Please explain “first blood” in this:

The Boston Celtics drew first blood in the NBA Finals after demolishing the Dallas Mavericks, 107-89.

My comments:

American professional basketball is what we are talking about here.

Earlier this month, the Boston Celtics won their record 18th championship by beating the Dallas Mavericks 4-1 in the NBA Finals.

The NBA Finals are a best-of-seven series, meaning the first team to win four games wins the slugfest (a prolonged battle).

In the event, the Boston Celtics are the team to do it, beating the Mavericks in five games.

In Game One, they dominated the Mavericks, winning by a large margin to draw first blood, and that means to take a series lead.

First blood, you see, stands for the first win and the early advantage.

How come?

Well, first blood is popularly believed to have originated from boxing. In the old days, boxers didn’t wear the gloves they wear today, those soft, puffy gloves that are meant to soften the blow. Instead, boxers fought with their bare fists.

Boxing matches, hence, were brutal affairs. As fists fly, boxers get bloodied soon as they repeatedly get hit on the chin, nose and around the eyes.

I must say boxing today is the same way, more or less. I mean, it is still brutal even with the help of gloves that soften the blow.

Anyways, the first boxer to cause bleeding on the opponent is said to draw first blood.

That means he’s the first to strike a blow, a serious blow. That means he’s hurt the opponent badly. That means he now has an advantage. Hopefully can build on the initial success and go on to win the whole match.

That’s first blood, literally, the first drop or stream of blood from a cut wound.

Metaphorically speaking, people use “first blood” to describe success in the early stages of a prolonged fight. Drawing first blood is often used to describe the first score in sports. The first team to score a goal in a soccer match, for example, is the team to draw first blood.

In our top example, on the other hand, the first blood is used to describe the first game won. Boston drew first blood by winning Game One.

When there is a first, there is a second and third, fourth, etc. So “first blood” also implies more blood will be shed, figuratively speaking, and the battle gets more fierce and difficult from now on.

All right?

All right, here are media examples of “drawing first blood”:

1. For Sarah Huckabee Sanders, chaos in President Donald Trump’s White House has proven to be a ladder.

Not that she would call it that.

Just days after she replaced Sean Spicer as press secretary in July – a job she’d been moonlighting in for months – Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci was also out the door.

It looked like an administration in turmoil, but Sanders faced the press corps with a smile.

“If you want to see chaos, come to my house with three preschoolers. This doesn’t hold a candle to that,” Sanders said. “Just to be clear, that’s not an open invitation to come to my house. But if you guys want to schedule babysitting time, I’ll be happy to work that out.”

The laughter from the White House reporters was an early indicator of cooler, less contentious briefings to come as women ascended in a White House communications office that had seen unprecedented turnover and no shortage of drama in the early days of Trump’s term.

For the first time in any administration, two women are now in command of its top public-facing roles – press secretary (Sanders) and communications director (Hope Hicks). And thanks to another recent hire – Mercedes Schlapp as a senior communications strategist – women now make up 62 percent of Trump’s small but nimble press operation.

They say it makes a difference.

“You’re able to take [the president’s strength] and then mix it with a bit of softness,’ said Schlapp, the department’s newest addition.

Both Hicks and Sanders are familiar with the disconnect that their rise might present to some.

Trump is a thrice-married president whose private, public and professional interactions with women have often been called into question. His campaign against Hillary Clinton was marked by vitriolic attacks, including on her stamina, that critics viewed as sexist, as well as allegations of sexual misconduct that rocked the final weeks of the campaign. And there were his attacks on former Miss Universe Alicia Machado and Megyn Kelly, then of Fox News (“blood coming out of her wherever”), as well as the “Access Hollywood” tape.

“I spend a lot of time around the president, and I’ve never felt anything but respected and empowered by him to do my job,” Sanders told NBC News. “Can he be tough? Yes. But he’s equally tough on men. People want to say ‘Oh, he’s tough on women’ – no, he’s tough on everybody.”

Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said it wasn’t a surprise that Sanders, Hicks and other women would take on more visible roles in the White House.

“That is just natural for Donald Trump to hire and elevate women to high positions,” she said, citing his history with the Trump Organization and his 2016 campaign.