The Golden State Warriors will soon meet the Boston Celtics to decide the winner of the 2022 NBA Finals. While these pair of storied teams boast decorated resumes with star power like Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, the Celtics and Warriors have played only twice during the 2021-22 regular season.

During both of those games, there were crucial injuries and different storylines that made a significant impact on the results. Before the Finals, how the Celtics and Warriors will look in a series against each other is still a bit of a mystery.

To help get a better understanding of the Celtics, Justin Quinn of USA TODAY’s Celtics Wire stopped by Warriors Wire to preview the series with five key questions before Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

Quinn: I’d be lying if I said the path was an easy one for Boston, but this is who they are — a team that was forged in the crucible of adversity, pushed nearly to its breaking point to discover the profound resiliency this group actually had in them hidden even from themselves. The words of reserve guard Derrick White may have summed up the team’s historic mid-season turnaround and rise to contender status with the simplest of phrases, “if it was easy, it wouldn’t be us.”

Quinn: The Celtics have also had considerable injury issues to contend with, with two starters trying to stay healthy enough to play. Through the whole of the last two series for veteran point guard Marcus Smart has dealt with a foot AND ankle sprain on top of a quad injury,  and since before Boston’s postseason even began, big man Robert Williams III has been managing pain and swelling in the knee he had a meniscus tear repaired that was exacerbated by a collision with Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo. Both of those players will be critical to Boston’s hopes against the Dubs, and while we think the extra days of rest before and during the series will be a big help, this is a key element to monitor for both clubs.

Quinn: I couldn’t agree more with Tommy’s take in terms of what we ought to expect on the court in this series. With only two matchups in the regular season by virtue of their opposing conferences and the usual scheduling patterns for those teams coupled with considerable injuries and roster moves since, the only thing I think we can take away from the regular season is that these are two of the most resilient teams we have seen in a very long time. And given both have fought their way through their respective conference playoffs, that should not come as a surprise.

Quinn: For Boston, I suspect in a wider lens it comes down to whether the adversity the Celtics fought through by effectively electing the path through the Brooklyn Nets, Milwaukee Bucks, and Miami Heat has prepared them uniquely to adapt their core approach on both ends of the court — or run them into the ground. And while I think this series will be far more amenable to a number of players who have not seen the floor much over the last two rounds (Payton Pritchard, Daniel Theis, and to a lesser extent Derrick White), I think this is going to be a series whose teams are personified by their point guards with Stephen Curry’s offense and Marcus Smart’s defense a microcosm of the wider battle on the court. As goes Smart, goes the series, I think. Caveat: We still have not seen Jayson Tatum go absolutely ballistic — this could be the moment he seizes the biggest stage to establish himself, but part of what has made Boston good of late has been the St. Louis native looking to make his teammates better.

Quinn: Boston has changed in several regards since the last time that the Warriors were in the NBA Finals, with several departures and reunions transforming not only the roster but the front office as well. But one thing has been relatively constant in that this team was designed in many ways to emulate aspects of the Warriors, but more importantly, to stop it. After many a twist and turn since the 2018 playoffs that seemed destined to pair the two historic franchises in a championship battle, that matchup has finally come to fruition, and we get to see whether the team that has handled Golden State better than any other team in the regular season can do the same in the 16-win season.

This post originally appeared on  Warriors Wire ! Follow us on  Facebook  and  Twitter ! 

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