NBA Finals Game 2: Golden State Warriors vs. Boston Celtics – LIVE! | NBA Finals

Celtics 13-5 Warriors, 9:06, first quarter

Brown tries the same spot and hits him, but Looney dives to end the Celtics run. Tatum then scores his first points of the game. Brown then drives to the basket, takes the shot and commits a foul on Wiggins. He takes his free throw.

Celtics 5-3 Warriors, 10:26, first quarter

The Celtics get the ball back, but the Warriors force Robert Williams off. Wiggins scores first for the Warriors, but Jaylen Brown responds with a three. Smart then adds a jumper to the Celtics’ early lead.

opening tip

Posting this tweet is all I’ll say about it because I want to focus on basketball.

um, cee-lo performing this anthem is … well, do ya googles.

— Brandon Caldwell (@_brandoc) June 6, 2022

national anthem

Cee-Lo Green plays the national anthem. So much for “breaking culture”.

I will not rate this.

The pre-game montage concerns the warriors: the narrative has shifted to them as those whose series is at stake. The Celtics have sort of done their job by guaranteeing a split in the road, so the pressure is only on the Warriors.

Oddly enough that’s why I have Golden State, I don’t trust Boston, when they start to feel good about themselves then they start making unforced mistakes and…wait, am I describing myself here too?

Hopefully I’ll recover from this incidental personal glimpse in time for the opening tip coming soon.

One note, the shirts the Celtics and Warriors wore during warm-ups weren’t just platitudes, they contained links to relevant organizations.

Golden State Warriors starting lineup

Steph Curry, G

Klay Thompson, G/F

Draymond Green, F/C

Kevin Looney, C

Andrew Wiggins, F

Boston Celtics starting lineup

Jayson Tatum, G/F

Jaylen Brown, G/F

Markus Smart, G

Al Horford, F/C

Robert Williams III, F/C

Stephen A. Smith got a beep! That’s your news on this pregame show.

Some news from around the league: Quin Snyder has stepped down as coach of the Utah Jazz because the team is in dire need of recruits. He’s probably right, considering the team may be overdue for an overhaul.

It’s amusing that he waited until the Los Angeles Lakers had hired their own head coach before making the announcement. Surely they would have wanted at least one interview.

predictions

I’ve had the Celtics win one of two going into the start of this series so I think I’ll be right there in general. Of course, I let her win that game originally, not Game 1. So, in the truest sense of the word, I was wr-wr- wrong the first time. Whatever it all will come out in the wash.

To make my broader prediction come true, I have to predict the Warriors to win today to even the streak. Maybe Warriors 101-98 Boston Celtics. Yes, I have this one that comes with the wire.

Yes, that’s how my brain works. No, I have no real basketball argument to back that statement other than “vibes” (and the fact that the Celtics have had a problem with not picking up momentum after big wins this postseason). This just feels like one long, chaotic series, so why not guess which outcome is ruining as many narratives as possible. This is just my own prediction, you can either email [email protected] or tweet @HunterFelt with its own prediction and we’ll include it here as we make our way to the opening tip.

clothes before the game

Both the Celtics and Warriors wore orange jerseys with “End Gun Violence” written on them before the game. A nice touch and it’s always nice to see two teams coming together just before they spend the next few hours destroying each other.

There’s a show called The Final Straw that ABC is doing right now (produced by Peyton Manning) and… is that just Jenga: The Television Show?

injury report

Potentially bad news for Golden State. Game 1 was injury-free (even Boston’s Sam Hauser ended up playing despite the empty benches), but Game 2 wasn’t. A few hours ago it was announced that veteran Andre Iguodala will be out with a knee swelling. He really was more of a part-time player for the Warriors, but he was still a capable contributor and the Warriors would rather have him available than not.

However, the good news far outweighs the bad. After being available for Game 1 in an emergency capacity, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said Gary Payton II should be available to play off the bench tonight. The son of defensive genius Gary “The Glove” Payton (in case you wanted to feel old), Payton II (nicknamed “The Mitten”) has been a key part of the Warriors’ resurgence this season.

preamble

You can’t predict basketball. When the Golden State Warriors built a 12-point lead over the Boston Celtics in the fourth quarter, I predicted, “So, can Boston come back from a 12-point deficit? Not impossible, but Tatum will need a big game and the defense needs to be flawless.”

Well, I was half right. The Celtics did have to play flawless defense and held the Western Conference’s strongest offense to just 16 points, but Tatum didn’t score a single point from there. In fact, he only scored 12 points on Thursday, the same number of assists he dished out (credit Tatum for not having a shooting night off to prevent him from otherwise helping his team).

Thus, the Warriors lost a double-digit lead late at home on a day when they had done everything they could to contain their opponent’s best player. Now they are 1-0 down in an NBA Finals where almost everyone (including this author) had them as favorites. That means today’s Game 2 is the biggest game they’ve had to play since Kevin Durant was in the lineup.

So will they come back with a big win tonight, or will the Celtics use the momentum of their shocking Game 1 win and take a stranglehold on the 2022 NBA season? I have my own predictions, but I’ll wait and let you guess what they might be. Let me just say this postseason is like the final season of Better Call Saul. It’s not going to go the way we all think it will.

What you can predict is that we will use your thoughts, questions and/or concerns in this live blog. You can email them to [email protected] or tweet them @HunterFelt and we’ll post them during today’s game. It’s Game 2 of the 2022 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and the Golden State Warriors at San Francisco’s Chase Center. The opening tip is scheduled sometime after 8:00pm EST, but we’ll be in touch well before that with more updates, predictions, and an occasionally hilarious pastime.

Hunter will be here shortly. In the meantime, here are a few thoughts on Game 1:

Sometimes it’s difficult to find the right words, whether it’s at the National Spelling Bee or another high-profile, pressure-packed competition on Thursday night’s first game of the NBA Finals.

Al Horford kept it simple. No fancy phraseology, no pursuit of meaning. “My boys found me tonight and I put them down,” Horford said on ABC after his pivotal role in the Boston Celtics’ stunning and odd 120-108 win over the Golden State Warriors. “Have fun.”

A contest that began with Stephen Curry’s three-point production line working overtime ended in the much less predictable spectacle of Horford scoring from distance, inspiring his teammates to do the same when they did in the fourth quarter cleared a 12-point deficit.

Horford, a 15-year NBA veteran making his first Finals appearance a day before his 36th birthday, had the highest total for the Celtics with 26 points, including a career-high six three-pointers. In which collectively most dominant quarters In NBA playoffs history, the Celtics were rampant towards the end, sinking seven straight threes en route to nine of 12.

You can read the full report below: