Golden State Warriors vs Boston Celtics: Four big talking points | NBA News

Two titans of the league lock horns on Saturday night, 178 days since last season’s NBA Playoff Finals, as the Boston Celtics, currently operating as the league’s best team, and the Golden State Warriors, led by Stephen Curry, face off.

Let’s rewind back to June for a moment before we dive into the specifics. The Celtics held a 2-1 series lead and a six-point half-time lead at home in Game Four before Curry and the Warriors turned on the style to claim their fourth title in eight years.

Curry racked up a blistering 43 points in that game and Andrew Wiggins was in stellar form to support. Although very little has changed for the Dubs’ talisman, the team are in a much different state than last summer.

Six months on, the Warriors face the Celtics for the first time this season. Their opponents are 19-5, topping the East Conference standings, while they themselves have had a shaky start to the action.

So, we’ve previewed the four big talking points to note ahead of the blockbuster action, live on Sky Sports Arena at 1.30am on Sunday…

1) The Boston boys

Not just the best team in the league, but also the best attacking duo in the league – Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum. Tatum is playing at MVP-level, while Brown is doing more than enough to match pace.

Perhaps the more telling stat is that they are the only two players in the league this season to have multiple games of at least 30 points and 10 rebounds. A class above the rest.

For Tatum, it is familiar territory. He has reached that stat five times this season, including in the first game of the year against the Philadelphia 76ers when he struck up 35 points and 12 rebounds.

Brown has made the trek to that particular peak twice, with his most recent venture logged on Sunday.

Of course, it would be very easy to say Boston’s successes are solely down to the pair, but it is very hard to look past it when the team are at 19-5 heading into the weekend clash.

2) Warriors’ worrying second act

If there is one glaring issue to stand out amid the Warriors franchise this season, it has to be the secondary unit.

Things have looked fairly functional with Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green on the floor. But worryingly, the disastrous performances start to flourish even if one of the starters are replaced.

This accounts for about a fifth of the Warriors’ total minutes of the season, most often as a result of Jordan Poole or Kevin Looney stepping in.

Poole, who landed himself a $140m contract extension in the pre-season, has not been entirely a bad move. For instance, he scored 23 points in the harrowing loss to the Indiana Pacers, attempting to inspire a comeback that never came. In the defeat to the Jazz, he snapped a career-high 36 points.

Yet if he is not given space to net threes, he becomes non-existent. The same can be said for Looney. The other members of the secondary unit have not fared much better. James Wiseman was sent to the Warriors G-League affiliate (though he has been recalled) to work on his defence and Jonathan Kuminga has had his minutes significantly reduced after questions arose on his work ethics.

Steve Kerr’s options are limited in that sense. And there will be very little room for error against a buoyant Boston side.

3) Curry in crisis?

Curry having a bad day? That is a rarity. In fact, this season he is averaging, and on track, to bypass the numbers he put up in his MVP-winning season.

Only Tatum and Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic are perhaps besting him. And yet in the defeat to the Pacers, in another stacked NBA schedule, rookie Andrew Nembhard, did more than enough to not only frustrate Curry, but triumph over him.

He recorded only 12 points on 3-17 shooting from the field, and 2-10 from the deep in 38 minutes. Although there may be grounds to say Curry was dealing with an ankle injury which he played through, he was unable to shake the Pacers’ dogged defence.

Curry was also aggressively man-marked by Nembhard, which might be a point of attack for the Celtics this weekend.

Boston are not the kind of team that will press hard, instead choosing to pile resources into transitional attack, but Nembhard might have shown them the way to ensure the Dubs’ attack remains silent.

4) More injuries?

Curry is not the only one with questions surrounding whether he will start games this week. On Wednesday, he was joined on the medical table by Green, who was managing a flare-up in his hip. Green missed games last December and January as a result of this yet spent the recent offseason diligently rehabbing his problems. It remains unclear whether he will be rotated for Poole in the schedule.

Wiggins, meanwhile, sat out for a second straight week with a right abductor strain. Kerr stressed before last Monday’s action that Wiggins was fine and wouldn’t be sidelined for much longer.