Can the Boston Celtics, as currently constituted, compete with the Golden State Warriors?
By Jason Timpf
The case for a Boston Celtics victory
The case for a Boston Celtics victory in the 2019 NBA Finals quite simply lies in the 2018 Western Conference Finals.
The Houston Rockets were the only team to come conceivably close to defeating the Kevin Durant-infused Warriors. The question is how? A lot was made about the addition of Chris Paul and the MVP-level play of James Harden, but the reality is that the Rockets won with defense.
The Warriors averaged just 97.0 points per game in their three losses –a far cry from the 113.5 they averaged during the regular season.
The Rockets absolutely suffocated the Warriors with length and athleticism on the wing, combined with superior effort. Harden and Paul just barely played well enough to pull out those wins, particularly in Games 4 and 5.
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The irony here is that the Celtics did the same thing to the Cavaliers en route to holding a fourth quarter lead in a Game 7 to clinch a Finals berth.
The Cleveland Cavaliers were the fifth-ranked offense in the league during the regular season. LeBron James was playing the best basketball of his career, and yet the Cavaliers were held below 95 points four times in that series.
The difference was that Boston lacked the surefire playmaking to bring those shockingly ugly basketball games home. LeBron simply out-executed them down the stretch.
But now the Celtics have Kyrie Irving, the only player other than LeBron to incite fear among the Golden State faithful. If the Celtics can muck up the game similarly to the way the Rockets did, they have a legitimate chance to win thanks to the offensive infusion of Hayward and Irving.
This is the pathway to a Celtics victory. It would be hard-fought, and almost certainly unwatchable for stretches, but it could lead to an NBA championship.