Getty Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics and Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors.
Thursday night did not go according to plan for the Golden State Warriors. They took on the Boston Celtics at TD Garden in a rematch of their NBA Finals showdown. Golden State earned a win in the two sides’ first meeting of the season, but Boston got the upper hand this time around.
Head coach Steve Kerr made a huge change to Golden State’s gameplan against the Celtics – he started Jordan Poole over Kevon Looney. Throughout the game, the lineup helped the Warriors and hurt them, and after the game, Stephen Curry spoke about the change.
“There’s strength and weaknesses to it,” Curry told Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “But we got great shots with it tonight. Came out with a lot of juice. We gotta be better at rebounding. If we give up size, we gotta be more physical, prepared to rebound. But it gives us great space and gets us great shots, and you gotta like the way we can play fast and put pressure on defenses.”
Curry put up decent numbers against the Celtics, highlighted by a halfcourt heave to beat the halftime buzzer and give Golden State a one-point lead. The Warriors superstar dropped 29 points, four rebounds, seven assists, three steals, and two blocks. However, he shot an inefficient 9-of-25 from the field and 6-of-18 from three-point land.
And on top of that, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole played well in the starting lineup, too. Thompson ended the night with 24 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the floor and 4-of-8 shooting from deep. Meanwhile, Poole had 24 points, six rebounds, four assists, and three steals on 10-of-25 shooting from the field and 2-of-10 shooting from distance.
Steve Kerr Rips Into Warriors for Defensive Lapse
Golden State had the advantage for most of the contest against the Celtics, but in the final minutes of the contest, Boston mounted a comeback. And to cap it all off, Jaylen Brown hit a game-tying three with just seconds left on the clock.
After the game, Kerr ripped into the Warriors for their defensive mistake.
“I haven’t seen the replay yet, but in that situation, it’s – the whole game plan is no threes, right? And there was no timeout. They didn’t take a timeout,” Kerr said via NBC Sports Bay Area. “They just came down and played. And so that’s where the guys have to be able to decipher that on the fly. You can debate fouling there. It’s pretty early to foul generally, it’s, you know, kind of under eight, under 10, or whatever. Everybody’s going to debate that forever in this game. But what you can’t do is give up an open three. And so the whole idea is switch everything and run them off the line and don’t don’t let them line up at three. So we had a defensive breakdown that led to the opening.”
Jaylen Brown Reveals Celtics Mindset vs. Warriors
Heading into the game, the Celtics were focused. According to Boston star Jaylen Brown, they wanted to avoid playing into the Warriors’ hands.
“I think that was the biggest thing for us,” Brown told Jay King of The Athletic. “Against the Warriors we were kind of playing into their hands at times. When you make the wrong read, they’re coming back and putting a lot of pressure on you with their shooting ability. We’ve gotta be able to more so [throughout] the game, make the right read.”