Golden State Warriors vs Boston Celtics: NBA Finals Game 1 Takeaways

With the Golden State Warriors leading 92-80 after outsourcing the Boston Celtics 38-24 in the 3rd quarter, it looked like experience was going to prevail in game one of the NBA finals, but the Celtics with no finals experience in their roster, came out in the fourth quarter and turned the tables on the three times champions.

The Celtics outscored the Warriors 40-16 in the fourth quarter, including a 17-0 run over a five minute period, hitting nine of twelve three-pointers, with four players making two three-pointers in the fourth quarter.

As well as getting red hot offensively, the Celtics locked in defensively, forced four turnovers, and limited Steph Curry to only four points in the quarter, forcing the other players to take the shots, which is something the Celtics will be more than happy settling with.

Celtics coach Ime Udoka on the fourth quarter defence: "We got up into guys much better. We stayed tight to them. Seemed like we kind of wore them down a little bit."

If the Warriors players were told before the game that they were going to limit Jayson Tatum to 3/17 shooting from the field and only 12 points, they would've been 100% sure that they would’ve won that game, but Tatum found other ways to affect the game while struggling with his shot.

Tatum supplied 13 assists with only two turnovers, getting his teammates' good shots throughout the game, with no other player in the game able to get more than five assists, and contributed to the Celtics having a total of 33 assists, with the Warriors only managing 24 for a team that is based on ball movement.

Ime Udoka on Jayson Tatum's passing in Game 1: "I've talked to him all year about impacting the game when his shot's not falling. That's what it was all about. He's still defending. Still impacting the game on that end too."

Steph Curry’s first quarter was an all-time first quarter in the NBA Finals, scoring 21 points, and hitting six three-pointers as well as looking likely to go on and carry his team to a win, with a historic performance.

However, after the first quarter, Curry shot 5/16 from the field, including 1/6 from three-point range, and with the Warriors' offence not as potent as their other finals runs, they need Curry to be great to have a chance of winning, and after the first quarter, the Celtics did a really good job on him defensively.

Curry on what the Warriors must do ahead of Game 2: "Stay locked in, stay focused, stay confident in who we are, and what we can do, and the fact that this series is just getting started."

The difference in this game for the Celtics was that their role players stepped up offensively when their best player was struggling shooting, with Al Horford, Jaylen Brown and Derrick White all scoring over 20 points, with Marcus Smart adding to his great defence on Curry with 18 points.

Horford, White and Smart combined for 15/23 from three-point range over the game, while in the fourth quarter they went berserk, combining for 6/7 shooting from three-point range, while Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson and Jordan Poole combined for only 5 points in the fourth quarter, all from Thompson whilst also unable to stop the Celtics defensively.

Al Horford on the Celtics hitting shots: "It was the way we were moving the ball. The guys just kept finding me. Derrick White hit shots too. We were just setting them up and knocking them down."