In an exciting Game 1 of the NBA Finals, the Boston Celtics defeated the Golden State Warriors 120-108. Game 1 of a Playoff series is always about learning. It's important that the takeaways are more about what happened that's repeatable than what the simple box score tells us. I wanted to provide some quick thoughts here about why the Celtics fell so far behind, what adjustments were made, and what we can learn from this game.
First, it's important to remember that the Warriors were in control for a majority of the game. With under 2 minutes remaining in the 4th quarter, the Warriors had a 97.0% chance to win the game per Inpredictable. Ultimately, the Celtics were able to pull out the victory thanks to a monster 40-16 4th quarter. The Celtics won the game because NBA games are arbitrarily 48 minutes instead a shorter time like college or high school basketball, but them winning Game 1 does not necessarily make them the better team without diving deeper into what happened.
The Curry 1st quarter
The Celtics began the game in a deep drop on ball screens when Robert Williams was involved. If only someone theorized this might happen...
In my series preview, I suspected the Celtics might come out in the drop coverage because it was so successful in their previous series against the Heat. In theory, Marcus Smart navigating the action is about as good as you can get. After one quarter, Steph Curry exposed the drop coverage enough for the Celtics to adjust. Curry scorched the Celtics for 21 points including 6 made 3s.
Shockingly, giving this much space to the best shooter to ever walk the face of the Earth was not the best initial strategy:
While the deep drop coverage was a major discussion point, it really only led to one Curry 3. Most of the others in the first quarter were from miscommunications.
Playing against the Warriors is a major learning curve for most teams, with the Boston Celtics being included. While most offenses operate mostly within scripted movement designed to go north-south, the Warriors attacking with "random" movement designed to go east-west before opening the door to go north-south. Defending the Warriors is like a traditional chess player going to play a 3-dimensional chess tournament. It isn't easy to say the least, and Curry was the main beneficiary of that fact in quarter 1.
What was strange in the first quarter is the Celtics are an untraditionally great defense that tried to solve a unique problem in a traditional way. They did not fully embrace what makes them so great: size, switching, multiple rim protectors, ground coverage, collective IQ, etc.
The adjustments
Thanks to one of the better mic'd up segments I can remember, we got some good insight onto what the Celtics started to do different after the first quarter:
The Celtics continued to play their drop coverage with Robert Williams and Al Horford at times, but it was not nearly as deep of a drop. They were also picking up Curry higher in transition, communicating better with their off-ball switching, and generally much more aware rotationally.
Overall, I think the Celtics got back to what makes their defense so special. Switching more intentionally off the ball, using Robert Williams athleticism to their advantage, helping and recovering as a unit, collapsing the lane and using ground coverage and multiple rim protectors to cut off drives. The ability of this defense to recover for a small mistake is elite.
A couple more specific Celtics defensive notes
The Celtics began to figure out how to best play against Draymond Green and the other Warriors non-shooters. There's a tricky balance when playing the Warriors players that can't shoot, as they're so active with screening and handoffs to generate space for the other shooters that you generally can't completely sag off of them. However, on drives, the Celtics figured out you can do exactly that if you're forcing the kickout to the non-shooter and using size and length to cut off the vision of the driver:
The Celtics also defending Draymond Green in a couple interesting ways. They got up on him when he had the ball to get into his passing vision, but when he was aggressively looking to score they did not collapse as they do on most drives. Green shot 2/8 from inside the lane while not having his usual impact as a playmaker. He was aggressive in looking for his own offense, which is exactly what the Celtics wanted.
The second interesting note for the Celtics is that Payton Pritchard was playable defensively. Pritchard only played 45 seconds less than Grant Williams did, and he was able to do so because he held up well enough on the ball against the Warriors guards and did a solid job of chasing them around the floor.
Payton Pritchard is generally attacked defensively, but I've maintained that he could be a bit underrated because of his combination of strength and IQ. If he can be solid enough on defense to add an element of lethal movement shooting and range to the Celtics offense that would be a significantly positive outcome for the Celtics.
Celtics shot making
A lot of talk after the game was about how the Celtics shooting was unsustainable and the Warriors should not be too worried about that. While I do think that's somewhat true, the Warriors also outperformed their expected PPP in the first 3 quarters of the game. I understand that the recency and winning bias of what happened in the 4th quarter may could our vision of the entire game, but the Celtics did not simply win on only luck.
Celtics generating looks
The first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter from the Celtics was a masterclass from... Jaylen Brown? He was initiating a good amount of offense and finding success in collapsing the first layer of the defense and making plays. One area I have concerns with from the Warriors perspective is how they contain dribble penetration from Brown specifically. He's much more of a quick twitch athlete than Tatum and plays with much more bend, and his ability to get two feet into the paint was massively important to that 4th quarter run. The Klay Thompson/Jordan Poole duo defensively is fairly questionable in terms of containing ball handlers on the perimeter and is something to monitor going forward.
Outside of Jaylen Brown, the Celtics as a whole did a much better job of attacking the pressure points of the Warriors defense to generate looks. Besides some of the ridiculous Derrick White looks, they got plenty of open ones in the 4th quarter:
For the game, the Celtics were able to generate 23 open looks from 3. For reference on how good that is, the regular season leader in open 3s per game was the Thunder (?) with 21.7 per game. Yes, the Celtics general shooting was unsustainable, but by the end of the game they were getting legitimately good looks from the outside.
Outlook on the rest of the series
While I was impressed with how quickly the Celtics figured a lot out against the Warriors, I don't think this changes my view on this being a closely contested series. Remember, the game almost felt over 34 minutes in. This was in no way a traditional 16 point victory.
There are adjustments to be made by the Warriors. I'd like to see them continue to set screens higher for Curry, use Robert Williams' man more in off-ball screening actions, and get Jordan Poole more involved on the move. The Warriors should also have more opportunities to generate looks in early offense when the Celtics shot making regressed to some extent, which is an area they had success within this game.
Defensively, the Warriors can mix in the zone and box and one more frequently. They are also still working through which matchups are most optimal and which players should be in the rotation. An injection of Gary Payton II might be useful. They also dared some of the Celtics players to beat them with shooting to an extent that might not continue. While they are not the best shooters, maybe closing out hard and forcing them to make plays around the rim off the dribble could generate better results.
Just because the Celtics won doesn't mean they don't have improvement areas either. Theis should be immediately cut from the rotation. Tatum was excellent as a playmaker, but needs to continue to find balance between that and quick decision-making as a scorer on the catch. Communication can still improve for the Celtics when handling the Warriors actions.
Overall, I think Boston made strides defensively much quicker than I thought they would. That doesn't mean everything is figured out. As much as playing against the Warriors offense is a learning curve, playing against the Celtics defense is also a learning curve. The Warriors system is built with counters to every coverage, and honing in on what the Celtics are doing will open their offense up to some extent.
A 7 game series is a continuous learning process, and much changes after Game 1. There will be a time when we have a good feel for this series, but we are not there yet. I'm excited to see what each team brings to the table in Game 2.
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