It’s been over a month since the Warriors beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals, but one Boston player is still not over.
While appearing on The Long Shot podcast with Duncan Robinson and Davis Reid, Grant Williams says he still believes the Celtics should have won.
“To this day, I will still say confidently, confidently, they were not the better team,” Williams said. “I would say they were the more disciplined team, I would say that without a doubt. They’re disciplined, their history of being in the finals, championship pedigree, that was real.”
After winning Game 1 on the road, the Celtics earned home court in the series. All playoffs long, they went on long runs to take control of games, and that included the NBA Finals. However, they also squandered leads multiple times throughout.
“We had commanding, either leads or had opportunities where we went on runs, and the next thing you know we turned it over three times cause we missed three shots,” Williams said. “Instead of making the right read, because we missed those shots we started forcing things.”
As for Golden State, the Warriors didn’t change the way they played, trusting their structure even when things didn’t look good.
Williams credited Golden State’s composure and experience for their success.
“They play the same no matter what,” he said. “They’re going to get the same shots, they’re going to get the same looks, they know what their priorities are, they're going to play with pace.”
According to Williams, though, the Warriors understood how outmatched they were despite having Stephen Curry on their team. That is why winning Game 4 to re-take home court advantage was so big for them.
“You should have heard how badly they were celebrating Game 4. They were screaming because they knew they weren’t supposed to win that game,” Williams said. “The overconfidence side of things kind of got to us.”
