul before the half and had to be benched.
Moreover, Boston's drop coverage though it's making life easier on Steph, is avoiding the 4-on-3 situations Golden State lives off of when Curry draws two defenders on a trap or blitz. Their ball movement and quick decision-making, spearheaded by Draymond Green in the short roll, constantly generate easy rim attempts and open three-pointers, shots the Celtics have been unwilling to concede so far. So far, non-Steph Warriors have shot below their playoff averages in the previous three rounds.
| Closest Defender within | 3PM | 3PA | 3P% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playoffs, First Three Rounds | |||
| 0-4 feet, Very Tight/Tight | 1.1 | 3.1 | 32.7% |
| 4-6+ feet, Open/Very Open | 8.6 | 22.3 | 38.9% |
| Playoffs, Finals Games 1 to 4 | |||
| 0-4 feet, Very Tight/Tight | 1.3 | 5.5 | 22.7% |
| 4-6+ feet, Open/Very Open | 8.5 | 25.3 | 33.7% |
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