3 things the Boston Celtics must improve upon in order to win NBA Finals

Boston Celtics adjustment No. 3) Get back to suffocating defense

Every single round thus far, Boston’s defense has been tested with a superstar.

In round one they had Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. In round two they had the reigning Finals MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo. Then, in round three they had Jimmy Butler.

Now they have the greatest shooter in the history of the game in Stephen Curry.

Boston did a great job in the first couple of games against Brooklyn, shutting down their dynamic duo. KD only averaged 26 points per game and Kyrie had just 21.

For a superstar tandem, that is a poor poor performance.

In the next round, they handled Giannis well. There is not a single team that can shut down Giannis because of the way he plays. They knew they wouldn’t be able to stop him, but they could slow him down and that’s what they did (kind of, at least).

Then they faced Jimmy Buckets.

In the beginning of the series, Jimmy was playing amazing, just not superstar-caliber amazing. It wasn’t until Game 6 and Game 7 that he really put the Heat on his back, averaging 41 in those two games.

Besides the last two bouts, however, he averaged 26 points.

The uneasy part about this upcoming matchup is that Curry is much better than Butler. The C’s defense went from locking up KD to letting Butler do whatever he wanted to do on offense and if they want to have a chance in the series, they are going to need to play defense on Curry like they did on Durant.

Curry is going to get the shot off quick, and he’s going to make shots that make no sense, but if they can limit that, keep an eye out for an upset in Boston’s favor.