"They have the greatest shooter on god's green earth.... Draymond Green is who the hell we know he is" - Stephen A. Smith extremely hyped for Warriors-Celtics finals, believes it is going to be an "epic series"
The 2022 NBA Finals will see the Golden State Warriors take on the Boston Celtics. It is expected to be a riveting match-up between two extremely talented teams.
Stephen A. Smith, on ESPN's "First Take," previewed the match-up and is taking the Golden State Warriors in seven games. Smith said:
"This series is going to be a thriller. I just think it's the better match-up, I think this is the match-up basketball fans should want to see, Boston's an elite defense with offensive firepower, the Golden State Warriors are who the hell we thought they were.
"They have the greatest shooter on god's green earth, they have one of the top three shooters on this planet as his sidekick, Jordan Poole has emerged, Andrew Wiggins is balling, Kuminga, I think, will be a factor in this series, Draymond Green is who the hell we know he is.
"I just think this has seven games written all over it. ... It has such an epic series written all over it."
Preview: Golden State Warriors vs Boston Celtics, 2022 NBA Finals
In their previous matchup, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Marcus Smart, sent Stephen Curry out with an injury. This caused Curry to miss the final stretch of the season.
Jordan Poole scored 26 points on six of 13 shooting from 3-point range. Klay Thompson managed to sink just one of his 11 3-point attempts.
Dubs. Celtics. https://t.co/t2v2KiAluU
However, a lot has changed since then. Owing to their size, one of the weakest links in Golden State's game was rebounding.
This is an area where they have exponentially improved from the regular-season with the help of Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney (the Warriors have out rebounded their opponents in all but one series in the playoffs).
Jordan Poole's emergence as a reliable scoring option (averaged 18.4 ppg in the playoffs) and Klay Thompson's rhythm in the playoffs (shooting 39.9% from 3-point range in the playoffs) bodes well for the Warriors going into the finals.
Not much has changed for the Boston Celtics, though. The Celtics, since January, have had the third-best win percentage in the NBA, at 74.0%. They carried their momentum from the regular-season to the playoffs, winning two seven-game series after sweeping the Nets in the first-round.
Possible match-ups to look out for are Wiggins-Tatum, Gary Payton II-Marcus Smart/Jaylen Brown and Draymond Green-Al Horford/Robert Williams.