Celtics used to 2-2 ties in Finals, not Golden State

The NBA Finals are tied at 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 Golden State 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 situatiwons, 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 Golden State. 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.

Golden State 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 Golden State at this point in 2017.

Curry has 25 three-pointers so far, the most through four games of a finals. There have been seven instances of a player having at least 15 threes 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 threes through four games in the finals in 2016 and 2017, and 15 threes through four games in the 2015 and 2019 finals.

Curry has the record for most threes in a finals, making 32 in 2016. He's on pace to break that regardless of whether this series goes six or seven games.

With their first three-pointer in Game 5 of the finals, the Celtics will set an NBA record. It’ll be their 307th of the playoffs, the most by a team in a single postseason.

They currently share that record of 306 with 2016 Golden State.

This season’s Golden State squad is up to 280 threes in these playoffs. That’s already the fifth-most in a postseason, behind the 2016 Golden State team, this year’s Celtics, the 2019 Toronto Raptors (286) and this year’s Dallas Mavericks (284).

Golden State has a shot at setting the mark for most threes in a full season, including playoffs. They’ve made 1,456 this season, 39 behind the record set by the 2018-19 Houston Rockets.

Every game in this series has been decided by at least 10 points. It’s the first time that the first four games of an NBA Finals have all been double-digit affairs since the Golden State-Cleveland series in 2016 — when the first six games were that way.

Before that, the most recent time there wasn’t a single-digit margin in the first four finals games was the San Antonio-Detroit series in 2005.

Golden State has seen nine of its last 11 games decided by at least 10 points. The two exceptions just missed; both were nine-point games.

Silver's absence in Game 5 due to protocols

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver canceled plans to attend Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Monday night because of the league's health and safety protocols.

Silver typically attends all finals games.

The league did not say if Silver had tested positive for COVID-19 or been deemed a close contact of someone who had, nor released any details about his health.

Also unclear is when Silver will be able to resume attending games. Part of his role as commissioner involves handing out the league's championship trophy, which one team will be awarded either Thursday in Boston or Sunday in San Francisco.

Silver has been the NBA's commissioner since February 2014. This is the ninth championship series the league has held during his tenure, including the 2020 season that resumed inside a bubble at Walt Disney World in Florida in the early stages of the pandemic.