Jordan Poole’s explosive Game 2 performance made up for his disappointing NBA Finals debut and helped the Warriors even up the series against the Boston Celtics.
Poole finished Game 2 with 17 points, three assists, two steals and two rebounds in the Warriors’ blowout win over the Celtics on Sunday.
His efforts even led him to make NBA Finals history as the youngest player with five threes in a single game.
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But it was a different story in the opening game of the Finals. Poole had just nine points on 2-of-7 shooting from the field and 1-of-5 shooting from deep, also committing four turnovers in 25 minutes.
The biggest difference between the two games?
“Looking for my shot more,” Poole told reporters after Game 2. “I think the first game, I was trying to get my teammates involved, trying to get them easy looks because they were crowding me and they had a lot of attention on me in the non-Steph minutes. But just being aggressive.”
Not only did Poole show out more on the scoreboard in Game 2, but he was looking like himself again by hitting big shots that got Chase Center rocking.
Golden State Warriors
After finishing the first half with just three points, the young guard hit two huge shots, including a half-court buzzer-beater, at the end of the third that sent fans at Chase Center, Thrive City and at home into a frenzy.
Poole revealed that he and Steph Curry amusingly knew it was going to happen.
“We talked about it in shoot-around a couple days ago,” Poole said. “Somebody was going to hit a half-court shot in this series, whether it was me or Steph. I just happened to hit it.”
To coach Steve Kerr, he didn’t see anything different between games that stood out to him about Poole, only noting that the competition is bound to get harder the deeper you get into the playoffs.
But even after Poole’s mediocre Game 1 performance, Kerr remained confident in the young guard and acknowledged that he’s still learning.
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“Jordan is still a very young player, learning on the fly,” Kerr said. “But he's had such a great season, and he's so talented and confident that I have a lot of faith that he'll figure this out, and I thought tonight, he did a good job of finding his way.”
As Poole mentioned after the Game 2 win, the Warriors will hope the momentum stays with them as they head to Boston for Games 3 and 4 in front of an energetic crowd at TD Garden.
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