2021-22 NBA Finals (Game Two)

Celtics 88-107 Warriors

This was the Draymond game. You could tell early on that Green's mission was to get up under the skin of each and all of the Celtics (especially Al Horford). Draymond's whole shtick is that he talks non-stop throughout games but he (usually) manages to get right to the edge and then pull back without getting thrown out. Rather than being punished by the refs, it seems like they mostly just ignore him, which gives him license to be even worse. The trick for the Celtics: you gotta ignore him the way the refs do, you can't let his chirping stick with you. Well, going forward, anyway, because in this game Draymond got into it with Jaylen Brown, Grant Williams and Horford and it felt like he threw each of them off their game. 

I thought the refs would make a difference and they did. Once Draymond established his presence, felt like the Warriors were getting the 50/50 calls and the judgement calls and the Celtics were not. Not that it was a wildly physical game, but it just felt like the refs were subtly shading the Celtics. We'll see if that flips back in Game Three. 

Looking over the box score I was struck how similar the team stats were. Identical on 3-pointers, virtually identical on rebounds, assists, personal fouls. Then the difference jumps out: Warriors got 15 steals to the Celtics' 5 and the Celtics had 18 turnovers to the Warriors' 12. The Celtics in both games have had some seriously errant passing and it killed them in Game Two (almost killed them in Game One). Also, since the Warriors took control of this game so completely in the 3rd quarter (got the lead up to 27 at one point), both teams emptied out their benches (though Jonathon Kuminga still only got 4 minutes), which I really hadn't expected. 

For the Celtics, Jaysun Tatum was back, 28 points (6-9 from 3p), but there is a slight danger to his dominance: the Celtics offense becomes a bit one-note when Tatum is working, whereas in Game One, when Tatum kinda sucked, the onslaught that stole the game for them was a team effort, with big contributions from Horford, Brown, Marcus Smart, and Payton Pritchard. It could be that the little-bit-from-everyone effect might be more useful in this series rather than riding big man Tatum. Ideally, the Celtics will be getting both, but if not then they'll need everyone to contribute. 

For the Warriors, I thought Nemanja Bjelica played well (surprised he only had 11 minutes in box score, really?). Klay Thompson (4-19) still hasn't gotten off yet (though I think he's gonna have a big game in Boston--he might only have one big game in him, but I think he's got at least one) and Andrew Wiggins (4-12) didn't score well either. Looking over the box score, it's kinda hard to see where the points came from. But they piled on to the Celtics in the 3rd.

Also, for the Warriors, they finally got Jordan Poole going and that is significant. It's not that they need Poole to carry them, it's that they need his marginal production to outrun the opponent. Poole is the guy that turns a 4-point lead into a 10-point lead, he turns an 8-point lead into a 15-point lead, etc., and those bursts are crucial to holding off the other team's run (everybody makes a run). 

In Game Three, I expect Brown, Smart and Horford to be big, I'm curious to see if Grant Williams can give Draymond some of his own business, curious to see if/how the refs control the game in general and I think Klay could go off. I would expect Steph Curry to be good and if Poole heats up, the Warriors could win big. But if the refs are more home-friendly and Tatum can just be a reliable contributor rather than the main feature of the offense, I think the Celtics could win big. This is just Game Three, we're all tied up, this series can still be a rout for one team or the other, tonight's match might be an indicator of whether this is a for-real 7-game series or not.