Celtics Demolish Warriors, Hand Stephen Curry Worst Drubbing of Career

Highlights

• The Warriors’ gameplan came together just before the game began, and backfired as Jaylen Brown made them pay.
• The Celtics’ dominance resulted in the victory checking in as the third-highest win margin in franchise history.
• Golden State’s Steve Kerr and Draymond Green didn’t appear to be stressing the loss, and were ready to move on as they look to climb up the West standings.

The Golden State Warriors were blown out by the Boston Celtics in their lone visit to Bean Town, and in the process, handed Stephen Curry the worst loss of his career. Boston’s 140-88 victory marked their 11th consecutive win and moved them to 48-12 on the season.

Jaylen Brown led Boston with 29 points, while birthday boy Jayson Tatum, who turned 26 years old, added 27 points.

Golden State and Boston were tied at 21 apiece before the Celtics used a 23-1 run to close the first quarter and blow the game wide open. Boston made 10 three-pointers in the opening frame, including three straight from Brown that sparked the Celtics’ huge run.

The game was essentially over by halftime after Boston kept its foot on the gas in a big way during the second quarter, outscoring the Warriors 38-16 to take an 82-38 lead into the break.

The Celtics lead the NBA in most three-pointers made and attempts per game and are fourth in the league in three-point percentage at 38.6 percent. They managed to exceed their shooting percentage from deep in this game, torching the Warriors by going 25-of-49 from beyond the arc (51.0 percent) and 53-of-96 from the field overall.

Curry, meanwhile, had one of the worst games of his career. The two-time MVP finished with a season-low four points on 2-of-13 shooting and missed all of his nine three-point attempts, resulting in both him and Draymond Green being done for the day by the time halftime hit.

Boston’s 52-point victory was the Celtics’ third-highest win margin in franchise history. They also became the first team to win three games by 50-plus points in a season. They beat the Indiana Pacers by 51 points on Nov. 1, 2023 and the Brooklyn Nets by 50 points on Valentine’s Day.

Warriors’ gameplan backfired

Jaylen Brown made them pay

Jaylen Brown has been shooting just 34.8 percent from beyond the arc this season, which is below his career mark of 36.5 percent prior to this season. In addition, the Celtics All-Star also connected on just 30.6 percent from three during the month of February.

With his struggles as of late, the Warriors chose to sag off Brown from the three-point line and let him fire away. Unfortunately, on Sunday afternoon, it backfired in a big way, as Brown made three consecutive three-pointers to begin the run that essentially tucked Golden State into an earlier-than-expected Sunday afternoon nap.

During his post-game press conference, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr explained that they tried the strategy to let Draymond Green be available to help and defend the paint from Boston’s drives.

Green admitted they made the decision about 15 minutes prior to the start of the game and echoed Kerr’s sentiments about kicking this loss to the curb and moving on.

“It didn’t work. Oh well. We move on. I thought it was fun to try. I was actually all for it. Let’s try it. See if it works. If it don’t, oh well. If it does, we found something. All right, it didn’t work, so we move on.” – Draymond Green

As for Brown, he expressed his gratitude to the Warriors for going with that strategy and implored more teams to follow suit.

Warriors move on

Steve Kerr: Flush it

Bad games happen in the NBA. It just so happened that the Warriors caught the red-hot Celtics at the peak of their powers this season. At surface level, this was certainly an awful way to go down. But it doesn’t seem like this brutal defeat will linger in Steve Kerr’s mind for a long time. Even though this wound up being the Warriors’ third-worst loss in franchise history, Kerr admitted he wasn’t at all concerned and intends to just “flush it down the toilet” as they continue their climb in the Western Conference standings.

As Kerr noted, Golden State went 3-1 during its East Coast road trip, which included a back-to-back in New York and Toronto just days ago. Now, they move on to a three-game home stand, beginning with a matchup against the Milwaukee Bucks.

The Warriors will then take on the Chicago Bulls and the San Antonio Spurs, before heading back on another three-game road trip the following week.

The Warriors, nonetheless, still find themselves in the 9th seed and are just three games behind the No. 6 seed Phoenix Suns. Golden State has one of the easier schedules remaining and if they are able to take care of business, they could still find a way to sneak into the top six and wind up securing an outright playoff berth.