Boston Celtics player No. 1) Grant Williams
Grant Williams logged just over 16 minutes of action in Game 1, which, in comparison to his 24 minutes of playtime throughout the regular season, is quite a surprising sight to see.
That said, why he was often pulled from the lineup during the contest was largely due to his ineffectiveness when on the floor, as he saw a whopping zero points on 0-of-2 shooting from the field. Considering he’s arguably the C’s go-to scoring option off the bench and that he’s easily their most trusted 3-point shooter, this type of performance is simply unacceptable.
The most unfortunate part about all this is the fact that these log-lines have not been all that uncommon for the quasi-big man.
Since his 27-point, seven 3-pointers made outburst in Boston’s closeout Game 7 against Milwaukee, Williams has been somewhat hit or miss with his production. For every double-digit scoring performance on 50 percent shooting from deep or better, he’s followed things up with games where he drops less than 10 points on sub-30 percent shooting from deep.
To go a bit deeper into the analysis on his recent play, over the last five outings, he is averaging just five points, 4.4 boards, and three fouls on 32 percent shooting from the floor and a putrid 18 percent shooting from downtown.
The Warriors are going to do everything in their power to not go down 2-0 before heading on the road to Boston and will almost certainly be giving the C’s everything they’ve got to even things up on Sunday night.
In order for Boston to halt this expected surge by the Dubs, they’ll need all hands on deck firing on all cylinders and, of course, this will require Grant Williams to snap out of his funk.
Should we see the forward receiving more minutes in Game 2, that would almost certainly mean that he’s playing like his normal self which, in turn, betters Boston’s odds of pulling out this pivotal win.