NBA Finals 2022
Unscripted
By Keith Edmonds
Ink Spot Contributing Writer
The 2022 NBA FINALS showed us that even though we’ve become accustomed to this being the “LeBron James invitational” these past 10 years or so, there are other budding young stars/teams that deserve our respect and admiration for assuming the mantle of being called the NBA’s best. We saw the emergence of Boston’s young stars Jason Tatum and Jaylen Brown as well as some established stars in Golden State’s Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson that were not ready quite ready yet to release their hold on the trophy. In todays UNSCRIPTED I wanted to take a look at the 2022 NBA Finals and see how the Golden State Warriors defeated the Boston Celtics 4 games to 2 to give them their 4th championship in the past 8 years in front of a viewing audience that may/may not have expected them to win it all when the 2021/2022 season began…
What I found very interesting about this NBA finals match was that when the season began, not many (if any) of the experts thought that we would see these 2 teams meeting. Boston started the season very slowly losing some very winnable games early and Golden State started with very high (if tenuous) expectations. Simply because after having won their last championship in 2018 they’d fallen on tough times with stars leaving (Kevin Durant) to go to other teams and players coming off of injuries namely Klay Thompson who’d missed the better part of 2 full season with ACL and Achilles injuries (which may be the two toughest injuries that you can have in sports) along with an aging star in Stephen Curry who also has battled the injury bug for the past 3 seasons as well. Boston was talented but needed a leader to emerge on the team with their established young stars in Jaylen Brown and Jason Tatum.
We as fans also had our doubts that this final would even be worth watching after seeing the early favorites, the Lakers not making the play-offs; the team with the best record Phoenix Suns getting upset in the early rounds and defending NBA Champion Milwaukee Bucks getting ousted from the play-offs as well. So, doubts crept in as to whether this match-up would even be worth watching, but ohhhh… something happened to change our opinions as both teams came to play, and THIS final was more than worth tuning in to. I really enjoyed the story lines in this final as to whether Stephen Curry (who is arguably the greatest shooter that we’ve ever seen in the NBA] could finally win a championship without Kevin Durant, could Klay Thompson regain his form as a tremendous 2-way player and compete at the Elite level again. On the Boston side could a team being lead by rookie coach Ime Udoka could win a championship despite having no one with any measurable championship experience. This championship was an amazing turnaround for the Warriors, who missed the playoffs in the past two seasons due to the aforementioned injuries and just the fact that the NBA’s Western Conference just simply got better as Phoenix, Memphis, and Denver added quality players to their teams to challenge the strangle-hold that the Warriors had on the league. “We were so far away from it, (Championship)" Curry said. "We hit rock bottom with injuries and the long road of work ahead and trying to fill in the right pieces and the right guys. You can’t ever take this for granted because you never know when you’re going to get back here." One of those “right guys” that Curry was referring to was Andrew Wiggins who had shown during his time in the league that he had all of the abilities to be special but couldn’t find the consistency needed to be the established star moniker that was placed on his head coming from the Minnesota T-Wolves. During this series he was arguably the Warriors 2nd best player and secured his place as the star many predicted that just needed a venue change.
What this series showed me was that even though we enjoy seeing offense, defense truly wins at this level with the top 2 defensive teams meeting in this final. The balance of power is getting better and the NBA moving forward is in good shape with teams adding quality players and becoming better coached, and managed. I really enjoy watching Ime Udoka and Steve Kerr coach their teams THEIR WAY! Now mind you, our veteran stars LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and Chris Paul are still fixtures in the league, and with Kawaii Leonard, Paul George, Giannis Antetokounmpo working to return their teams to prominence as forces to be reckoned with, the league can survive when their aging stars retire and still be as entertaining as it ever was! The Warriors captured their fourth title in eight seasons becoming the first team to achieve that distinction since Michael Jordan lead the Bulls to 6 titles from (1991 to '98), *(According to ESPN Stats & Information research)*. Steph Curry was (finally) named Finals MVP, which is an honor that’s eluded him in previous trips to the championship round and some felt that he needed to win to secure himself as one of the All-Time greats! What? In my humble opinion, with all that he has accomplished in this game, there was nothing else to prove! So, what did he do in this final you ask? How about averaging 31.2 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists while shooting 44% from 3-point range in the series. He joined Jordan, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Tim Duncan, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the only players with four rings, multiple league MVPs and a Finals MVP. Mission accomplished! Let’s move on to next season as the Warriors as the favorites, yes, I said it!