Warriors in 5, the stars for Boston are too hot and cold.

Warriors in 7

Boston are great defensively, and their extra size and length may trouble the smaller Warriors at times

Should be a good series but ultimately Warriors have too much firepower (very unlikely to go 7-45 from 3 like Miami did in one of their games) and home court advantage, plus the experience, been there, done that so Warriors in 7 for mine

Yeah I think the Celtics D will disrupt the Warriors flow enough to keep them in most games, but that championship experience usually helps and I reckon that'll get them over the line. Hope Steph has a few massive games and gets the Finals MVP at last

Warriors in five, possibly six but can't see Boston winning it.

Warriors either 4-2 or 4-3
Warriors experience in finals will hold key
Boston have done well to win ,but never underestimate Celtics.

Looking forward to watching game 1 Thursday.

Celtics/Heat was an inconsistent series, both really struggled at times. Imo, if Miami had Dragic instead of Lowry it could have gone their way.
GSW have different defenders to throw at Tatum and have had a good rest, whilst you can argue Boston is in a routine. And travel could be a factor with it being opposite sides of the country. Then there's the case of experience with the core of Golden State being multiple finalists, and Celtics the new comers.
GSW in 5.

Warriors are turnover prone but have undeniable fire power. Jaylen brown is a turnover waiting to happen every possession and the Celtics simply won't have the offensive weapons to keep up over 7 games. Great series ahead though, hoping warriors with some ease.

Interesting series, GSW can't defend a door knob, but they got steaky players who can go off for big scores...

Boston has great defense and size all over the court and methodically grind out wins, don’t have the streaky shooters who can get hot…

Wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of those series where every game is a blow out…

I'm not going to call a winner as I haven't watched that much NBA this season, and almost no GSW. But I will make a few comments:

- Brown shouldn't be as turnover prone as he was against Miami, as I doubt the Warriors will be able to narrow the driving lanes as much and they can't be as physical as Lowry, Butler, etc were.

- Can Wiggins guard Tatum? If he can't, who else has a chance? If Warriors put Green on Tatum, how will Looney go against Horford?

- I feel like the Celtics size may be a problem for GSW as I'm not sure they can go small and play Green at centre without Tatum getting to the basket at will.

- If Horford doesn't run out of gas and dominates at centre, I think the Celtics have a great chance.

- Rob Williams has struggled to make an impact coming back from surgery, but he could be an x factor as GSW are nowhere near as physical up front as Miami and the Bucks were.

- The Celtics need to keep their concentration. They do have a tendency to go to sleep at times and the Warriors will punish defensive lapses far more harshly than the Miami Bricklayers.

I saw comments on r/NBA that the bookies have Golden State as favourites, but 538 loves the Celtics. Wonder if there's anything to take stock of there?

As much as I rate the Celtics when 538 go out on a limb vs. the bookies in sports they generally are wrong.

The problem is if 538 do get it right the media will cover it and Nate Silver will look good, if wrong there won't be even a memtion. The site made a name for itself through election predictions, not sports. They have branched out to it however to provide more website content.

The consensus opinion by sports betting data analysts is that 538 isn't that great.

In saying that I do like these Celtics and their D.

The Celtics are definitely a chance. Steph hasnt been at his best. Klay and Poole have both been really streaky. Wiggins has been the Warriors most consistent second scorer of late...thats just weird. When Curry isnt cooking, and they get loose with the ball they really struggle and this Celtics team can really take advantage of that.

"GSW can't defend a door knob"

You clearly don't have a clue

Mostly I just watch highlight packages and read box scores

But I'm surprised most of the tips here, and among my mates has been Warriors in 5 or 6

Boston does seem to have some definite advantages

Plenty of teams pushed GSW in the previous era- one of them was OKC (before Durant left) where OKC kind of dominated GSW physically. They were bigger and stronger and ground them down. Boston could potentially do something similar. They aren't physically huge but they do have more length, size and rim protection than GSW

I'm tipping GSW in 7 but I reckon it'll be very close

Yeah and even in this playoffs, the biggest struggle the Warriors had was against Memphis who had a great shot blocker in Jackson. Robert Williams and Horford will need to protect the paint. Sure GS can shoot from outside, but you need to be able to mix it up and that interior D will be key.

Boston is just pretty "smart" defensively pardon the pun

And agree re above- who from GSW defends Tatum? Presumably Wiggins or Green.

But then Horford could be an X Factor. He's a high IQ guy who picks his moments, and still has big 20+ point games sometimes

Much depends on how well they defend Curry of course, but I see Smart containing him reasonably well. I reckon Curry averages maybe 25 a game. He's scored 30 in 7 of their 16 playoff games so far. I'm tipping he only does it once or twice vs Boston.

Still, I love Curry, so hoping he proves me wrong, wins the MVP and jumps up the all time rankings a bit further!

Horford is slow and past his used by date, Looney will have no problems matching up on him when GSW decide to go physical on Tatum by putting Green on him. Klay and Wiggins will also take turns on Brown. Horford will need to hit some outside shots to be effective against Looney.

At the end of the day Warriors are better rested and have too much firepower for the Celtics to keep up. On top of that as great as Tatum is, he doesnt have the killer instinct and tends to go quiet throughout games... cant do that against the Dubs.

I love both teams, but cant see the Celtics getting this done.. will be great experience for the team but Warriors got this.

Big Fudge have you watched Horford in these playoffs?! He wasn't too slow for Giannis or Bam and he has made 2 threes per game at 43%. If he continues this form, he will be a problem for the Warriors!

I saw comments on r/NBA that the bookies have Golden State as favourites, but 538 loves the Celtics. Wonder if there's anything to take stock of there?

"Big Fudge have you watched Horford in these playoffs?! He wasn't too slow for Giannis or Bam and he has made 2 threes per game at 43%. If he continues this form, he will be a problem for the Warriors!"

100%. He's been brilliant in these playoffs, and really the whole season he's been much better than anyone expected. Aside from being an above average defender, he's hitting open shots and can be used as a playmaker in the middle of the floor when teams double Tatum.

I think this is at least a 6-game series. The Celtics will win a game by being good enough and the Warriors will gift them a game by being lackadaisical. Warriors are justified favourites but I think it's closer than the near-consensus projections. Steph and Draymond, for all their IQ, can be so casual with the ball, and Boston will feast on that. Warriors turnovers lead to easy points for Boston lead to Golden State playing against a set defence rather than a scrambling transition defence.

IMO this actually hinges on how close to pre-injury form Klay Thompson can play at the defensive end. If Klay plays elite defence, Warriors in 6. If Wiggins is the only Warrior who looks anything like a wing stopper, it goes to 7.

As a Celtics fan I was wondering what they were doing getting Horford back, then I thought they would ship him out straight away.

Glad I was wrong about that, he has been a revelation these playoffs.

So looking forward to tomorrow.

I wonder if his $5 million bonus for making Finals led to Horfords renaissance. Was terrible in Philadelphia and even Thunder listed the official reason for being ruled out of playing was being "Old". Probable matchup vs Looney could be a positive so don't what Fudge is going on about. Looney has had some big rebounding games in playoffs though.
One thing I find interesting is on the defensive side of things, can Smart being DPOY slow down Curry, Klay and Poole, whereas can Green, Wiggins and Glove junior contain Tatum and Brown?
And it's scary to think that in coming years Wiseman, Kuminga and Moody can team with Poole to keep GSW contenders with their big 3 starting to decline.

Hordford just wasnt a good fit in Philly next to a low post ball dominant big. He works much better in the Boston system. The reason he didnt play in OKC is because he was too good and was hurting their lottery chances.

Warriors laid a massive egg in that quarter today. Boston are gonna have those big three point shooting games but for the most part they were good looks so the GSW D needs to be better.

Offensively the Warriors got super sloppy once they got up to a big lead and let the Celtics get hot and roll over them.

Iguadala looked terrible, which is expected since he's been out, but he shoulda been yanked way earlier.

Cake - nice post.

The Celtics looked younger and fresher, and not like a team scraping through two seven-game series to get to the Finals.

To be down early on despite Curry's shooting streak would've meant they weren't worried in that first half. Then maybe the Warriors got ahead of themselves after that third quarter.

Said it earlier, but White is critical for the Celtics and I hope the Spurs got enough back for him.

Lots of good clean looks for Boston whereas the Warriors were routinely scrambling for a lot of their shots.

One problem for the Warriors is that Tatum had his off scoring game as he does every 2-3 games, and Boston still ran away with it.

Entertaining game though with all those threes raining down.

Horford ain't past his use by date

Great game by Celtics. But, unlikely they shoot like that again in a hurry, so I'll stick with my original tip of Warriors in 7

They likely wont shoot like that again, but the Warriors will still need to address their complete inability to get good looks once the Celtics ramped up their D. Also, Tatum likely doesn't have that poor of an offensive game again.

One thing these playoffs have taught me is that anything can happen. We can't get too carried away with wild swings in form. I mean the Warriors got beaten by 50 in one game.

I think the way the game has changed with the 3 ball it leads to a lot of blowouts either way like in the Miami series. One game either a team shot the lights out or shot poorly. Gone, for the most part, when the finals was a grind, now imo it's more wide open to get teams to score fast and get 40 in a quarter. Like when Jordan hit all those 3s against Portland and shrugged, it's still impressive but not as rare.
And good to see that Horford comment age so well.

And good to see that Horford comment age so well.