The Matchup

[Goldstar88]

This is how I see it…


Starters:
Smart<Curry
Brown>Thompson
Tatum>Wiggins
Horford=Green
Timelord>Looney

Bench:
Poole>White
Porter Jr=G-Will
Payton Jr=Pritchard
Bjelica=Theis
Kuminga>G League Player
Iguadala>G League Player


Best defense against the best offense. C’s starters are slightly better, Warriors bench is slightly better and deeper. C’s are a bigger, more physical team. Warriors have experience, an edge in coaching and home court. Based on that the Warriors should be favored slightly, which will hopefully give the Celtics even more motivation being an underdog.

This should be the most competitive Finals that we’ve had in a long time…

[footey]

If Rob is back to being Rob, we will win. If not, we will probably lose.  Let's hope the 3 days rest, along with 2 days between most of the games, will help him recover better.  My buddy said Celtics should rest him until game 3 in Boston; he may have a good point, especially if he is still laboring come game 1.

[gouki88]

I think it’s worth mentioning that Payton II, Iggy & Porter Jr. haven’t been upgraded to available yet. It will probably happen soon, but they might not all play G1

[Phantom255x]

If Rob is back to being Rob, we will win. If not, we will probably lose.  Let's hope the 3 days rest, along with 2 days between most of the games, will help him recover better.  My buddy said Celtics should rest him until game 3 in Boston; he may have a good point, especially if he is still laboring come game 1.

I was actually going to just post this on another thread, but you beat me to it. I wonder if keeping Timelord out of Game 1 might actually help in the long run. Game 2 is Sunday, so in theory Timelord gets a week off before getting back into the swing of things, and then you still have the two days off between each game (except between Games 3 and 4) so Timelord can hopefully function as close to 100% as possible.

[hpantazo]

A lot of media talk wondering how the Celtics defense can handle the  Warriors offense,  but I think you have to also ask how can the Warriors handle the Celtics offense? They have no interior presence, and on top of Tatum and Brown, they will struggle with handling Horford and Rob Williams inside. This is not the Bucks with DPOY candidate Giannis and Brook Lopez inside, or the Heat with DPOY candidate Adebayo. Looney is  going to get abused, and Green is too small. On the wings, Wiggins and Payton will help, but Curry at his age is not a good defender, Thompson is a shadow of his former self on defense, and Poole is a terrible defender.

[yelkao]

I think this is a big D. White series. I can see the Celtics closing with Smart, White, Brown, Tatum, Horford a lot. I think this will be the series that White really shows how valuable he is. A lot of perimeter players on the Warriors to defend (Curry, Klay, Poole) who won’t bully him the same way Butler and Giannis could, and they’ll need his play making and shot creation on offense. I think it’s a real shot for White to make that trade really look like it was a good / great one by Stevens.

[Goldstar88]

If Rob is back to being Rob, we will win. If not, we will probably lose.  Let's hope the 3 days rest, along with 2 days between most of the games, will help him recover better.  My buddy said Celtics should rest him until game 3 in Boston; he may have a good point, especially if he is still laboring come game 1.

Couldn’t agree more. It was a mistake bringing him back for Game 3 of the Nets series, which was only 3 weeks after his surgery. Thought they should have kept him out until they really needed him. 3 weeks post op seemed way too soon…Now they are paying the price as he’s trying to play through the pain.

[Phantom255x]

I think this is a big D. White series. I can see the Celtics closing with Smart, White, Brown, Tatum, Horford a lot. I think this will be the series that White really shows how valuable he is. A lot of perimeter players on the Warriors to defend (Curry, Klay, Poole) who won’t bully him the same way Butler and Giannis could, and they’ll need his play making and shot creation on offense. I think it’s a real shot for White to make that trade really look like it was a good / great one by Stevens.

Yeah I think White could be the X-Factor and wild card in this series. He's a pesky defender and defends well, but if he can also hit the 3 ball at a decent clip then that'll make things tougher for GSW. White looked like Ray Allen in the final 3 games of the Heat series and if he can come off the bench and give the team like 12/4/4 kind of numbers consistently, that'd be huge. He did average around 14/5/5 in the final four games of the Heat series. He was struggling from behind the arc for most of the postseason but hopefully he's now found a groove.

Of course our main guys have to step up too, but if White can be a factor then this team is dangerous.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

I think this is a big D. White series. I can see the Celtics closing with Smart, White, Brown, Tatum, Horford a lot. I think this will be the series that White really shows how valuable he is. A lot of perimeter players on the Warriors to defend (Curry, Klay, Poole) who won’t bully him the same way Butler and Giannis could, and they’ll need his play making and shot creation on offense. I think it’s a real shot for White to make that trade really look like it was a good / great one by Stevens.

Yeah I think White could be the X-Factor and wild card in this series. He's a pesky defender and defends well, but if he can also hit the 3 ball at a decent clip then that'll make things tougher for GSW. White looked like Ray Allen in the final 3 games of the Heat series and if he can come off the bench and give the team like 12/4/4 kind of numbers consistently, that'd be huge. He did average around 14/5/5 in the final four games of the Heat series. He was struggling from behind the arc for most of the postseason but hopefully he's now found a groove.

Of course our main guys have to step up too, but if White can be a factor then this team is dangerous.

white absolutely will be HUGE this series. grant curry COULD be huge also. we need him top be.
I was happy how we kept attacking the rim in miami last night. we need to do that for 48 minutes against this warrior club.  If we miss some so what? keep attacking. we will draw fouls. until GS collapses in the paint then we can start taking wide open threes and torch them. inside out game. balance. adjust and take what they give you. no reason at all for a bunch of contested threes this series if we play smart.

lobs to al and tL all day. punish them in the paint. post up as well.

on the flip side run klay and steph off the line. make them drive and hit midranger deuces, take away their three game. if they drive to paint i expect AL and TL to have blocks galore.

adjust as we go. see what happens.

[SHAQATTACK]

Need a miracle for Rob to get healthy.

He makes a very good team great when he is 100% , pogo stick energy defensive weapon.

[Boston Garden Leprechaun]

Need a miracle for Rob to get healthy.

He makes a very good team great when he is 100% , pogo stick energy defensive weapon.

with three days rest this time and two days in between games and maybe with LESS minutes played we might be ok. have him do nothing but rest when not playing. keep treating it non stop. I think he will be ready to go.

[Celtics2021]

Need a miracle for Rob to get healthy.

He makes a very good team great when he is 100% , pogo stick energy defensive weapon.

with three days rest this time and two days in between games and maybe with LESS minutes played we might be ok. have him do nothing but rest when not playing. keep treating it non stop. I think he will be ready to go.

I really just want to rest him for Game 1, give him a chance to be more useful for the rest of the games.

[Moranis]

I don't actually think Rob is all that important in this series.  Horford is far more critical to the C's success as the Warriors actually have to guard Horford everywhere.  Rob is pretty worthless on offense outside of 5 feet and that plays well to the Warriors strengths.  I'm also not sure Boston gets a ton of advantage on defense against the Warriors with Rob as they always play small and fast and in that Rob is at his weakest. 

The reason I picked Boston in 5 is in the backcourt and on the wings.  I just don't think the Warriors have enough defensively quality on the wings to slow Boston down enough.

[Goldstar88]

I don't actually think Rob is all that important in this series.  Horford is far more critical to the C's success as the Warriors actually have to guard Horford everywhere.  Rob is pretty worthless on offense outside of 5 feet and that plays well to the Warriors strengths.  I'm also not sure Boston gets a ton of advantage on defense against the Warriors with Rob as they always play small and fast and in that Rob is at his weakest. 

The reason I picked Boston in 5 is in the backcourt and on the wings.  I just don't think the Warriors have enough defensively quality on the wings to slow Boston down enough.

Rob completely alters the opposing teams ability to drive to the basket. In the last series, the Warriors on average scored 50pts in the paint per game. You don’t think protecting the paint is important? 

[SparzWizard]

We can rest Timelord for Game 1 to get him his rest...but we need the split with GSW. Most likely we could aim for Game 2. And expect a lot of perimeter offense to handle with the Warriors