It’s difficult for a team in the NBA Finals to make a statement about how good it is, but what the Boston Celtics did in their 120-108 Game 1 victory over the Golden State Warriors qualifies as a statement. This is one tough team.
Down 12 heading into the fourth quarter, the Celtics hung around long enough to get scorching hot from 3 en route to outscoring Golden State by 24 points (40-16) in the final frame, which ranks as the largest single-quarter point differential in Finals history. Boston hit seven consecutive 3-pointers at one point.
Speaking of 3-pointers, they were the theme of the night as both teams were on a heater pretty much from start to finish. It was a record-breaking heater, in fact, as the 40 3-pointers Boston and Golden State combined to make are the most in a single game in NBA Finals history.
And this wasn’t a volume play. Boston shot 51 percent from the arc (21-for-41); the 21 3s are the second-most ever for a Finals game. Golden State, meanwhile, shot 42 percent (19 for 45). Do the math, and that’s a combined 47-percent clip (40-for-86). Stephen Curry set his own Finals record with six 3-pointers in the first quarter. Curry scored 21 points in the opening 12 minutes, which is the most in a Finals quarter since Michael Jordan in 1993.
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Curry finished with 34 points, but he only made one more 3-pointer after that first quarter. Boston stopped losing track of him, as it inexplicably did on multiple possessions in the early going.
For Boston, Al Horford, Derrick White and Marcus Smart combined to make 15-of-23 3-pointers. Horford was brilliant with 26 points, six rebounds and three assists. When Boston needed him to stretch the floor, he did. When they needed him on the short roll or the offensive glass, he was there. Horford banged six of his eight 3-pointers, which registers as the most made 3-pointers in a Finals debut and the highest single-game triple output of Horford’s career.
Not a bad time to pull that one out of the bag.
So Boston goes up 1-0 in a series that felt like it had seven games written all over it from the minute we knew the matchup. That they took the series opener on the road is even more ominous for the Warriors, who now have to win four of the next six games to win the title against an elite defense that just stole home-court advantage.
