Thankfully, the Golden State Warriors will head home with a 2-2 tie in the NBA Finals.
For most of the fourth quarter, the Celtics had the Warriors on the ropes until Golden State was able to pull away late. Boston was up 91-86 with just over 7:30 left in the game, a crucial turning point.
The Golden State Warriors flipped their fourth-quarter struggles, and it’s what ultimately let them tie up the series at two games apiece.
The Warriors went on a 21-6 run to close out the game and even the series. The final score was 107-97, maintaining the truth that fans have yet to have any of these four NBA Finals games decided by single digits.
Two-time MVP Stephen Curry put on another masterclass performance.
He put up 43 points, and while he’s averaging over 34 points per game, he’s actually the only play even topping 23 points per game this series. His dominance has been on full display. Nonetheless, he’ll still have to win two games to secure his first Finals MVP.
While Curry’s dominance helped, what ultimately led to the Warriors’ Game 4 victory was the fact that they snapped out of their fourth-quarter struggles. The Warriors being a historically great third-quarter team has been well recorded, but NBA games have a full 48 minutes.
You do not win the game in the third quarter, as the Dubs have figured out the hard way in the Finals. In Game 1, they lost the fourth quarter by 24 points. In Game 3, they scored just 11 points in the final period and had a -12 differential that helped result in a 16-point loss.
Those games were decided by Boston fourth-quarter surges, much like Game 4, just for the Warriors. Golden State won the fourth quarter of Game 4 by nine, taking a one-point lead into the last 12 minutes.
The Warriors held Boston to just 19 points, their lowest single-quarter total of the game.
That change in play was what helped Golden State even the series. Andrew Wiggins, Curry, Jordan Poole, Kevon Looney, and Klay Thompson were the five-man group that helped spark the Dubs’ comeback.
While Green is important, the size that Looney provides and then the offensive firepower the Dubs have with Poole on the floor was likely why head coach Steve Kerr opted to go with those five and give Green a breather for the four-minute stretch in which Golden State made their comeback.
The Warriors went from down 5 to up 3 when Green entered the game for Poole to help close out the game. That said, this final period flipping to Golden State’s time to shine was what ultimately helped seal the deal and tie the series.