Celtics Defense Will Have To Be Perfect To Beat Warriors
BOSTON (CBS) -- The Warriors have to lose sometime, right?
So why not tonight, in Boston, against a spunky defensive Celtics team?
It could happen. The 23-0 Warriors are hurting just a little bit, and they only beat the Pacers by eight points on Tuesday. This matchup against Boston comes at the end of a lengthy road trip (with a stop in Milwaukee on the docket Saturday night), and two of their last five games were decided by just three points.
That's right, the Warriors didn't blow a couple of teams out. Ripe for the picking, right?
Well, that's still kind of doubtful. Golden State is playing out of this world right now, averaging 115.8 points per game and beating opponents by a margin of 14.6 per contest -- both tops in the NBA. Defending MVP Steph Curry is at a whole different level at the moment, with seven different 40+ point games under his belt. He's averaging 32.2 points per game while knocking down 53 percent of his shots on the season. Those numbers get even more absurd in the month of December, with Curry averaging 35 points while shooting 61 percent in four games.
Curry is pretty good, but Golden State is much more than just their superstar. If it's not Curry, then Klay Thompson (a game-time decision for Friday night's tilt) is knocking down shots, averaging 18.2 points per contest. If Thompson is out it would make life much easier for the Celtics, but they'd still have their hands full with Draymond Green, a candidate for the MVP-Not-Named-Curry award the NBA should also give out at the end of the season. The versatile big man is doing a whole lot of everything to start this season, averaging 13.4 points, 8.5 rebounds and seven assists for Golden State.
We could go on and on about how good the Warriors are this season, shooting an unreal 50 percent as a team while knocking down 44 percent of their shots beyond the arc, but everyone already knows that they're great. It's evident every night they take the floor.
So how exactly can the Celtics stop them -- or at least slow them down? They'll pretty much have to play a perfect basketball game to do so, but then again, so would everyone else.
Boston's defense is the key, and they'll have to stay relentless on that end of the floor. That task is much harder without defensive virtuoso Marcus Smart, and it would have been a blast to watch him try (and likely, on occasion, succeed) to frustrate Curry. But with Smart still sidelined with a knee injury, the daunting task of harassing Curry all night falls on Avery Bradley.
You have to go back to 2013 to find a bad game he had against the C's -- a 94-86 Boston win that saw him shoot 6-for-22 (hitting just three of his 11 heaves from downtown) and finishing with just (just?) 25 points. In two games against Boston last season, as he emerged as not just the MVP but the best scorer in the game, Curry knocked down 20 of his 38 shots for 59 points.
There's no reason to assume Curry is going to have an off night any time soon. But with him going off like he did last season, the Celtics dropped their two contests against the Warriors by a combined eight points. After fighting until the very end in Oakland, they blew a big lead in Boston a few weeks later. They nearly beat the eventual champs twice with some gritty efforts on defense.
While slowing Curry is the primary goal, it will take a full team effort to bring the Warriors and the NBA's scoring leader back to earth. We've seen such defensive displays from the Celtics more times than not this season, as they've held opponents to just 97.9, good for fourth in the league. Though their point differential pales in comparison to Golden State's, they rank fourth in that category as well at a respectable plus-5.4.
Though Smart is out for this contest, the Celtics now have Amir Johnson to help clog the paint. Maybe they will get a sliver of D from former Warrior David Lee, who will be fired up to face off against his old team after being moved in a salary dump before the season. And there's a reason Jae Crowder received a five-year deal after last season, with the C's hoping he can make life hard on players like Green. He'll have to be at the top of his game on both sides of the ball if the C's want a chance to claim a victory Friday night.
Thompson's status will be the wild card, because if he can go that could force Brad Stevens to put Bradley on Thompson and Isaiah Thomas on Curry. That would assure a 40-60 point night from Golden State's scoring assassin, and probably mean the Celtics will find themselves in double digit hole early on. But if Thompson is out, along with the already-sidelined Harrison Barnes, the Warriors could be ripe for the picking. The Celtics force more turnovers than any other team in the NBA at 17.9 per game, and they'll need every one of those extra possessions if they want to have any shot at doing what no other NBA team has done this season.
Celtics fans are confident that their team can walk away with a win Friday night, and they should be. We've seen the team play great defense against some of the better teams in the league, and they're usually up for these big games. But they also shouldn't be discouraged if they become the Warriors' latest victim in what could be a historic run.
So yes, the Celtics have a shot at ending Golden State's streak, and as good a shot as anyone up to this point. But there's a reason the Warriors are 23-0, and if the Celtics aren't perfect Friday night, then Golden State will continue to be just that come Saturday.