Love the show. I'm surprised you didn't touch on Boston's inability to convert 2-pt FGs. They are scoring at historically low rates on 2s and if that doesn't change, this series won't go their way.
Thanks RJ! I will be honest, I saw that they made a poor 15 of 43 and obviously it mattered in Game 2. Will it matter in the games to come? Hard to say.
Last month against Milwaukee, the Celtics set a team record by making only 10 2-pointers in Game 1. Then they won four of six to knock off the defending champs. How did they do that? A lot of ways. But interesting is that taking 2-pointers the two teams shot similarly--49 percent for Boston, 50 for the Bucks. But the Bucks only made 28 percent of their 3s, while Boston made almost 38 percent while also attempting 88 more over the series. End result: Boston scored 330 points from behind the arc over six games, while the Bucks only managed 171. That doomed the Bucks. After that, I imagine it was hard to find anyone who was too worried about the abysmal 2-point scoring in Game 1.
Obviously, the Warriors are a different opponent, but despite reputations they're not necessarily a better-scoring one. In the regular season, the Bucks' offense was elite, while the Warriors' was average.
This iteration of the warriors is much better offensively than any team the Celtics have faced. Also calling the Bucks offense elite is misleading. They were missing Middleton who is their best shot creator and a hyper efficient 3 level scorer. If he was playing there is no doubt in my mind the bucks would’ve put the Celtics away in 6. I have the warriors in 6 in this series.
Middleton is a huge factor I should have mentioned, for sure. But just wanted to kind of dial back what happens in my mind, at least, when the topic of the Warriors' offense comes up. We've seen them score like crazy for so long, it's easy to assume they're the best scoring team of all time.
That's just not how they operated this regular season. It's possible an average team from the regular season will turn it on all series long--this would surprise me none, I just picked them to win the series in 7 on BRING IT IN yesterday--but turning it on to that degree is unusual. Boston's defense will be heard.
The Warriors had so many injuries across the regular season that assessing their performance based on that is likely to miss the mark. Fair to say this season's Warriors are not as potent as prior championship seasons. It is also unlikely that any offense with Steph Curry would ever be average (assuming a relatively intact roster). In the two finals games thus far, the Warriors have scored at a consistent level (other than Game 1 Q4) against Boston's D, while the Celtics needed an otherworldly shooting quarter to take Game 1.
Each game has seen the Warriors open up at least 15 point leads and GS has shown they can effectively end a game in a 5 minute window. Boston reeled them in once with an historic shooting display. If that caliber of shooting is Boston's crux for how they win, they're not gonna get there. To your point, Henry, Boston's D - relatively quiet thus far - will have to be significantly better than it has shown in the first 2 games.
I’m sure you’ve been inundated with this Henry, but in case you haven’t, Freakonomics is covering sportswashing this week:
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/what-is-sportswashing-and-does-it-work/
Love the show. I'm surprised you didn't touch on Boston's inability to convert 2-pt FGs. They are scoring at historically low rates on 2s and if that doesn't change, this series won't go their way.
Thanks RJ! I will be honest, I saw that they made a poor 15 of 43 and obviously it mattered in Game 2. Will it matter in the games to come? Hard to say.
Last month against Milwaukee, the Celtics set a team record by making only 10 2-pointers in Game 1. Then they won four of six to knock off the defending champs. How did they do that? A lot of ways. But interesting is that taking 2-pointers the two teams shot similarly--49 percent for Boston, 50 for the Bucks. But the Bucks only made 28 percent of their 3s, while Boston made almost 38 percent while also attempting 88 more over the series. End result: Boston scored 330 points from behind the arc over six games, while the Bucks only managed 171. That doomed the Bucks. After that, I imagine it was hard to find anyone who was too worried about the abysmal 2-point scoring in Game 1.
Obviously, the Warriors are a different opponent, but despite reputations they're not necessarily a better-scoring one. In the regular season, the Bucks' offense was elite, while the Warriors' was average.
This iteration of the warriors is much better offensively than any team the Celtics have faced. Also calling the Bucks offense elite is misleading. They were missing Middleton who is their best shot creator and a hyper efficient 3 level scorer. If he was playing there is no doubt in my mind the bucks would’ve put the Celtics away in 6. I have the warriors in 6 in this series.
Middleton is a huge factor I should have mentioned, for sure. But just wanted to kind of dial back what happens in my mind, at least, when the topic of the Warriors' offense comes up. We've seen them score like crazy for so long, it's easy to assume they're the best scoring team of all time.
That's just not how they operated this regular season. It's possible an average team from the regular season will turn it on all series long--this would surprise me none, I just picked them to win the series in 7 on BRING IT IN yesterday--but turning it on to that degree is unusual. Boston's defense will be heard.
The Warriors had so many injuries across the regular season that assessing their performance based on that is likely to miss the mark. Fair to say this season's Warriors are not as potent as prior championship seasons. It is also unlikely that any offense with Steph Curry would ever be average (assuming a relatively intact roster). In the two finals games thus far, the Warriors have scored at a consistent level (other than Game 1 Q4) against Boston's D, while the Celtics needed an otherworldly shooting quarter to take Game 1.
Each game has seen the Warriors open up at least 15 point leads and GS has shown they can effectively end a game in a 5 minute window. Boston reeled them in once with an historic shooting display. If that caliber of shooting is Boston's crux for how they win, they're not gonna get there. To your point, Henry, Boston's D - relatively quiet thus far - will have to be significantly better than it has shown in the first 2 games.