By Lourence Alturino
Image from Sporting News
The 2022 NBA Finals has arrived as the Golden State Warriors face off against the Boston Celtics. Experience vs the youth. Which team prevails and becomes this year's NBA Champions?
Golden State Warriors
After 2 seasons of injuries and despair, the Warriors are back in the NBA Finals. Golden State have now been to the Finals six times out of the last eight seasons and have won 3 of those. This team is not new to this stage whatsoever.
The Warriors are led by their legendary trio, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. These 3 were apart of those previous championships and in their first season back healthy, they haven't lost a step.
The evolution of Jordan Poole throughout this season has pushed the team to another level, giving them another elite offensive threat alongside the Splash Brothers. Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney's recent emergence during these playoffs have remarkably helped the Warriors get back to the big series.
Keys to Victory:
- Limit turnovers
Turnovers have been Golden State's biggest problem as of late and limiting those mistakes will make this team a lot more difficult to defeat.
Boston Celtics
This is the first time the Boston Celtics have been to the NBA Finals since 2010. However, Boston is the most successful team in NBA history with 17 championships to their name. Boston has had one tough road to the Finals. Defeating Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and Miami is definitely not an easy task, yet the Celtics did so.
The young yet incredible duo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown has lead this Boston team to this position. These two are some of the best scorers the league has to offer and are only 24 and 25 years of age respectively.
The Celtics lack championship experience compared to their opposition, but they do have savvy veterans like Marcus Smart and Al Horford, who are major contributors to their defense and overall success.
Keys to Victory:
- Make shots in the clutch
Playing against Golden State, Boston should expect plenty of close games throughout this series. In game 7 of the ECF, the Celtics almost blew the game way because of their inability to hit shots in crunch time. This mainly falls on Marcus Smart in my eyes. Smart's inconsistency to make open 3-pointers almost lost Boston that game and needs to be fixed in order to defeat the Warriors.
Big Questions:
Are the lights too bright for the young Celtics team? Can the Warriors win it all once again? Will Steph Curry finally win the Finals MVP?
Final Predictions:
This series is pretty evenly matched. Both teams are terrific on both sides on the floor with individual players that can single handedly change this series. This is going to be a battle of two impeccable teams on the big stage. For me, this series will just come down to experience. The Celtics are very talented and will put up a competitive fight. However, I am predicting the Golden State Warriors to once again win the NBA Finals in 6 games with Stephen Curry finally hoisting up that Finals MVP trophy.
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