2021-22 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

Stephen Curry. Curry won his first career Finals MVP award after four previous championships without one.

Series context

The 2021-22 NBA Finals pitted the No. 3-seeded Golden State Warriors against the No. 2-seeded Boston Celtics, marking the first Finals meeting between the two storied franchises since 1964, when the Celtics beat the then-San Francisco Warriors. Golden State entered with the better regular-season record at 53-29, giving them home-court advantage despite the seeding. The series opened with a shock: Boston stormed back from a fourth-quarter deficit to steal Game 1, 120-108, behind Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown. Golden State answered in Game 2, riding a dominant third quarter to a 107-88 win and even the series. Boston reasserted control in Game 3, winning 116-100 by dominating the paint and the glass, taking a 2-1 lead heading back to San Francisco. Game 4 became a signature moment for Stephen Curry, who erupted for 43 points and 10 rebounds to power a fourth-quarter rally in a 107-97 win that tied the series 2-2. With Curry quiet in Game 5, Andrew Wiggins stepped up as the Warriors edged the Celtics 104-94 to move within one win of the title. Golden State closed it out in Game 6 on the road at TD Garden, breaking the game open with a big second-quarter run en route to a 103-90 clinching victory. The championship completed a remarkable turnaround for the Warriors' dynasty core of Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, who had missed the playoffs the two previous seasons largely due to injuries to Thompson (Achilles and ACL tears) and Curry. Their return to the summit represented the franchise's fourth title in eight seasons, cementing their standing as one of the great dynasties of the era. For Curry personally, it was a career-defining moment: despite already owning three championships and a unanimous MVP award, he had never previously won Finals MVP, an omission that had become a talking point among basketball commentators questioning his legacy relative to peers like LeBron James. His 43-point Game 4 masterpiece silenced much of that debate. For the Celtics, the run represented a resurgence built around the emerging two-way stardom of Tatum and Brown, foreshadowing Boston's eventual championship two years later. The series also produced notable statistical extremes: Golden State and Boston combined for a Finals-record 40 three-pointers in Game 1, breaking the previous single-game mark of 35 set in 2017, with Curry making six three-pointers in a historic first quarter alone. Golden State's series-clinching Game 6 featured a run widely described as the franchise's best defensive stretch of the postseason, while Tatum finished the playoffs with a record 100 turnovers, a byproduct of Boston's heavy offensive reliance on him as a rookie-era go-to scorer. Curry's unanimous Finals MVP came on averages of 31.2 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 5.0 assists, including three consecutive 30-point games against Boston, a feat no player had managed since LeBron James in 2017.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 2022 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - 2022 NBA Finals
• CBS Sports - NBA Finals 2022: Celtics, Warriors combine for record 40 3-pointers in Game 1
• CBS News - Jayson Tatum sets new NBA record for most turnovers in a postseason