Draymond Green broke down Warriors’ approach to guarding Celtics in Game 1
The Celtics made 21 3-pointers in Game 1, with Al Horford, Derrick White, and Marcus Smart combining to make most of them.
It was the least likely suspects that delivered the Celtics the win in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Thursday night.
Al Horford, Marcus Smart, and Derrick White scored the Celtics’ final 23 points, propelling them on a 17-0 run at one point in the fourth quarter that saw the Celtics go from trailing by three points to taking a 14-point lead with just over a minute left.
Several of those shots by Horford, Smart, and White in the fourth quarter, and throughout Game 1, came on open looks. That was sort of by design, Warriors star forward Draymond Green said on his podcast “The Draymond Green Show” following Game 1.
“This was the story of the game: Al Horford, Marcus Smart, and Derrick White combined for 15-for-23 from 3,” Green said. “Now, Al Horford’s been shooting it lights out all playoffs. Marcus Smart’s been shooting the ball extremely well in the playoffs, too. Derrick White hadn’t shot the ball — from 3 I should say — extremely well throughout the playoffs, nor historically throughout his career. What we do know is he’s capable and obviously the world knows he’s capable since watching the game last night. But some of the 3s he hit last night, the rim just had to be wide. I think three of the five 3s he made were right over somebody in his face. When things like that happen, you have to live with that.”
Green isn’t wrong in his assessments. Horford shot poorly from deep in the regular season (33.6 percent) before improving to 46.3 percent in the playoffs. Smart’s been a below-average 3-point shooter for much of his career, shooting 33.1 percent from deep this past regular season before slightly improving to 34.5 percent this postseason. White’s been a bad 3-point shooter relative to his position, making just 31.2 percent of his 3-pointers in the regular season and 31.8 percent of them this postseason.
With those numbers in mind, Green shared that the Warriors were willing to live with those players taking shots rather than a certain pair of Celtics getting open looks.
“At the end of the day, something has to beat you. You’re going to pick in an NBA game, what is more likely to not beat you,” Green said. “You know Jayson Tatum can beat you. You know Jaylen Brown can beat you. Jaylen Brown had a good game last night. But JT struggled a bit. Now, he struggled a bit from the field — 3-for-17 from the field and 12 points. But he did have 13 assists which I think is a huge area of growth in his game. I think, if you would watch him in the past, and he had a 3-for-17 night, you leave that game thinking ‘Man, he had a rough, rough night.’ You didn’t leave last night’s game saying he had a rough night. He had a rough shooting night but not so much a rough night.”
The tandem of the Celtics making 21 of their 41 3-pointers and Tatum dishing out a career-high 13 assists resulted in 120 points for Boston in Game 1, a staggering amount against the No. 2 defense in the league.
The former Defensive Player of the Year shared what he thought went wrong for the Warriors defensively outside of the Celtics just making their open shots.
“I think No. 1, a lot of our rotations were off,” Green said. “When you have dynamic drivers, guys who can put pressure at the rim like Jayson Tatum, like Jaylen Brown, who put tons of pressure on the rim last night, you’re going to be in some help situations. With that being said, we have to make sure our rotations are on point when we are going to help. I don’t think that we did that very well last night, I can recount four or five of them that just led to one pass to pass out 3. You have to make them make that extra pass.
“I think — and just watching the game — I was asked the question last night, a lot of Al Horford’s 3s were wide open. Marcus Smart’s were wide open. Payton Pritchard had couple of wide open ones. So, if you can take those away, all of a sudden those guys aren’t shooting 15-for-23 from 3 and they’re combing for 7-for-16, 7-for-17, whatever. That doesn’t necessarily kill you, but 15-for-23, it’s hard to overcome that. I think they made 21 3s on the night, 15 of them coming from three guys that are not their main 3-point shooters and another two coming from Payton Pritchard. That’s 17 of their 21 3s coming from guys who aren’t their main guys who are really putting the ball in the hole.”
Green had a poor night himself, particularly on the offensive end. He scored four points on 2-of-12 shooting, committing two fourth-quarter turnovers and three fouls in the final frame that led him to foul out. Despite the loss and his performance, Green remains encouraged by the Warriors’ chances moving forward in the series.
“I leave this game saying, and I know how most people will leave this game saying ‘Jayson Tatum struggled. He won’t struggle like that again. The Warriors are in trouble.’ I totally understand and I’m totally fine with that narrative because to me, that was earned. So, you give them that,” Green said. “I leave that game saying ‘I won’t play as bad as I played again. Which will affect our team in a positive way.’ But more importantly, I leave that game saying ‘We stopped the guys we needed to stop. Continue to play the defense on their guys that we were playing but stop the guys we need to stop. They won’t combine for 15-for-23 from 3 again.’ So, you take that out of the game, make a couple tweaks on the offensive end, and we’re right back in business. I don’t make too much of the loss.
“Obviously, you’re down 1-0 at home. I don’t think it’s time to press the panic button. At the end of the day, it is the first to four, not the first to one, two, or three. We’re not pressing the panic button. They played a good game. You have to give them credit. I thought we played pretty good, really good at times. But then I thought there were some things that we could really clean up. I thought on the offensive end we could slow down a tad. When you’re playing against a team that’s pressure, pressure, pressure, I think for the most part we handled it well and then we got sped up. So, I think we can handle that a lot better. I think we’ll respond the right way.”
Game 2 is on Sunday night.
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