The NBA Finals start tonight and this year’s finals certainly have an intriguing matchup as the red-hot Boston Celtics take on a team that is no stranger to winning championships the Golden State Warriors. But the question remains which team will win it all?
The Boston Celtics are certainly not a team that I thought would be playing in the finals this year. In fact, the last several years the Celtics were typically a team that I expected to make a deep run as they did in Jayson Tatum’s Rookie year when they made it to game 7 of the Eastern Conference Championship. But the Celtics year in and year out since then have fizzled out early in the playoffs causing me to fade from them.
But this year, Tatum and Jaylen Brown have certainly shown that they can be the guys to lead their team to compete for a championship. That was a question that many had for this Celtics team for the last couple of years on whether or not, that Tatum and Brown were a duo that could compete for championships and they finally showed us they certainly can.
On the other side, you have the Golden State Warriors, who as mentioned are no stranger to winning Championships as their core players Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson have won 3 championships and have competed in five Finals.
Now, it has been a couple of years since the Warriors have been in the finals due to the loss of Kevin Durant going to Brooklyn and injuries over the past couple of seasons. But if I am being honest the Warriors were another team that I didn’t expect to see in the Finals this year.
I know that sounds crazy because when the Warriors are healthy they are a perennial Finals caliber team, but I didn’t think that Thompson would return and be the same player after tearing his ACL two years ago and then rupturing his Achillies rehabbing last year. He has basically missed two years of basketball and players who have ruptured their Achilles in the past don’t typically come back and are the same player, but Thompson certainly has proved me wrong and looks like the same great all-star player that he is.
With all of that being said, as I look at the matchup for this finals the Warriors are without a doubt the favorites to win it all, but being the underdog has been a role that the Celtics have enjoyed playing this year as they were the underdogs despite being the 2nd seed in the Eastern Conference when they took on the 7th seed the Brooklyn Nets. They did not only beat them they swept them, which is the only sweep that has happened in this postseason so far.
They were once again the underdogs when they faced the defending champions the Milwaukee Bucks and they bounced them out in game 7 after trailing in the series 3 games to 2. They did again when they knocked out the 1st seed in game 7 on the road in Miami in the Eastern Conference Finals. There is no question that this team is red hot, but is that going to be enough to beat the Warriors?
The answer to that I believe is no, I got the Warriors winning in 6 games. The Warriors simply have that championship pedigree with their core group and they know how to get it done in the finals. This time of year they just lock in and take their game to another level that I don’t believe the Celtics have.
I think Tatum still has some growing to do and I think overall he will have some strong games but will have a few duds in between and that is something he can’t afford to do with such a deep Warriors team.
As I mentioned how deep the Warriors are they get so much production from their other guys that aren’t their core players such as Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole. I simply just think the Warriors are too much to handle but the Celtics certainly will fight and give it everything they got, which is why I think we will have fun finals to watch, but as I mentioned I am taking the Warriors to win in 6.
