NBA Finals Game 1 review: Reining in Steph Curry, and a fourth-quarter fight back from the Celtics

The Boston Celtics stunned Golden State Warriors in the fourth quarter of Game 1 of the NBA Finals – outscoring the favorites 40-16 at the Chase Centre on Friday to take a 0-1 lead on the road.

The Celtics were chasing a Warriors team making their sixth NBA Finals in eight years. Trailing by 12, they became the first ever team to overturn a double-digit lead entering the fourth quarter and earn a double-digit points victory. The Celtics will face Game 2 at the Chase Centre again before the series heads to Boston for Games 3 and 4.

Curry’s hot start

One of the key criticisms of Steph Curry’s career has been his inability to win a Finals MVP award. His three titles have come on the back of Andre Iguodala winning the FMVP in 2015 and then Kevin Durant picking up two back-to-back honours. But in his return to the NBA Finals since 2019, Curry immediately looked to be in a mood to shoot.

When Curry is on the court, no three-point record is ever safe. In Game 1, the Warriors point guard dropped six three-pointers on the Celtics – an NBA Final record. But most of those shots were open looks that had more to do with Celtics’ defensive rotations not picking him up effectively.

Steph and the @warriors are the NBA’s best team at beating switches… but the @celtics are the NBA’s best switching defense!#NBACourtOptix powered by Microsoft Azure breaks down this potential key to who wins the 🏆 pic.twitter.com/2MRTpWr128

— NBA (@NBA) June 3, 2022

An indication of how close this series is going to be was how Boston managed to ride out wave after wave of Curry’s long-rangers. At the end of the first quarter, the Celtics were only down by four points.

Celtics keep the pace

In the second quarter, the away team got their rotations back on track and managed to do a much better job on defending Curry. The result – he went from 21 points in the first quarter to none in the second.

One of the key aspects of the game was how good Boston’s shooting was on Friday. The Warriors’ defensive rotations meant that Jayson Tatum would often be left with the option of kicking out the ball towards Al Horford or Marcus Smart on the perimeter.

Steph Curry’s game-high 34 PTS in Game 1 land him in the top spot on our leaderboards and earn him the #NBAFantasy player of the night.

🏀 34 PTS, 5 REB, 5 AST, 3 STL, 7 3PM pic.twitter.com/4DdOvWosyC

— NBA Fantasy (@NBAFantasy) June 3, 2022

Most NBA teams would take a chance on an opposing team’s centre taking a loosely contested three-point shot. But Horford kept making them and so did Smart. Derrick White poured in with some key three-pointers as well and the trio ended the game making 15 threes from 23 attempts.

“I felt like the guys kept finding me time after time. Also, Derrick White hit some tough shots there, too,” Horford said in the post-match press conference. “I was just getting the looks, knocking them down. That’s that.”

Fourth quarter comeback

Despite the Warriors constantly keeping the board ticking and managing their lead, Boston had one last run in them. Down 12 points with the fourth quarter yet to come, Boston dug deep. They went 15-for-22 from the field – six-of-ten from two-point shots and 9-of-12 from behind the arc and obliterated the Warriors on both ends of the court. They scored 40 and kept a Championship calibre team to a mere 16 points in the final quarter to take the win.

Steph Curry erupted for 21 (7/11 FGM in Q1) points in the first quarter of Game 1 on his way to a game-high 34 points.@StephenCurry30: 34 PTS, 5 REB, 5 AST, 3 STL, 7 3PM pic.twitter.com/d85Sc29PhM

— NBA (@NBA) June 3, 2022

This is the fourth time in these playoffs that a team has dropped nine three pointers in a quarter and all four have come either at the hands of the Celtics or against the Warriors.

Be it Curry, Draymond Green or coach Steve Kerr, all were of the opinion that it was a mammoth fourth quarter that changed everything in Game 1. “It’s not ideal but I believe in who we are and how we deal with adversity, how we responded all year, how we respond in the playoffs after a loss,” Curry said in the post-match press conference.

“So learn a lot from that fourth quarter, obviously they made a lot of shots. It seemed like they didn’t miss ’til deep into the fourth. When you have a team that just finds a little bit of momentum like they did and they keep making shots, it’s tough to kind of regain that momentum.”

Game 2 is set to take place on Monday, June 6th at the Chase Center in San Francisco at 5:30 AM IST.