(Boston) Stephen Curry had 34 points and guided the Golden State Warriors to their fourth NBA championship in eight seasons with a 103-90 win over the Boston Celtics on Thursday night.
Updated yesterday at 11:46 p.m.
Curry once again showed his excellence at TD Garden, where he had 31 and 43 points in the first two road games of this final.
Curry also had seven rebounds and seven assists, helping the Warriors win this Finals in six games.
The Californian team had also been crowned NBA champions in 2015, 2017 and 2018. They lost in the finals in 2016 and 2019.
Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala are the only Warriors players to have appeared in all four games.
PHOTO MICHAEL DWYER, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Stephen Curry (center) had 34 points and guided the Golden State Warriors to a fourth NBA championship in eight seasons.
Curry was able to add the Bill-Russell Trophy to his collection as he was voted Most Valuable Player in the Finals.
Thompson and Green, who added 12 assists, both had 12 points for the Warriors. Canadian Andrew Wiggins contributed offensively with 18 points and substitute Jordan Poole finished the game with 15 points.
Jaylen Brown was the most efficient on offense for the Celtics, collecting 34 points and seven rebounds. He was backed up by veteran Al Horford, who posted a strong performance of 19 points and 14 rebounds.
Jayson Tatum, the Bostonians’ other offensive star, struggled in Game 6, contributing just 13 points and committing 5 turnovers. He became the first player in NBA history to total 100 turnovers in a playoff run.
The Warriors almost from start to finish
The Celtics started the game strong, as you would expect from a team in the Finals facing elimination.
Brown fired a three-point field goal and 28 seconds later, Tatum capped a 10-point drive by also hitting a shot from beyond the arch to give the Celtics a 12-2 lead.
The Warriors, however, have seen others over the years and they have recovered calmly. They approached quietly before finishing the first quarter with a 27-22 lead, following an 11-point streak.
PHOTO BOB DECHIARA, USA TODAY SPORTS
Andrew Wiggins (22) and Jaylen Brown (7)
The visitors kept their foot on the accelerator at the start of the second quarter. Poole had two three-pointers and Wiggins put the finishing touch on a dunk that extended the lead to 37-22.
The Warriors’ 21-point streak was the longest in the NBA Finals in the last 50 years.
The home side closed the gap to 8 points thanks to a dunk from Robert Williams III, but Steve Kerr’s men restarted the machine to dominate the Celtics 15-8 in the last six minutes and returned to the locker room with a lead from 54-39.
It was with three-point shots that the Warriors found a way to distance themselves from their opponents in the third quarter. They had six, three of which came from Curry’s right hand.
It was also the cause of the Celtics’ comeback in the third quarter. The Warriors missed four shots from the perimeter and the Boston squad was able to finish the final six minutes with a 16-4 streak.
Leading 76-66 early in the final quarter, the Warriors wanted to tighten up the game on defense and they held a more than 10-point lead for the majority of the final 12 minutes to confirm their title.