The trick, of course, is to keep doing it differently. On one night, maybe your best player scores 46 in a must-win Game 6 on the road. In another, maybe your most respected veteran, rediscovers the Fountain of Youth and scores 30. Or maybe, on a night when your star couldn’t toss a coffee cup into an open dumpster, most everyone else rallies with a fourth-quarter performance that hit these NBA Finals like an avalanche.
As the saying goes, whatever it takes.
“It wasn’t our best game,” Celtics forward Al Horford said after Boston’s 120-108 win over the Golden State Warriors last night in Game 1 of The Finals. “But we continue to fight and find ways to win.”
Do they ever.
So … how, exactly, did the Celtics win this game? By outscoring the Warriors by a whopping 40-16 margin in the fourth quarter – and even more incredible 48-21 over the final 14 minutes after falling behind by 15 points late in the third quarter – and by hitting the Warriors from all sides with most everyone on the roster.
You want team basketball? You got it, top to bottom: