The 2022 NBA Finals tip off on Thursday with the Golden State Warriors hosting the Boston Celtics in Game 1.
The Warriors are 3.5-point favorites for the opening game with bookmaker Bovada having the odds for them to beat the spread at -115. The total is set at 212.5 points with both the over and the under available -110 for the odds.
※ Current Odds Date & Time: June 2nd, 8:00 A.M. (EST)
As the spread suggests, there’s not a lot between these two and this will hopefully lead to a very exciting series and maybe we even get to see a Finals Game 7 for only the third time after the Celtics pushed the Los Angeles Lakers all the way in 2010.
Boston is the most successful team in the NBA alongside the Lakers with 17 championships but it’s taken the team quite a while to get back to the final. It’s fully deserved, though, with the C’s having been among the best teams in the NBA since the turn of the year.
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown had chemistry issues early in the campaign, but head coach Ime Udoka found a way to clear up the mess and it’s resulted in an amazing run that has seen the Celtics take just 12 losses since the start of February.
Stephen Curry is the favorite to be named the Finals MVP but Tatum will definitely have something to say about that. He’s played superbly throughout the playoffs averaging a 27-7-6 line. If Tatum is on his game, Golden State could be in serious trouble.
The Warriors are very well battle-tested and most experts see them picking up another title this year even though the match-up against Boston could be pretty uncomfortable, especially for Curry.
Curry is set to see a lot of Marcus Smart, who won the Defensive Player of the Year award for his efforts this season and will relish the challenge of denying the Warriors star the Finals MVP honors again.
The Warriors won three championships from 2015 to 2018 but Curry ended up not getting the Finals MVP award each year. This is pretty much the only thing missing from his lengthy list of achievements and we should see a dialed-in performance from Curry in all of the upcoming games. He might even have something special planned already for Thursday’s Game 1.
