The NBA Finals for the 2022 season are set with the Golden State Warriors facing off against the newly crowned Eastern Conference champions, the Boston Celtics. The Warriors took the Western Conference crown last week when they beat the Dallas Mavericks 4-1 and progressed to their 6th NBA Finals in the last 8 years.
The Celtics are returning to the NBA Finals after a 12-year long gap, last making it this far in 2010 and losing to the Los Angeles Lakers led by Kobe Bryant. Boston has built a core alongside Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown over the last 5 years and has finally been rewarded with a Finals appearance after years of playoff exits.
As the Warriors have been a constant Finals fixture over the last 8 years, their core has gained a lot of championship experience, something that is sorely missing on the Celtics, as not a single player on their roster has ever been to the NBA Finals before.
Celtics players: 0 games of NBA Finals experience
Warriors players: 123 games of NBA Finals experience
(via ESPN) pic.twitter.com/iRUv8APCcY
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) May 30, 2022
This lack of championship experience coupled with fatigue from back-to-back seven-game series’ means that the Celtics have a bit of an uphill climb in these NBA Finals. However, their fresh approach to being in this situation may be a little harder for the Warriors to contain, also because the Celtics are a younger team.
The most experienced player on Boston Celtics is Al Horford, who ended the longest streak of playoff games without a Finals appearance with the Celtics this season. He is the grizzled veteran in the Celtics locker room who has also been having a great run through the NBA Playoffs.
Experience meeting youth is a familiar story. What’s unfamiliar is that the result is not always the same, so these Finals may have a lot more in store for us than we realize. The Celtics can finally have their modern ascension, or the Warriors can extend their dynasty some more.
