World’s Best Basketball League Kicks Off On 10th

Viewers on DStv and GOtv can look forward to thrills and spills from the world’s best basketball league, with ESPN and ESPN 2 the premier venues for coverage of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The 2021-22 season will continue through the week of  Friday 10 to Thursday 16 June 2022.

The NBA Final between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors continues this week, with Games 4 and 5 set for Saturday 11 June and Tuesday 14 June respectively. At the time of writing, the series is locked at 1-1 after Golden State claimed a 107-88 victory on Monday morning to level things up.

“I think tonight, turnovers, and I think sometimes letting our offense affect how we defend, kind of was a little stagnant in the third quarter,” said Jayson Tatum, who led Boston with 28 points in Game 2. “I feel like it translated on the defensive end, and they got going and hitting shots and things like that.”

Slow starts to second halves have been an issue for the Celtics: “Yeah, it’s definitely frustrating,” Celtics guard Derrick White said. “I mean, we’ve talked about it pretty much the whole postseason. It’s easy to talk about, but we’ve got to go out there and change something. That was a big quarter for them and really a quarter that put us away.”

One of the underlying narratives for this Final series is the Boston Celtic’s looking to claim an 18th NBA Championship and move one ahead of their long-time rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers.

“It always means everything when you’re going up against the Lakers,” said Cedric Maxwell, who won two titles in Boston, including MVP of the 1981 Finals, and is known for tossing barbs at Laker great James Worthy both in the media and in private.

“They’re supposedly tied with us,” he said. “People say they’re the standard-bearer of the NBA but the Celtics have been that since the start. And James Worthy, after we win this championship, I want you to smell our a** as we’re going by.”

Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry is hoping his team can continue the momentum going forward, having been blown away by the Celtics in Game 1.

“It’s not ideal but I believe in who we are and how we deal with adversity, how we responded all year, how we respond in the Playoffs after a loss,” Curry said. “So learn a lot from that fourth quarter, obviously they made a lot of shots.

“It seemed like they didn’t miss until deep into the fourth. When you have a team that just finds a little bit of momentum like they did and they keep making shots, it’s tough to kind of regain that momentum.”

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NBA Finals broadcast details

All times CAT

Saturday 11 June – Game 4

03:00: Boston Celtics v Golden State Warriors – LIVE on ESPN 2

Tuesday 14 June – Game 5

03:00: Golden State Warriors v Boston Celtics – LIVE on ESPN 2