With the Boston Celtics‘ Game 7 victory over the Miami Heat on Sunday, the 2022 NBA Finals matchup is set. The Celtics, the East’s No. 2 seed, with face the Golden State Warriors, the West’s No. 3 seed.
Game 1 is set for Thursday in San Francisco. The Warriors are favored (-155 to Boston’s +135, per Caesars Sportsbook), but I’m taking the Celtics in seven. I think they match up very well with Golden State. Here are three areas the Celtics can work to their advantage to come out with the 2022 NBA championship.
1. Celtics switching vs. Warriors movement
Not only is this Celtics defense arguably one of the best in modern history, it is perfectly suited to combat all Golden State’s off-ball movement. Boston switches everything, which makes life for Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry and Jordan Poole difficult as they look to come clean off screens and misdirections. This has been reflected in the numbers.
The Warriors aren’t a big matchup-hunting team, which is good, because there’s really no weak link to hunt on Boston’s defense (you could argue, maybe, Grant Williams in space). It’s going to be tough sledding for the Warriors to create consistent quality looks in the half-court. Marcus Smart, Jayson Tatum, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, all these guys can reasonably bother Curry in one-on-one situations, and Al Horford is fine defending on the perimeter, so it doesn’t really matter what matchup Curry or Poole end up with in late-clock situations.
Golden State will want to operate early in the shot clock, but with how well Boston recovers to shooters a lot of possessions could drag out longer than the Warriors would like — at which point, advantage Boston.
And this is to say nothing of Golden State’s propensity to turn the ball over. Boston is going to put a lot of pressure on the ball. They are going to chase and double and recover and switch. They are going to grab and hold the way…
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