The NBA Finals are tied at 2-2. If that sounds familiar to fans of the Boston Celtics, it should.
For whatever reason, when the Celtics make the NBA Finals, 2-2 ties seem normal. And that’s exactly where they are now, knotted up going into Game 5 of this year’s series against the Golden State Warriors on Monday night.
This is the 13th time in Boston’s 22 title-series appearances that there has been a 2-2 tie headed into Game 5. In the previous 12 such situations, Boston has won the title nine times — but failed to do so in 1985 and 2010, the last two times in which the Celtics were involved in a tied finals after four games.
Being in a 2-2 finals tie is a bit of a rarity for the Warriors. This is only the second 2-2 tie in the franchise’s 12 finals appearances; the other was in 2015, when Golden State won Game 4 at Cleveland and then claimed the title in six games.
THROUGH 4
Warriors guard Stephen Curry’s 137 points so far in this series are the most through four games of any NBA Finals since Kevin Durant also had 137 for the Warriors at this point in 2017.
Curry has 25 3-pointers so far, the most through four games of a finals. There have been seven instances of a player having at least 15 3s in the first four games of a finals — Curry is responsible for six of them, Danny Green (17 in 2013) the other. Curry had the previous most through four games, 22 in 2018.
He had 17 3s through four games in the finals in 2016 and 2017, and 15 3s through four games in the 2015 and 2019 finals.
Curry has the record for most 3s in a finals, making 32 in 2016. He’s on pace to break that regardless of whether this series goes six or seven games.
MOST 3s
With their first 3-pointer in Game 5 of the finals, the Celtics will set an NBA record. It’ll be their 307th of the playoffs, the…