The Boston Celtics won game one of the NBA Finals convincingly and they were within striking distance of a game two victory before the Golden State Warriors hit them with a 19-2 run in the final 4:58 of the third quarter. The Celtics never recovered, and the Warriors won 107-88 to tie the series at one game apiece as the action shifts to Boston for games three and four. The main story of game two was Golden State's excellent defense (or Boston's bad offense, depending on how you view it); the Warriors' offensive efficiency improved little from game one, but Boston's offensive efficiency cratered from 120 points on .506 field goal shooting to 88 points on .375 field goal shooting.
It is not surprising that the Warriors responded to their game one loss by being more energetic and physical in game two, but it is surprising that Draymond Green is permitted to repeatedly throw opposing players to the ground, hit opposing players with forearms and/or elbows aimed above the neck, and instigate confrontations while only being punished with one technical foul. As ABC's Jeff Van Gundy has repeatedly noted, there is a bizarre double standard that works in Green's favor: Green is expected to behave poorly, so he is therefore given a benefit of the doubt that is not given to players who are more mild-mannered. Had another player fouled a three point shooter, landed on top of the shooter, rested his legs on the opposing player, and then grabbed the opposing player's shorts after the opposing player pushed his legs aside--as Green did to Jaylen Brown late in the second quarter--that player would have received a technical foul; unfortunately, because Green was the offender here and he had already received a technical foul, the referees assessed no penalty. Basically, after Green received his first technical foul he had a license to commit any mayhem short of a flagrant foul without being penalized. In the good old days, the game was more physical than this and yet also more sensibly officiated: players had a lot contact when the ball was live, but dead ball contact was not tolerated, and the issuance of a first technical foul was not a license to commit future mayhem but a warning that you are one false step away from being ejected.
If Green behaves in a similar way in a subsequent game and receives an ejection and/or suspension, no one should sympathize with him or the Warriors; Green pushes the envelope deliberately and repeatedly, so he, his team, and his team's fans have to accept the logical consequences of his actions. That is why I dismiss as irrelevant the notion that the Warriors would have won the 2016 NBA Finals if Green had not been suspended for one game during that series: being suspended is a logical consequence of how Green behaves, so if/when he is suspended no one should be surprised or sympathetic. Green and the Warriors apparently believe that the benefits that Green provide outweigh the risks of him being ejected and/or suspended.
I have no problem with the Warriors (or any other team) pressuring the ball, being physical (within the rules) with cutters, and playing with great energy--but much of what Green does is not physical but just cheap (if not dirty). Again, in the gold old days there were ways to deal with such conduct; one way was to put your 10th, 11th, or 12th man in the game, and make sure that he squared off with the offender: maybe the reserve would crack the offender with a hard screen, maybe he would get in his face, but the message would be clear that the offender needed to settle down, or else risk getting caught up in a fracas with a player whose basketball value is minimal.
Instead, in game two the referees gave Green a metaphorical license to kill, and the Celtics seemed puzzled about how to respond; it looked and felt like at a certain point the Celtics just gave in and figured, "We already took home court advantage, and we can finish this series at home even if we don't win game two." I am not suggesting that the Celtics should take that approach or even that they took that approach consciously, but rather I am suggesting that it is human nature to be a bit satisfied with a 1-1 road split as opposed to digging deep to win a second road game against a very determined team.
Stephen Curry led the Warriors in scoring for the second straight game, netting 29 points on 9-21 field goal shooting, including 5-12 from three point range. Jordan Poole added 17 points on 6-11 field goal shooting. Kevon Looney contributed 12 points on 6-6 field goal shooting, plus a team-high seven rebounds. Looney had a +24 plus/minus number, tying Curry and Otto Porter Jr. (who had just three points in 15 minutes) for game-high honors. Klay Thompson (11 points on 4-19 field goal shooting) and Andrew Wiggins (11 points on 4-12 field goal shooting) were Golden State's other double figure scorers. Green led the Warriors in histrionics while posting yet another "triple single" (nine points, seven assists, five rebounds) with a +7 plus/minus number.
Jayson Tatum topped the Celtics with 28 points on 8-19 field goal shooting, but he had a game-worst -36 plus/minus number, and his scoring total had more empty calories than nourishment, much like Curry's game one performance; both players scored a lot early during their respective big performances, but then disappeared down the stretch when the opposing team blew the game open. Jaylen Brown added 17 points on 5-17 field goal shooting but he was a non-factor in the second half. Derrick White (12 points on 4-13 field goal shooting) was the only other Boston player who scored more than six points. Game one heroes Al Horford and Marcus Smart disappeared in game two, finishing with two points each while combining to commit seven turnovers.
Did the Warriors make some incredible adjustment between games--or at halftime of game two--that changed everything? No; what we saw is the home team play with great desperation to avoid falling into an 0-2 hole, while the road team fought for a while before giving in and setting their sights on game three.
It is amusing to observe the game to game overreactions during an NBA playoff series; when a team wins, commentators act as if there is no way to imagine the other team ever winning another game, and then when the other team bounces back commentators act as if there is no way to imagine the first team ever winning another game. I never expected or predicted that the Celtics would sweep the Warriors, so a Golden State home win does not change my belief that the Celtics are the superior team that will eventually take the series. Frankly, a game two win by the Celtics would have been at least a mild surprise to me, because then the series would be unlikely to last six games, which is how long I expect the series to last. The so-called "momentum" from game two will last about as long and mean about as much as the so-called "momentum" from game one; game three will be a separate entity played in a different venue with a different officiating crew, and it is almost always the case that role players perform better at home than on the road. One trend worth noting is that the Celtics have yet to lose back to back games in the 2022 playoffs.