Stephen Curry

The Golden State Warriors are hosting the Boston Celtics for Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night, and Steph Curry ended the first quarter with a bang.

- SHOULD THE BUCKS MAKE A TRADE? The Milwaukee Bucks lost Game 7 to the Boston Celtics, which officially ended their 2021-22 NBA season in the second-round. The Celtics won the first game on Thursday evening, so they have a 1-0 lead in the series and can take a 2-0 lead back to Boston for Games 3 and 4 with a win on Sunday night. Curry and the Warriors took a 31-30 lead into the second quarter, and they will need to win the game outright in order to avoid falling into a dreaded 0-2 hole.

What the Golden State Warriors did against the Boston Celtics in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night was the definition of "response.

The Warriors scored 33 points off of turnovers in Game 2, 18 more than the Celtics. They won the game by 19 points. Klay Thompson shot 4-of-19 from the field in Game 2. Their championship hopes rely on the best version of him showing up more often than the worst, but on a night-to-night basis, the Warriors don't seem to know which one they're going to get. Andrew Wiggins has had a slow start to the Finals. Right now, Curry is generating almost everything on offense for Golden State. Thompson isn't exactly a high-usage ball-handler, but the offense runs much more smoothly when the Warriors can at least rely on him to make open shots and generate some of his own looks inside of the arc. Not coincidentally, the Celtics committed 18 turnovers in Game 2, five more than they did in Game 1. Thompson shot below 40 percent from the field in 15 of his 32 regular-season games. The problem with extended Payton minutes is that Boston has little interest in guarding him on the perimeter. The moment he decided to try to play drop-coverage against Stephen Curry should have been the moment Ime Udoka decided to banish him for the rest of the series. The Celtics managed to get outscored by 12 points in the seven competitive minutes he played in this game. The game was extremely close through the first 24 minutes, but in the third quarter, the Warriors kicked it up a notch and gained some serious separation. Horford and Smart combined for 44 points in Game 1. Jayson Tatum paced the Celtics with 28 points and six rebounds, but his production wasn't enough as only two other Celtics players scored in double figures.