Why Boston Celtics failed to clinch the 2022 NBA champions title

Boston Celtics missed out on yet another NBA champions title on Thursday. The Golden State Warriors beat the Eastern Conference winners with a 103-90 tally at the TD Arena.

Even though the final score for both sides was less than what they usually put up, the defense strategies gave the NBA Finals their edge. The Warriors won their seventh overall title and Stephen Curry was named the MVP.

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Boston Celtics failed to show an “all hands on deck” approach in Game 6. All the pressure for putting up points on the board was felt by Jaylen Brown, who added 34 points. Jayson Tatum, who was expected to be the star performer for the Celtics, had only 13 points.

Tatum was sharp at the start, with the final five points in the opening 14-2 run. He added a third basket in the first quarter to give the Celtics a 22-16 lead, but that was their last points before getting overrun by an avalanche of 21 straight Golden State points.

The Celtics kept fighting and got the fans back into it but never got particularly close in the second half, in part because of Tatum’s passiveness and ineffectiveness. Some fans cried out for him to go get the ball, but even when he did, it just didn’t work out down the stretch.

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The Celtics’ problems went beyond Tatum. Too many turnovers sometimes, too much bad execution in others. They were outscored 57-39 in the fourth quarters of Games 4 and 5, perhaps fatigued from a long playoff run.

“This was a rough one” for Jayson Tatum, Celtics coach Ime Udoka said after the match. “One thing that he is always done throughout the season was seeing multiple different coverages and figured it out. He did that throughout the first few series”, he added.