By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Golden State Warriors are only one win away from clinching their seventh NBA championship title after outplaying the Boston Celtics, 104-94, in Game 5 of the 2022 NBA Finals.
It was a high-octane brand of Golden State offense from the get-go as the trio of Andrew Wiggins, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green led the Warriors’ attack that helped them jump to an early double-digit lead.
Despite the defensive adjustment the Celtics did by face guarding Stephen Curry and putting him into a box-and-one, Boston still couldn’t figure out a way to stop the bleeding as the other Golden State players went to work and proved to be efficient.
The Warriors led by as much as 16 points and looked to snowball early in the duel but Jayson Tatum’s personal 6-0 run to close the first quarter trimmed their deficit to 11 points, 27-16.
Boston responded well in the first five minutes of the second quarter after head coach Ime Udoka exploited their matchup advantages against the smaller Golden State team.
The Celtics dumped the ball to whoever was on Jordan Poole and Nemanja Bjelica and went straight attack mode with Marcus Smart and Tatum winning most of the matchups that helped them get back into the ball game.
However, another Golden State offensive barrage overwhelmed the Celtics and edged them in the second quarter with a 24-23 scoring and a 51-39 lead at the half.
Just when everybody thought the Warriors were up for another third-quarter banger, it was a reversal of fortune as the Celtics this time dominated the period and silenced Golden State after a 10-0 blitz.
Jaylen Brown and Tatum shouldered all the points during the run and got huge help from Smart who deadlocked the ball game at 55-all after draining a three-pointer from the top of the key.
Boston would suck the life out of the Warriors crowd after finally getting the taste of the lead off an Al Horford trey, 58-55, that capped off a momentum-swinging 19-4 offensive run.
The game turned into a see-saw battle as Golden State answered back and retook the lead after another buzzer-beating heave by Jordan Poole to end the third, 75-74.
Golden State got a better start in the fourth than they did during the third quarter and outscored the Celtics with a 7-0 run courtesy of Wiggins and Thompson’s hot-shooting.
Aside from his offensive consistency, Wiggins became Golden State’s main two-way superstar after locking down Tatum who was shooting the lights out in the first three quarters.
Golden State survived Curry’s horrible shooting night and scored his lowest output of the series with 16 points and was only 7/22 from the field.
This is also the first time that Curry finished a game without making a single three-pointer in the 2022 NBA Playoffs and broke his three-point streak at 132 straight playoff games with at least one made.
Wiggins led the way for the Warriors with a team-high 26 points backstopped by Thompson’s 21 points while Tatum contributed 27 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists.
