1. Yeah, that happened.
It really happened.
It wasn’t a dream.
The Boston Celtics exploded in the biggest fourth quarter turnaround in Finals history and now lead the 2022 NBA Finals 1-0 over the Golden State Warriors.
After a back-and-forth first half, the Celtics held a 56-54 lead at the break. Then, as is prone to happen, the third quarter went off the rails.
Golden State outscored Boston 38-24 in the third quarter and built a lead as large as 15 points. Things weren’t looking great for the Celtics.
But as they are prone to do, Team Resiliency bounced back once again. And this time they did it in a major way.
The Celtics outscored the Warriors 40-16 in the fourth quarter in a dominating display of two-way basketball.
Some numbers from the fourth quarter:
· The Celtics shot 15-of-22 overall, including 9-of-12 from behind the arc
· Boston had 12 assists on 15 fourth-quarter baskets
· The Celtics had just one turnover
· Golden State shot 7-of-17 overall, including 2-of-8 on three-pointers
· The Warriors had four turnovers
· After piling up 11 offensive rebounds in the first three quarters, the Warriors had just one to close the game
Complete and utter dominance to close the game. With 5:40 to play in the game, Golden State took a 103-100 lead on Stephen Curry layup. Boston had closed the gap, but needed to get over the hump.
Boy, did they ever get over the hump.
The next time the Warriors scored, it was over five-and-a-half minutes later to break a 17-0 Celtics run. By then, the game was over, and Boston was cruising to a 1-0 Finals lead.
2. There were a lot of heroes for the Celtics, but Boston doesn’t win the game without Jaylen Brown willing them to victory to open the fourth quarter.
Brown either scored or assisted on the Celtics first 14 points of the quarter. Overall, Brown scored or assisted on 22 of the Celtics 40 points in the final period.
He got it started with this midrange step-back…
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