Stephen Curry scored a game-high 34 points on 12-21 field goal shooting and won his first Bill Russell NBA Finals MVP after leading his Golden State Warriors to their fourth title in eight years. The Warriors hit the Boston Celtics with a 21-0 first half run--the longest such run in the NBA Finals in 50 years--to take a lead they never relinquished en route to a 103-90 win. In the popular imagination and in many media narratives the Warriors are associated with three point shooting, but they won this game and this series because of their stout defense. The Celtics scored at least 116 points in two of the first three games of this series, but in games four through six the Warriors held the Celtics to 97, 94, and 90 points.
Curry was the best player in this game and in this series, but the Warriors are far from a one man show. In the game six series clincher, Curry had the team's fourth best plus/minus number (+8). Plus/minus numbers in a small sample size are not a definitive measure of greatness or impact, but in this instance the numbers at least indicate that Curry had a lot of help. Andrew Wiggins contributed 18 points, six rebounds, five assists, four steals, and three blocked shots, winning his head to head matchup with All-NBA First Team member Jayson Tatum (13 points, seven rebounds, five turnovers). Jordan Poole poured in 15 points in 18 minutes with a +11 plus/minus number, and he played a major role in Golden State's huge first half run. Draymond Green had his best overall game of the series (12 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, +16 plus/minus number) as he orchestrated both the offense and the defense. Green's skill set strengths mesh perfectly with what the Warriors need from him, and the skill set strengths of his teammates mask his skill set limitations. Gary Payton II scored just six points in 20 minutes but he had a game-best +18 plus/minus number as his defense and energy provided a major boost.
Klay Thompson struggled with his shot, scoring just 12 points on 5-20 field goal shooting, but his comeback after missing more than two years due to two serious leg injuries is inspirational--and he is not on the court just as a feel good story: Thompson can still play at a high level, albeit less consistently than he did pre-injury.
Jaylen Brown tied Curry for game-high scoring honors while shooting 12-23 from the field, and he had a +1 plus/minus number even though the Celtics lost by double digits. Al Horford (19 points on 6-8 field goal shooting, game-high 14 rebounds, +2 plus/minus number) played very well, and Marcus Smart (nine points, game-high nine assists, six rebounds) had a team-high +7 plus/minus number, but the other Celtics did not show up. Tatum was below average in the first half before completely disappearing in the second half, and the reserves shot a combined 2-11 from the field.
After the Celtics opened game six with a 14-2 run in less than four minutes, it seemed as if the Celtics would force the Warriors to play game seven back in California--but by the end of the stanza the Warriors were up, 27-22. The Celtics were only down by five points, but they never led again the rest of the way. It would not be fair to say that they quit, but it would be fair to suggest that the rapid turn of events in the latter part of the first quarter extending into the second quarter broke their collective spirit: the Celtics understood that winning game six would be very difficult, and perhaps they sensed that winning game seven on the road would take more energy than they could muster. The Celtics have the bigger and more athletic team, but in game six they were outrebounded 44-41, they committed 23 turnovers compared to 17 turnovers committed by the Warriors, and they only won the points in the paint battle by six (38-32). The Celtics forced mismatches via switches (such as Curry guarding Horford one on one in the post), but then they either did not feed the ball to the player who enjoyed the matchup advantage, or the player who had the matchup advantage did not exploit that advantage after receiving the ball.
From the Celtics' perspective, this series is about blown opportunities: they won game one on the road, they took a 2-1 series lead, they led 54-49 at halftime of game four with a real chance to take a commanding 3-1 series lead, and they jumped out to an early 12 point advantage in game six at home, but in the end they lost three straight games and watched the Warriors celebrate a championship on their court.
History is written from the winners' perspective, though, so this series will be remembered for how the Warriors won, and what that win means. The Warriors won with Curry being the best player in the series while leading a talented ensemble cast that is known for offense but vanquished Boston with gritty defense. The vaunted Warriors' offense did not exceed the 108 point mark in six games, and anyone who knew before the series that this would happen would have picked the Celtics to win easily. I picked the Celtics to win the series based on the expectation that the Celtics could hold the Warriors to 105-110 ppg overall, AND that the Celtics would average more than 105-110 ppg. I was correct about my first expectation but wrong about my second expectation: I did not foresee how many layups the Celtics would miss, nor did I foresee that the Celtics would continue to turn the ball over at such a high clip. The Warriors deserve credit for putting enough pressure on the Celtics to wear them down, but the Celtics also made a lot of unforced errors.
The Warriors became just the fifth NBA franchise to win at least four titles in an eight year span, joining Mikan's Lakers, Russell's Celtics, Magic's Lakers, and Jordan's Bulls. Do the Warriors' four titles elevate Curry to Pantheon status? Many will say yes, but I still say no. Mikan, Russell, Magic, and Jordan were almost always the best player on the court whenever they played, and that was even more the case during the NBA Finals. In contrast, this is the first time in six NBA Finals appearances that Curry was clearly the best player on the court. During two of the Warriors' three previous championship runs, Kevin Durant was without question the best player on the team and the best performer in the NBA Finals. As I wrote in my NBA Finals preview, "Nothing that happens in the 2022 Finals changes or invalidates what Durant accomplished in the 2017 and 2018 NBA Finals. If Curry has an epic performance in the 2022 NBA Finals--30-plus ppg with efficient shooting numbers--that adds to his already impressive resume but it does not retroactively make him the Warriors' best player in 2017 and 2018, nor does it make him a better player than Durant."
Curry and the Warriors deserve a lot of credit for bouncing back from injuries and other forms of adversity to win another title. Curry is a great player, and he played great in the 2022 NBA Finals. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging those facts while also refusing to give in to the recency bias that insists that whoever just won the Finals MVP must be considered a top 10 player of all-time.