Golden State Warriors Take Game 2 With Simple Game Plan Tweak

The Golden State Warriors bounced back in a major way against the Boston Celtics to even out the NBA Finals with one win apiece after a strong second half to close out Game 2 with a score of 107-88.

Both squads were firing from all cylinders for the better part of this game as the Celtics kept pace with the Warriors for the majority of the first half and only trailed them by two points at the end of it.

However, things quickly got out of hand in the third quarter as the Celtics' defense was caught by surprise when the Warriors suddenly shifted their plan of attack to that which focused heavily on their guards.

It appeared as if the Celtics were just playing shoddy defense coming out of the locker rooms, but it soon became apparent that the Warriors had brought out their bag of tricks and focused on running pick-and-roll sets instead of their usual motion offense.

In layman’s terms, the fundamentals of a team’s motion offense are like playing pick-up basketball with one’s friends whom they have been playing with for a very long time now.

Players know when to take a shot, pass the ball, cut to the basket, and all of the other fundamentals related to basketball without the rigidity of gameplans that are found at the collegiate and professional levels.

The Warriors, for the better part of their recent franchise history, have been running a motion-based offense that head coach Steve Kerr experimented with through the years in order to make the most out of their high-scoring personnel currently on the roster like Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Jordan Poole.

However, the Celtics are a highly-talented, defense-focused team that cracked down on the Warriors’ offense late in Game 1 to rally back and take the win then.

Kerr and the Warriors may have decided to take it up a notch to secure the win and ran multiple pick-and-roll sets with different configurations.

The most basic set of offense-centric plays after the motion offense, pick-and-rolls are used by teams in order to achieve things such as, but not limited to: getting the ball-handler a more favorable one-on-one matchup, creating mismatches across the board, and opening up the paint.

Curry was the greatest benefactor of this game plan change in Game 2 as he erupted for 29 points, while backup guard Poole pitched in with 17 of his own, plus a buzzer-beating three to end their blazing hot 35-14 output in the third quarter.

The duo of Curry and Poole repeatedly torched the Celtics in that pivotal third quarter, and the Celtics' defense simply had no answer for it.

With Game 3 set to be played on the Celtics’ revered home floor of the TD Garden on Wednesday, June 8, the Warriors look to spoil the homecoming party as they gun for a 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals.