NBA Finals Preview & Prediction

on a schedule. We got a cleaning lady here. Just to let you guys in on the background of all this. Every time when I record, we have a cleaning late that I always get nervous she's gonna come into the studio when we're recording, because that's how my anxiety works. So I'm like, come in here, and she never does. Thirty teams start the NBA season and most of them fail. Most of them fail at the goal that they are trying to achieve, except for Oklahoma City Thunder. They have

completed their mission. I tell you what, probably five to six teams out of those teams have real championship aspirations. I'm not talking about fan bases like Laker fans have title hopes every single year, but we knew real people within the Lakers organization new titles are not coming this year, no matter how trash they are. There's a sobering feeling within the actual organizations themselves. I'm talking about discussions and

preseason I'm talking about locker rooms. I'm talking about breaking down film talks between players, free agents, coaching changes. Like there are people who know, like starting of the season, after Summer League, after summer training camp, they know like we've we've kind of got something. We might mess around and really do something here. This year, I think it was the Bucks, the Suns, the Nets, the heat for them,

the Warriors, and the Sixers. I don't think anyone, including Dallas in the preseason believed they could end up going to the Western Conference finals. I don't think they thought we're in the conversation for a chip. They hadn't even gotten out of the first round with Luca yet and with the first year head coach in Boston. There is a reason this team was forty to one to win it all before the season began, right, So now we

have our final set. On one side, we have the Warriors, who have recaptured what a lot of people, especially their annoying fan base, predicted. They got fully healthy and they got back to their greatness. Almost just threw up my mouth. And the other a mediocre team that make no sense. The roster was janky as fuck. Didn't think it would work ever, A team that many felt needed to be broken up for parts, A team built for disappointments, and in fact, they did disappoint for most of the season.

They came together, though, and became the most dominant team in the Eastern Conference for most of the second half of the season. So pretty big turnaround. As we said in last episode, a tale of two teams, one desperately trying to recapture the old glory like a college quarterback coming back from injury. Will Rico Jamison return back. I just made that name up return back for Blue Mountain State. Great show to show their fans we are not delusional.

Our championship aspirations are real. We went into the luxury text for the reason this banners and the other an angry, cantankerous fan base with the most amount of banners under their belt. But we haven't seen one since the KG era, and it was only one. They act like they've won four titles since the ABA, more than four titles since the ABA NBA merger, but they have not. Secretly, they know it's hard to win a chip in this era. So I think we got we got a dogfight on

our fan hands, folks. We got Boston versus Golden State, we got Tatum versus Steph And I'm gonna say something very sounding hyperbolic. This is a generational defense, a generational defense versus a transformational offense that changed the game of basketball and how it's played forever. So you're gonna say, Tristan, do not be hyperbolic. The Celtics have good defense, but

generational defense. I'm not being hyperbolic, folks, Like this is the most interesting part of a chess match for a reason. Celtics defense versus the Warriors offense. This is where it clashes. This is where the shit goes down in those trenches is where the series will get one, I promise you. So let's bring it on. Let's bring it on, folks. Let's take a look at both teams, talk a little about them and what it's going to take for them to win the title. Let's start with Boston. When you

talk Celtics, you're talking about their defense. Of course, you know you've got Tatum. Of course, you know you've got Brown. They've been able to get buckets on io forever and it hasn't works. They're they're changed their offense, They've changed their their roster around lockdown, smash mouth, smothering, switch everything defense. For his magazine, because I do a little reading myself, broke down their defensive running the playoffs this year. Are

you sitting down? Sit down? If you're listening to this and you're standing up, sit down, ho sit down, because I nearly fell to the floor when I read this. Boston's half court production doesn't just stack up well with great modern defenses, it actually is off the charts, ranking first in relative defensive ratings. Since two thousand and four. Through eighteen playoff games, the Celtics have upheld opponents to just eighty six point eight points per one hundred half

court possessions. Their run to the finals is not built on just great defense. It's built on historically great defense. Eighty six point eight points per one hundred half court possessions? Are you serious? What that's like forty four but forty three buckets? Excuse me, holy shit? Better than the twenty seventeen Warriors, folks, Yes, who many can see consider to be the greatest team ever assembled, and they are a

distant second defensively, Yes, yes, it's true. In this playoffs, the Celtics swept the Nets, as we know, despite the fact that Brooklyn shot fifty four point seven percent from two and forty two point two percent from three houseway. How how's that possible? Well, they make the nets and made the Nets turn the ball over on sixteen point one percent of their offensive possessions. Swipe, swipe. That's hours we're running out in transition getting buckets. How did they

stop Giannis? Well, they almost did it. But what they did do was they made the Bucks turn the ball over fourteen percent of the time. Shitload. What about the heat? Jimmy Butler, as we know, almost single handedly ended the Celtics run, just based on his own greatness alone and some bad decision making by Jalen Brown and Marcus Smart which could be their Achilles heel, but we'll get to that in another time. How did the Celtics win? They made Miami turn the ball over fourteen percent of the time.

So to recap the defensive pressure that this Boston team puts on star players. We are talking about Durant, Kyrie, Jannis, Drew, Butler, Tyler, hero guys who are professional bucket getters who were turning the ball over like crazy. And what we also know about this opponent. I had to look this up and it was shocking. We all know of it. What Golden State does well is this free flowing motion Picasso like

maybe even more like Jackson Pollock. Just shit everywhere all the time, splashes the thing that the thing that is the achilles heel of something so creative, something so chaotic, is turnovers, lots of them. How many? You might ask, how does Golden State rank in the NBA in terms of turning the ball over? Are they are they like bottom third? No, it's worse than that. Are they twenty second, No, it's worse than that. They're twenty ninth, folks, twenty ninth

out of thirty at turning the ball over. Think to yourself, who would be the one team in the NBA that could turn the ball over more than the Golden State Warriors? Just tick talk, tick talk, you know, it's Houston. You know, it's Jalen Green, you know it's Kevin Porter junior. He throws the ball around more erratically and chaotically than he does bowls of soup at his former teammates. That's what

they do. Couple of young bloods, just Chris Crossing, trying to vibe out, getting buckets, turning the ball over like Golden State back to them. They turned the ball over in the regular season fifteen times per game. Uh uh no, no, that SIT's not gonna work here, folks. No, no, So in some ways, this is a feather in Boston's cap, right. I think that's the one way, the one thing that they can see when they're in their little meetings right now.

I don't want to mean to diminish it, but like they're in their little meetings right now, and they've got to be looking at that like that's the thing we need to zero in on. That's what Memphis did really well. Got Golden State to turn the ball over, got out into transition, got huge leads, and then tried to milk the clock out as much as possible for the rest of the game. Let's break down how their defense works and how they want to run it on somebody like

Golden State because the challenges are immense. So the Celtics built their defense in a way, according to eme Udoka, in a way to like lull an offense to sleep, just in time for them to say, Okay, we're gonna get this opposing team to be comfortable and complacent. And then as soon as they think that they've got us and our defense figured out, like this isn't such a historic defense, then that's when they turn the beat around, folks. They turn the heat up, the flames start to pop

up in their mouth, and that's that's what Boston. I don't even know what that means. Boston will have to be extremely disciplined though on Golden State in order to do this, because not only do they have very specific defensive schemes, they're gonna need to change those defensive schemes on Golden State, like multiple times in one possession. You're talking about totally different mentalities on defense changing and a meshing in one possession just based on what Golden State does.

That is a challenge. The communication is gonna need to be there, the discipline is gonna be needing to be there, and every single player. Every role that you have, you need to be locked in on your assignment and how that assignment changes. As Golden State does their Jackson Pollock thing. Cause, like when you are trying to defend Jackson Pollock, I mean,

this shit's everywhere. It's everywhere. You got this constant free motion offense, a million tiny little wrinkles inside, dribble handoffs, fake dribble handoffs, backcut, fake actions, shooters that pull up from anywhere. If you try to go underneath the screen, it's night night sleep mask for you. If you try to go over the screen, you're on their backside. They pull up like a like somebody who's on the freeway tapping their brakes. You collide. Now they're at the free

throw line. Excuse me, this is a challenge. Even for a legendary defense, They're gonna need to be locked in. The Warriors set would feel like constant screens. I watched an eight second clip where there was three screens on the perimeter that looked like it was dumping off the ball to Draymond Green only to get Steph Curry free for a quarter. Three. Just can't even notice how many they run. It's just boom boom boom, boom boom. So what you need to do is you need to either

lull Golden State into this arrogance. That's what Memphis did, carelessness, recklessness, and then capitalize on those mistakes, whether that's their bad shot selection, which they have the propensity to do, because again they're vibe and they're creating. They're just painting out there, you know what I mean. And then also make them turn the ball over. Limit them also to just one possession if they have those careless, careless threes bad shots.

You cannot let Kevon Looney get an offensive rebound and then start the possession all over again. They got a new canvas. And now you're tired and you're disheartened and your egos diminished, and you're like, god, damn, I gotta do this for forty eight minutes. She sh and then Chase Center's going crazy, a staff and VP They're like, I can't read the assignment. No, you get one possession and get out into transition. Run run, run, And then on offense, when you get the ball back off of

a make be extremely slow, methodical. Just run your offense, make sure you get a good shot. If not a good shot, probably a great shot. Make sure that those guys like Grant Williams and Derek White and especially Marks Smart are locked in and no, we're not taking bad shots tonight, folks, because that turns into fifteen extra points

for a Golden State. Also, where their best offensive players out, where Golden State's best offensive players out on defense, be very physical, try your damnedest from stopping them from getting out into transition and creating this deluge a waterfall of threes. And I think the thing that's interesting for Boston offensively is that they're much bigger and stronger than Golden State. Is right, that's not necessarily going to be a fed They're in their cap defensively because Golden State, I think

will have ways to mitigate that. But offensively, I think this is a strength for them. They should use their strength, their athleticism, their size to either pull up over smaller defenders like Jordan Poole and nullify him. You need to figure out a way to dampen the Golden State offense by taking offensive players just completely off the floor. Like if you can go at Jordan Poole and make him get into foul trouble, make him take bad shots, out

of frustration, make him basically unplayable. Now you've got a guy who can put up thirty who's now on the fucking bench, and another guy like Otto Porter who averages like four. Okay, so then now we're starting to play with Now we're cooking with gas. Now we're cooking with gas. So they should attack Pool as much as possible the same way that they did Luca and isolate him. Make Steve Kerr make hard decisions, make his ass play less minutes.

Shane Young from Forbes broke down the biggest problem for Boston and why I think Golden State will win, which is just gross for me to say. This is what he wrote. Golden State's offensive, flow, prowess, and pure intelligence are on vastly different levels than Milwaukee and Miami. The film session is now dedicated to a sharp shooting phenom one that never gets tired, doesn't even need the ball to tear your defense to shreds, and already has twenty

eight Finals games under his belt. No other player, no other player has seen more defensive coverages than Steph Curry. Boston won't give him anything new to figure out, but they will be the most physical, aggressive, and switchable defense that he's ever faced in a series, and I think that's true. Much better team than any of those Cleveland Cavalier squads, much better team than the Toronto Raptors, even

with Kawhi Leonards. This is the problem that varies. Few teams have solved, and Boston needs to figure this out very quickly or this might be night night. That would be four, you know. So to say that Golden State offers a problem to any defense is probably the understatement of the year. The team runs eleven deep, sometimes twelve. Everybody knows their role. Gary Payton, the second is back. He's gonna be big for them. Also, andre Iguidala has

basically had his entire body on ice all season. For this moment. He doesn't need to play basketball anymore. He only wants to play in NBA Finals. That's it, that's it, that's it for him. Everyone knows this. They have superstar guys, and they have guys on the cusp of greatness. They have role players who have been shunned and discarded from Minnesota. They have rookies who are contributing. So depending on how

you look at it, it's heaven. If you're a Warriors fan, you feel like you've got the future, the present, and the past all rolled up in one beautiful little team that plays beautiful game of basketball. Or it is a complete unmitigated disaster. If you're the rest of the league wondering whether this Golden State team's gonna have another decade decade of prominence, right you're email you DONK. I can't

even imagine how you think about this. I'm trying. I'm not doing a great job, but I'm not a basketball coach. I think you just think about how Memphis did it and just try to find ways like Steven Adams changed the game for them, brought Kevon Looney in. I don't know what they're gonna do for that, but the fact that Memphis held Golden State to an adjusted offensive rating of negative point seven is something that you need to

get into the film room and dig into. They had an aor adjusted offensive rating of plus ten or better against every other team this playoff run. Negative point seven against Memphis, plus ten or better on offense against everyone else. That's the stat that the Warriors and Boston needs to watch. Like I said, the Warrior turn the ball over a ton in the regular season, but they've cut that down a lot in the playoffs. What Golden State now has

going for them boils down to two big things. The first is they are nine to zero at home in the playoffs. Wow, that's huge. From twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen, they averaged six home losses per playoffs. This is that's stupid. That's stupid. Like they're better than they were in their reign. Why how? I don't know. Second, the fourth quarter, as per usual, has belonged to Golden State. They have outscored their opponents by twenty five points per one hundred possessions

in the fourth quarter. That's the best by any team in the playoffs in any quarter ever. Like ever, this means that they they're like, get up by thirty, Get excited, get excited. First quarter, second quarter, third quarter, go up, go up on us eighteen twenty All good, Steph Curry. You'll watch him. Just watch this. Keep this in your

mind's eye when you watch this. There will be a game where Boston is up like seventeen nineteen points, and then they'll cut, they'll cut to the bench and it'll be like it'll be like ten thirty in the fourth quarter and Mark Jackson or something. He'll be like, well, well, Mike,

I don't know. We couldn't have seen this coming. And then as they're talking about how unprecedented this lead is for Boston, they'll show Steph Curry on the bench with a towel over his head and his little mouthguard chewing on it, and you're like, this little fucker is gonna come back in in like two minutes and it's night night, and that's what they will do. They're a team and Boston, as we know, when they get up, they can get complacent.

Miami Heat came back multiple times. Milwaukee came back multiple times. If you get up on Golden's I don't care if it's thirty, keep your boots on their necks until it's whooped that trick time and you make Draymond, you know, put the towel in the air. Cause it's like, there's no insurmountable lead for this team. They are four and three when trailing after three and six and four when they fall behind by ten or more. They should be zero in ten when they fall behind by ten or

more in the fourth quarter, but they are not. They are better than five hundred. No lead is safe. How about this? How about this. When they get a lead, are they four and six? No, they're eight and zero when they're leading after three quarters, So you better make sure they're not up after three quarters. They're doing this in the playoffs by their passes, as we know the beautiful game of basketball. That they play three hundred and

thirty six passes per twenty four minutes. What a deluge, confusing, annoying, frustrating, tiring, and player movements. Of course, eleven point three miles traveled per twenty four minutes, both second in the NBA. They've also let all playoff teams in assist percentage. It's gonna be a challenge, folks. All these little stats, all these little nuggets. It doesn't look good for Boston. This is also gold This is Golden State's series to lose for

all those reasons. In my opinion, I think that Boston poses problems for Golden State, but I think Golden State poses a lot bigger problems for Boston. I'm not saying that Boston can't win because I think Memphis could have beaten Golden State. They certainly didn't want to go back to Memphis in Game seven, and who knows what would have happened, if John Moran wouldn't have gotten injured. But like if some nuts or candies and nuts, it'd all

be Christmas morning or whatever the saying is. So Boston's gonna need to win in the Bay in order to make this thing happen, and that is going to be very, very hard to do. Finally, let's talk a little bit about X factors for both teams, which is which means ancillary piece, peripheral pieces, not star players, not key role players, but ancillary players that need to step up. And who that could be for Boston. I think that's Derek White.

Derek White's a very pesky perimeter defender. He's like Marcus Smart. He knows emy Udoka's system like the back of his hand because he came from San Antonio and that's the same San Antonio scheme that emay Udoka is running. He's going to be really really big in terms of hitting corner threes, hitting three pointers at the top as well. If you're open, Derek shoot, like, be confident. They're going to sag. Golden State is going to sag off of

quote unquote lower shooter percentage. Guys like let the Scrub shoot, Grant Williams, Derek White. Derek White's gonna need to hit a bunch of them in order for that to change how Golden State plays their defense. He's a very very smart player at understanding angles. He's going to be able to cut Steph off instead of chasing Steph around. He's gonna be able to like almost cut the corner and stop the from coming into Stef's hands, bumping players off

their spots. And if Derek White can hit those shots, I think that's gonna be a really huge factor there. That's how Dallas won Game four, by the way, open shooters in the corner who hit him night night for Golden State, I think we've already seen Andrew Wiggins emerge as a key role player. So for me, I think the series will hinge on this ancillary player, Kevon Looney. If Kevon Looney gets fifteen, sixteen, seventeen boards a game,

there's just there's that's it. That's that's the key stat for me, because he's a six eleven small five who has basically played himself out of the beginning of the playoffs. They brought him back in solely because Steven Adams was playing really well, and now he has re emerged as a key cog in this system. He can play good defense, and whether he can be solid on switches or he's not getting by Tatum and Brown, that's gonna be huge.

That will be the key stat for me to watch is how Kevon Looney gets rebounds offensive rebounds, specifically because Golden State getting extra possessions means nothing good for Boston. Conclusion, Boston, make it a rock fight. Just make it a rock fight. Make it ugly. Force Golden State to turn the ball

over a ton. If you can get them to turn the ball over fifteen sixteen, seventeen times a game, you're going to go up early and you might be able to deflate some of the guys that are younger, like Jordan Poole's confidence. Like think of it like this, Think of it like this. This is analogy. So imagine you're a chick on the Bachelor and you're going on a group date. Right, and you're on the date and the other girl is Miss Universe. Right, You're never gonna be

able to miss you out Miss Universe. Miss Universe. You're never gonna be more beautiful than Miss Universe. So don't go anywhere where she can be in a bathing suit or where she dresses up in a cocktail dress. You're never winning that date. You need to go somewhere where you're sweaty, where you're using your brain, where you're dirty. Maybe she breaks a nail, maybe she exposes her lack of intellect. That's what you need to do. You're uglier.

They're never gonna be as good as playing as Golden State at playing the beautiful game, So they need to make things as ugly as humanly possible. That's how you put yourself on even footing with them. Boston can't let it happen. Golden State. Just don't try. Don't turn the ball over. Really that's it. If you can turn the ball over less than ten times a game, that's gonna be it. That's gonna be really it for you. Keep the ball moving, offense, moving motion. Try to limit Jordan

Poole's minutes. Try to figure out a way to hide Jordan Poole when he's in the game. Like when it's called they call it pool party, like make it pool make it pool conference, like, make it more business like you know what I mean. Like when we talk about the pool party, it's a little too hectic for me, Like it's a little too Vegas summertime, too many drinks, too much bad shit happens when it's the pool party.

Make it more like a pool business meeting, you know what I'm saying, Like just kind of like make it more something that I can rely on Jordan Poole to operate effectively on the offense and defensive end. Try to get a lot of good production out of Clay and Wiggans, so you don't need pools offense. You can just like maybe put his ass on the bench. No pool party time for me, keep bigger defenders on the floor to

help out. My prediction Warriors in six, Warriors in six, I think the Warriors will be up three to one after four. I think they'll close it out in Boston actually, which would be sad because Chase fans they won't get a ring there. Maybe Warriors in five actually feels like it's happening at Chase. Feels like it's happening at Chase for me. That's the only way for the legacy, And I think Steph does. I think Steph does get his first finals MVP. Also very quickly the Draymond Kevin Durant thing.

Look it up so funny. Draymond Green basically said that Steph Curry got seven times more double teams than Kevin Durant did when they played on the team together. Kevin Durant then went on, which is what he does, go on Twitter, quote tweet it and say, in my opinion, this is absolutely false. Steph did not get seven times more double teams than me. Oh that's wrong. So legacy legacy versus legacy. A lot of unfortunate situations were very elite, skilled players, some of the best to ever do it.

I have to feel some level of insecurity where they need to defend their quote unquote legacy because random people on Twitter are dumb enough to believe that neither one of them is good enough to be in the top ten of all time conversation, which is just absolutely bunkers in my opinion. But check that out, go and find it. There's a million places where they discuss it. And Steph Curry's legacy is unaffected by not having a finals mvpm my in my opinion, and that's coming from someone who

has said Steph Curry's not even a point guard. So there it is. That's all the time that we add for the heat check. We'll be back Monday with a new episode breaking down the first games of the NBA Finals. So follow us as we move forward to crowning the Golden State Warriors as champions. That's it. Do not forget to download, subscribe, tell all your friends, every single one of them, and follow us at this heat check and Trista Criek on TikTok