2022 NBA Finals Preview: Warriors vs Celtics

After two grueling series in the conference finals, the Golden State Warriors after beating the Dallas Mavericks in five games will take on the Boston Celtics who took down the Heat in 7 games. With the NBA finals beginning on June 2nd I want to talk about the main storylines headed into this championship series and what I predict the outcome will be. I also want to describe the key factors for both teams heading into this series in order to win the championship.

Celtics:

The Boston Celtics have had an incredible turnaround after starting the season off really bad going 18-21 through mid January. After losing a game vs the Knicks after being up by 24 points the Boston Celtics managed to go 33-10 to finish the season and grab the second seed in the East. The Celtics are led by a young superstarr in Jayson Tatum who is averaging 22.8 points 6.6 rebounds and 4 assists per game in 61 playoff games and beside him is his co-star Jaylen Brown who is averaging 22.7 points, 6.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game in the playoffs. Alongside those two are a group of solid role players that can give you great defense and greagt offensive production such as Marcus Smart, Al Horford, Derrick White, Grant Williams, Robert Williams and Peyton Prichard. They finished with a 105.6  defensive rating which was the best in the league and Marcus Smart was awarded the Defensive Player of the Year award. The key for Boston in this series is to shut down Stephen Curry and to make someone else win the ball game. With that being said it is a tall task since the Warriors have a lot of talented players but the key is going to be Marcus Smart, Al Horford, Grant Williams and Robert Williams. The defense that those players can provide on guys such as Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and of course Stephen Curry along with the offensive production that Tatum and Brown can provide is a big factor if the Boston Celtics are to win this series. If the team needs a little more fire power on offense off the bench then Derrick White and Peyton Prichard can certainly provide that. In the end I think it will come down to Marcus Smart being able to lock up Stephen Curry and the help defense from Al Horford and Robert Williams with the perimeter defense from Grant Williams being how the Celtics make this a competive series.

Warriors: 

After a lot of media talk saying that the The Golden State Warriors would never reach the NBA finals again the team ended up doing just that while being the talk of town for most of the season. They were the best team in the Western Conference for a lot of the season before they dropped down to the third seed with 53 wins and they finished with a 111 defensive rating which was second in the league ironically behind the Boston Celtics. Stephen Curry was in the MVP conversation for most of the season however, he would fall out of the race due to a poor display of games later in the season on top of getting hurt and missing the rest of the regular season. Even though Stephen Curry came off the bench for some games in the postseason the Warriors still found themselves in the NBA finals for the sixth time in 8 years. Alongside Stephen Curry this team features the other two core members, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green as well as young talented pieces such as Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney. They also have Otto Porter and Gary Payton II but those two are both out with injuries as the Warriors look to overcome that in this series. The keys for the Warriors is going to be the production of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on the offensive end and the X factors are going to be Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney and Andrew Wiggins. The reason is because most of the defense will be focused on those two guys for most of the series so it will be up to Poole and Wiggins to produce a good amount of scoring if Steph and Klay struggle at times. Also the Celtics have great perimeter and interior defense which is why it will be interesting to see if Kevon Looney can outplay both Williams and Horford on the boards and in the paint. 

Prediction:

I predict that this NBA finals matchup will be a tough competitive series with two elite defenses on full display as well as a barage of three from the Warriors. Even though the Warriors are more experienced and have won championships before I see the series going at least six games potentially seven. In the end I think the Celtics will put up a good fight but the Wariors might be too much with Stephen Curry looking to capture his first finals MVP. I got the Warriors in six but the series could swing in the favor of the Celtics if they stay locked in on both sides of the ball.