Many people will look at what the Celtics did in the fourth quarter as the key to the game.
While the Celtics showed why they belong in the NBA Finals, the Warriors’ reliance on their past experiences may have cost them the game.
Steph Curry has had a set rotation for many years with the Dubs when he isn’t in foul trouble.
He normally sits out the first six minutes of the second quarter and sits again at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Nothing was different in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, which was the problem.
Steph scored 21 points in the first quarter, but the Dubs only led by four. By the time he got back in the game in the second quarter, he had lost all his rhythm and didn’t score a point.
This led to the Celtics leading at halftime by 2.
It was a preview of things to come.
Curry gets back in the flow and scores 9 points in the 3rd quarter, and the Warriors lead by 12 going into the 4th.
Curry sits ago, and in less than three minutes of him on the bench, the Celtics go on a 7-0. The rest, they say, is history.
Steph has to get his rest, but it doesn’t have to be at the beginning of the quarter he tended to agree with me when I posed that question to him.
Q. When you start off that hot, is there an urge to say, hey, I want to roll that into the second quarter, I want to roll that into the fourth quarter, or is it just trusting the rotations and then trying to get that rhythm back when you can come back in?
STEPH CURRY: It’s the latter. But it’s also understanding how the series develops, at most, we got six games left. Make the necessary adjustments.
Like I said it’s about winning four games by any means necessary, and for 42 minutes, we did enough to win a game tonight, and that’s not how basketball works. I think everything starts to come on the table when you look at trying to get ourselves back in the series on Sunday and taking it from there.
It is the NBA Finals. When the chef is cooking don’t take him out of the kitchen.
We will be watching the rotations closely in game 2.
