Since Steve Kerr was hired as the Warriors’ head coach eight years ago, his club has compiled a winning record against every NBA team but one -- the Boston Celtics.
As teams from different conferences, Golden State and Boston meet up twice per season, one at each home arena. Kerr’s Warriors took both matchups in his first year at the helm in 2014-15, but since then Boston has won nine of the last 14 clashes, making Kerr’s career record against the Celtics a measly 7-9.
On Tuesday, Kerr explained to 95.7 The Game’s Damon Bruce and Ray Ratto why the Warriors have a losing record to the Celtics under his watch heading into the 2022 NBA Finals.
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“Well, they’ve been really good,” Kerr said. “You look at the Celtics, I know there’s a lot of focus on the fact that they haven’t been to the Finals. But they’ve been to the conference finals four times over the last six years. Since I’ve been here, they’ve been very good."
Since 2014-15, the Celtics have finished with a record of .500 or better in all but one season. It's no coincidence that Brad Stevens took over Boston's bench the year prior, only to slide into a front office role and cede the head coaching duties to Ime Udoka before the 2021-22 campaign.
"They’ve always been really well coached, first under Brad and now under Ime," Kerr said. "They’ve always been very good defensively. So, they’ve had excellent teams. And we’ve had great matchups with them. We’ve had really interesting games."
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The Warriors split the two matchups with the Celtics this season, winning 111-107 on the road Dec. 17 and losing 110-88 at Chase Center on March 16.
Kerr can flip his record against the Celtics to the winning side with four victories in the NBA Finals, which begin with Game 1 on Thursday in San Francisco.