Beat the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics 103-90 at TD Garden on Thursday night to win the 2022 NBA Finals. Their Game 6 win was a dominant performance in hostile territory, highlighted by an opening 21-0 first-half run that secured the Warriors their fourth championship in the past eight years with leader Stephen Curry crowned MVP. of the Finals for the first time in his career.
The game opened very differently, as the Celtics entered the game on a 14-2 run, and for a moment, it looked like they were going to force a decisive Game 7 in San Francisco. But the Warriors struck back with a streak of their own, ending the first quarter with a five-point lead. Golden State held Boston scoreless for the first two minutes of the second quarter as their snipers rained down 3-pointers. By the time the barrage ended, the Warriors had put together a 21-0 run, the longest in the Finals in 50 years.
At halftime, the Celtics trailed by 15 points, not an impossible task given their history of comebacks in these playoffs. But the Warriors, however, refused to budge. A 3-pointer by Stephen Curry midway through the third quarter gave them a 22-point, game-ending lead and secured the point guard the first Finals MVP award in a career that will end with his being enshrined in the Hall of Fame. . Curry celebrated by showing the finger where his fourth NBA ring would go.
These Finals were a battle between youth and experience, where experience won. Throughout the series, the Warriors took advantage of Boston's turnovers that sealed the final. The Celtics committed 22 in Game 6 alone. "It's part of the championship pedigree, our experience. We've built this for 10-11 years," Curry said after the game. "That means a lot when you get to this stage."
Even though Golden State fell behind 1-2 to start the series, they battled back to win three in a row, two on the road, against a team that hadn't lost in a row all postseason. Curry, who scored 34 points in the decider, was brilliant for most of the series. His Finals MVP was not a career award: the series' turning point came with Curry's 43-point performance in Game 4. They were the end of him.
"At the beginning of the season, no one thought we'd be here ... it's very surreal," Curry said. His joy was easy to understand: The Warriors finished with the worst record in the NBA two seasons ago. Part of the slump was injuries to Curry and longtime teammate Klay Thompson. "It was dog days. A lot of tears were shed. You knew it was a possibility, but to come back like this and see it in real-time. It's crazy," said Thompson, who missed most of the past two-and-a-half years with injury before coming back to help his team win...
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