2022 NBA Finals: Nine plays that explain Warriors’ Game 5 victory over Celtics

The Golden State Warriors are one victory away from a championship. In a method, their Game 5 win was exactly the alternative of their Game 4 victory — after Stephen Curry lit up TD Garden for 43 factors on 14-for-26 capturing on Friday, he scored simply 16 factors on 7-for-22 capturing at Chase Center of their 104-94 victory on Monday. In one other method, it was extraordinarily related — the Warriors gained by 10 factors, shut down the Boston Celtics within the fourth quarter and overcame an inefficient offensive efficiency. 

Here are 9 plays that explain Game 5: 

1. Hey man, good begin

In the primary 4 video games of the NBA Finals, Golden State progressively tilted its assault towards Curry working excessive pick-and-rolls. It began Game 5, nonetheless, with traditional Warriors motion. Curry palms the ball off to Otto Porter Jr., then cuts alongside the baseline, with Al Horford face guarding him. When Porter slips a display screen, there isn’t any rim safety, as Robert Williams III is guarding the ball and Horford is preoccupied with Curry:

The Celtics have accomplished a incredible job defending Golden State’s off-ball actions, however that doesn’t suggest coach Steve Kerr goes to default to static pick-and-rolls. The Warriors wish to make Boston cope with a number of actions as a result of each motion requires defenders to suppose and talk.

The first possession of the sport offered a tidy microcosm of the battle going down each time Golden State has the ball. Defending the Warriors is exhausting, and so they consider that, in the event that they hold working their stuff, the opponent will finally put on down. Scoring towards the Celtics is exhausting, and so they consider that, if they’re locked in and restrict their errors, the opponent will finally put on down. Here, Golden State beat the swap with a slip, however Draymond Green needed to place his move completely and Porter needed to hit the layup over Jayson Tatum’s outstretched arms. 

This bucket was the start of a 14-4 Warriors run by which Curry accounted for less than two factors. 

2. Simple sport

In Boston’s series-opening win, Tatum had 13 assists and Horford made six 3s. In Game 3, the Celtics’ different win, Tatum had 9 assists and so they successfully focused Curry. This late-second-quarter possession, which ended with a Horford kickout 3 from Tatum, illustrates what has labored for Boston offensively on this sequence:

Tatum acquired into the paint with good spacing round him, collapsed the protection, made Andre Iguodala suppose he was passing to Jaylen Brown within the nook and hit Horford for an open 3. Boston’s drawback is that this did not occur almost sufficient. This was solely the Celtics’ second 3-pointer of the sport — they missed their first 12 — and Tatum completed with 4 assists. It isn’t a coincidence that his different assists all got here within the third quarter, the one that they dominated. 

“When we’re at our best, it’s simple ball movement,” Boston coach Ime Udoka mentioned. “I think the third quarter showed that. The drive and kick was beautiful, was working, getting guys wide-open shots.” 

3. Just like they drew it up

Here’s a profoundly unusual sequence: After a double-team on Tatum and a steal, Curry declines to take a pull-up 3 in transition, maybe spooked by Robert Williams III behind him. He provides the ball as much as Green, who fires a lefty move to Klay Thompson on the alternative facet. Thompson assaults Horford’s close-out, then goes into an outrageous, one-legged runner over Williams from, oh, 17 ft or so? Look at Green’s response when this goes in:

Thompson completed with 21 factors on 7-for-14 capturing, together with 5-for-11 from deep. This is an objectively ridiculous shot.to absorb any NBA sport, not to mention Game 5 of the NBA Finals, however it’s Thompson, so it wasn’t surprising when it went in.

Why did I embrace this? Because the Warriors had 9 steals to Boston’s two, and 5 of these Golden State steals led on to buckets on the opposite finish. (The different 4: Three missed pull-ups from Curry and a take foul.) We’ve seen this earlier than.

4. Surprise!

The Celtics did not utterly change how they defended Curry, however they did selectively get extra aggressive. Here, they throw a shock double-team at him, however Curry calmly will get Tatum out of his method, retains probing and finds Gary Payton II for a layup with a crisp, lefty move:

This is my favourite of Curry’s eight assists, and it demonstrates why the Celtics have been reluctant to place two on the ball towards him. He missed all 9 of his 3-pointers, however nonetheless left his imprint on the sport. 

“It’s just using that aggression against them,” Curry mentioned. “Getting into the paint. The fact, you know, I don’t know if I have more than like five assists the first four games, and that total goes up, and we still left a lot out there because we have different ways to attack you, even if it’s not me just trying to hunt shots. And using gravity, using ball movement, all that type of stuff to do normal Warriors basketball. It’s just a feel thing. And obviously never losing your aggressiveness even though you’re not making shots like you normally do.

5. That’s a quick break

After falling behind by 5, the Warriors made a sequence of transition plays late within the third quarter and early within the fourth to grab momentum again. You probably keep in mind Jordan Poole’s (*5*), however this is one other one that will harm to look at in movie, starring Green and Payton at full velocity: 

This is horrible transition protection by Boston, and it is emblematic of Golden State’s mindset. This was not a Curry sport, so it wanted to scrounge up factors nonetheless it might. In this case, that means Green pushing the tempo when the Warriors do not have the numbers and sending a bounce move precisely the place it wanted to go to show a 2-on-3 break into two factors — at precisely the best time. 

“The response to Boston’s run to me was the key to the game,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr mentioned after the win. 

Green has been speaking about enjoying with “force” at just about each press convention throughout the Finals. That doesn’t merely imply enjoying bodily protection; it means making aggressive plays like this, conjuring high-percentage scoring alternatives out of skinny air towards a protection that does not permit lots of them. 

6. Tough look

With 9 minutes to go and the Warriors on a 13-0 run, Marcus Smart ran a dribble-handoff with Brown method outdoors the 3-point line. It was so excessive that Green, who was guarding Smart, merely went underneath the display screen. Rather than making an attempt to make Poole defend a second motion, Brown sized up Green one-on-one. He could make this pull-up 3, however it’s not a straightforward one: 

I get that Green gave Brown some house, however, down by 11 factors, with 14 on the shot clock, I do not love this shot. The Celtics had little margin for error at this level, so it ought to have been on the lookout for greater than one-action, one-isolation possessions, until the man defending that isolation is a weak defender. After listening to Boston lament its “stagnant” late-game offense within the earlier sport, this was a tricky look. 

Udoka instructed that fatigue may need affected the group’s decision-making down the stretch. 

7. Wiggins saves the day

I believed this was a horrible choice by Andrew Wiggins earlier than the shot went in: 

Curry appears to be like at Wiggins after the move, first pointing at Thompson after which calling for the ball himself. Wiggins has different concepts, taking two dribbles and going right into a righty hook of kinds towards Horford. It felt too bold to me, however perhaps it should not have — he had already made quite a few contested photographs off the bounce, and he’d make a virtually an identical one a few minutes later towards Williams.  

Wiggins completed with 26 factors on 12-for-23 capturing, plus 13 rebounds. He acquired his factors in all kinds of the way, not simply by crashing the glass, working the ground and hitting spot-up 3s. (In truth, he missed all six of his 3-point makes an attempt.) When Curry was chilly and the group wanted him to bail out a possession, he obliged. What a sequence he’s having. 

“He’s definitely confident,” Kerr mentioned. “He’s definitely enjoying the playoffs. He loves the challenge. He loves the competition. And he’s found such a crucial role on our team, and I think that empowers him. He knows how much we need him, so he’s been fantastic.”

8. GPII frees Steph

Up by 10 with lower than 5 minutes on the clock, Golden State ran its trusty publish splits —  Payton passes to Green from the perimeter, then units a display screen for Curry, solely this time Curry did not use it, as an alternative chopping into the paint, the place Green discovered him for a floater: 

It’s an amazing learn by Curry with Smart top-locking him, and it is one other excellent move from Green. But it is also an instance of the Warriors getting used to their opponent — they know that Williams is ignoring Payton, which makes him a harmful screener. And Curry is aware of that Williams is anticipating that he’ll come off the display screen on the left facet, so the rim protector is only a step or two too distant to get to the shot. 

9. Not the kind of ‘drive’ you need

Here’s Tatum driving left towards Wiggins, selecting up his dribble and lacking a turnaround jumper over Green:

No passing, no screening, no nothing. The Warriors are too good defensively for this strategy. Maybe it does not matter as a result of there’s little probability that Boston was about to erase a 12-point lead anyway. But it felt determined, significantly in distinction to how Golden State was enjoying offensively.