Enjoy Basketball: Nuance of the NBA Finals

At the start of every NBA season, 30 teams start their quest toward the NBA Finals. After 82 regular season games and three rounds of playoffs, we now have our two victors who will battle it out on the biggest stage in basketball. Today, we provide an in-depth brief on what might tip the scales in the Warriors' or the Celtics' favor.

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We watch a lot of hoops here at Enjoy Basketball, and yet many of our playoff brackets did not have the Celtics nor the Warriors in the NBA Finals! Rest in Peace to the Bucks, Suns, and my personal Finals predictions. Anyways, we gave a brief preview on Monday, but now let's dive deeper into the nuances with this matchup that could determine the victor!

Overall Prediction

The Warriors will probably win the Finals in six games, and Steph Curry will finally get his Finals MVP award. Both teams are too well matched for either team to close it out in less than six games, but the Warriors also have the executional abilities to not let this thing drag on longer than it needs to. Let's break down the matchups and strategies to justify this take.

Matchups

The Celtics personnel are well equipped to stop the perimeter-centric Warriors. Marcus Smart, the first guard Defensive Player of the Year in decades, will do as well as anyone with just two arms and two legs could possibly do in handling Steph Curry. Smart's combination of physicality, persistence, and discipline bodes well and will force the Dubs to run Curry off an array of screens to give him breathing room.

Robert Williams or Al Horford will mirror Draymond Green, depending on Kevon Looney's minutes. Guarding Draymond is difficult because even though he is no longer an outside shooting threat, you can't give him much room because with that level of comfort he can better find a cutter to pass to or execute a dribble hand-off to free up Curry, Klay Thompson, or Jordan Poole. Williams and Horford will prevent Green from hurting the Celtics too badly on the interior and can effectively help on Warriors drives, but the question is to what extent can they impact the help defense to keep the Warriors on the perimeter.

On the Warriors side, the question falls to who can contain Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Andrew Wiggins will probably see the Tatum matchup because he has the best combination of strength, length, and mobility, though the Warriors might rotate this matchup to keep JT on his toes. Defensive stud Gary Payton II will return from injury this series, and Draymond Green or Klay Thompson could give Tatum or Brown trouble on switches in the pick and roll and force them to take more contested outside jumpers to which they sometimes fall victim.

Offensive and Defensive Schemes

The Warriors proved in the Dallas series that they are elite at helping in on a driver (aka Luka Doncic) and simultaneously managing to close out on three point shooters. Sometimes Grant Williams, Derick White, or Payton Pritchard have made defenses pay for sagging off on them in past series. However, Golden State can manage to cover both, at least better than pretty much every other club. Steve Kerr should look to force Tatum and Brown to take contested pull-up three pointers and lull them into heavy isolation, which often skids the Celtics offense to a halt if they're not hitting their tough shots.

Defensively, the Celtics switch everything to neutralize the most common play in basketball: the pick and roll. The Boston big men are relatively mobile, but when push comes to shove they probably cannot handle the quicker Curry and Poole in open space. Because Boston switches on pick and rolls so prolifically, this will be where this series is decided. However, the Golden State offense is so dynamic that it could likely overcome a stifled pick and roll game. If you cut off one head, two more grow from its place.

Experience

At Enjoy Basketball, we don't get too caught up in the immeasurable abstracts like the "clutch gene" or one player "wanting it more" than another, but the concept of Finals experience is notable, especially when the difference between two Finals teams is so stark. The Warriors roster has played a combined 123 NBA Finals games. The Celtics? Zero. Now, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown have performed well on every stage that has been presented to them thus far, like when a 19 year-old rookie Tatum averaged over 17 points per game in the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals and dunked on LeBron James. But the Warriors undoubtedly have an aura of "we've been here before," and that slight edge could be magnified in such an even, high-level series.

Clutch Time

Stemming from the previous section, I think the Warriors are more well equipped to score when the game slows down in the final minutes and defenses fully lock in. In clutch time this season, Jayson Tatum is 2 for 25 on three pointers, 9 for 42 on total jump shots, and turned the ball over at an alarming rate. Additionally, in the regular season the Celtics ranked 29th in the league in clutch-time winning percentage. These numbers are probably skewed toward the first half of the season when Boston was a worse team, but they still are a red flag. Curry has his own band of haters who deem him a choker, but in crunch time he will likely be the best "get us a bucket" guy on the court.

CJ McCollum joins ESPN as NBA analyst

The New Orleans Pelicans' CJ McCollum has agreed to a part-time deal with ESPN as a multi-platform analyst. In this role, McCollum will help broadcast the NBA Summer League, studio network shows, and develop a new podcast.

"I am excited to bring what I feel is my unique perspective, based on my vast knowledge of the game that I've gained during my nine years as a player in the NBA," McCollum said. "To have an opportunity to put my journalism background to use on the largest stage with the many talented professionals at ESPN is a dream come true."

This level of professionalism, ambition, and off-the-court is what has made McCollum one of the most admirable guys in the league. He is already the President of the NBA Players Association and was a determined journalism scholar at Lehigh University before joining the league. We can't wait to see how CJ uses his gifts to impact the game off the court even further!

Gary Payton II wins the Lanier Community Assist Award

Garry Payton II has won the Bob Lanier Community Assist Award, given to a player who positively impacts his community. This year, he founded the GPII Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes awareness for Dyslexia, an educational disability which Payton himself has experienced throughout his life. The foundation funds more thorough training of educators to be privy to this issue, and supports dyslexic students with early screening, detection, and certification assessments. The NBA renamed its "NBA Cares Community Assist Award" to this to honor NBA Hall of Fame player and global ambassador Bob Lanier, who died on May 10th. Rest in Peace.

How did Jordan Poole go from G Leaguer to Steph Curry Successor? - Logan Murdock, (The Ringer)

Brad Stevens deserves massive credit for the Celtics' success - Tommy Beer, (BasketballNews)

Becky Hammon’s Vegas Dreams Are Coming True - Maitreyi Anantharaman, (Defector)

Boston Celtics @ Golden State Warriors - 9:00 p.m. EST (6/2)

Who else didn't realize that the #3 seed Warriors had home court advantage over the #2 seed Celtics? The new Chase Center will be rocking and the Warriors will be more poised, so we're taking Golden State in this one. Above we talked about Finals experience. While the Celtics will definitely adapt and Tatum and Brown have never shied away from the moment, it could likely take them a game to adjust to the brightest lights and toughest competition basketball has to offer. Dubs take Game 1.

Hopefully after reading today's newsletter you'll appreciate the on-court play at least 1% more throughout these Finals. And if not then congrats, you're either a hater or a basketball genius. Hopefully the latter, because that wouldn't be very "Enjoy Basketball" of you. Anyways, lucky us for being able to watch these star-studded and deep rosters duke it out for champion of the 2021-2022 season. Let the battle begin!

- Conor Geelan

Last Trivia Answer: Luke Kornet will appear in the Boston Celtics and continue the outstanding streak of having a former Knick in the NBA Finals for every one of the 75 NBA seasons. Kornet played for the Knicks from 2017 to 2019. Now if only my Knicks could actually get back to the Finals...

Trivia Question: Jimmy Butler dropped 47 points in the Eastern Conference Finals last week, which got us thinking about who has scored the most points in a single ECF game. The short answer was boring. A lot of Lebrons, Jordans, Iversons, plus a Butler and a Trae Young. If you remove these five players, another player tops the list with a 44-point performance in the 2012 ECF. Who is it?