We’re not in the business of dismissing losses. The Oklahoma City Thunder bullied the Boston Celtics in the second half of Sunday’s potential NBA Finals preview and the Celtics limped out of the Paycom Center with their first double-digit loss of the season.
Boston’s offense was a clunky disaster in the second half and the Thunder made things look even worse with their physicality and grit, whether that was ripping away loose balls and creating easy transition opportunities, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander swatting Jayson Tatum at the rim to thwart Boston’s last gasp comeback attempt.
The Celtics did themselves no favors with their shot-making. In the shadow of Oklahoma City’s Bricktown, the Celtics built a brick town of their own. Boston is now 5-5 against teams ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass tracking, but that mark drops to 2-4 when you zoom in on teams that are top 10 in both defensive rating and point differential.
By comparison, OKC is 7-2 against those teams and Cleveland is 3-1, with Boston being the lone loss.
It does seem fair to suggest that Boston’s offense was uniquely bad in Sunday's game. In fact, here are three of our favorite statistical anomalies from that tilt:
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1. Tatum tallied 15 potential assists in Sunday’s loss, well above his season average of 11.6 per game, and the Celtics made just one (ONE!) of those shots.
Tatum routinely generated quality looks for teammates but the only make off his feeds was a Kristaps Porzingis alley-oop dunk in transition. Tatum averages 14.8 points created by assists per game, but that number dipped to two in Oklahoma City.
2. Boston didn’t do itself any favors on the clean looks it generated against Oklahoma City. The Celtics were 10 of 27 (37 percent) on all open shots (4 to 6 feet) and a ghastly 3 of 21 (14.3 percent) on all wide-open looks (6-plus feet), per NBA tracking.
Boston was 8 of 39 (20.5 percent) on all open-or-better 3-pointers, including missing 17 of the 20 wide-open 3-pointers it took. For the season, the Celtics shoot 38.9 percent on all wide-open 3s.
The Thunder’s defense deserves all the credit for how uncomfortable they made the Celtics, but Boston’s 48 open shots were just slightly lower than their season average in open looks (48.6).
3. Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, Sam Hauser, and Payton Pritchard -- five of Boston's top seven offensive players -- combined to miss all 19 shots they attempted in the second half of Sunday’s game. Suffice to say, that’s not the Banner 19 that Boston is chasing.
Again, this should not take away from how dominant the Thunder were in the second half. They are undeniably the best team in basketball to start the 2024-25 season and tied Boston in a knot for the final 24 minutes. We’re left yearning for a seven-game showdown in June.
But both teams have a long road to get there.
Whenever the Celtics hit one of these bumps in the road -- and with 10 losses through their first 36 games, they’ve hit more than expected to this point -- the question is, how will the team respond? Even coming off the marquee matchup of the season to date, there is still an important double dip of games to close out a daunting week, and those games might tell us if Boston’s second-half stumble in OKC was an outlier, or something more nefarious.
The Celtics close out a four-game road trip against Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets on Tuesday night, then return home to host the surging Sacramento Kings on Friday night at TD Garden. Both opponents rank in the top 10 in point differential, per CTG tracking, and feature two of the top seven offenses in the NBA.
A 3-1 trip would take some of the sting out of the stumble in OKC, even if that was the crown jewel of the trek. Porzingis had noted how Boston players huddled before this excursion out West and took inventory of a disappointing December. A hot start to 2025 felt like this was a bit of a statement trip, but the Celtics must finish strong to erase the concern that will linger from the OKC loss.
What makes Sunday’s loss a bit more frustrating is that it was one of the rare times this season that Boston had its entire top eight healthy. The Celtics had a full roster for the first time since November, and yet not only did the offense crater in the second half, but the bench was largely ineffective.
Aaron Wiggins generated more field goals (six) than Boston’s four-man bench group of Pritchard, Hauser, Luke Kornet, and Al Horford (five). Pritchard, a frontrunner for Sixth Man of the Year, was 0-for-5 and limited to less than 11 minutes of floor time.
Some will rush to ponder if Boston must more strongly consider adding a piece to their bench before next month’s trade deadline. We’ll continue to note how difficult it will be to find anyone talented enough to routinely crack Boston’s top nine, especially with the Celtics’ limited options to tinker.
Like most bumps these Celtics hit, it seems to fall back to a common theme: Boston needs to play more consistently in all facets of the game. No one was fretting the team’s offense Sunday while it built a 13-point lead on the strength of 65 first-half points. But it remains jarring how good the Celtics can be for one 24-minute stretch, and how unsightly bad they can be for the next 24.
You can blame the schedule (three games in four nights on the road is no easy chore) or even the referees (though we’ll kindly remind you the Celtics shot 11 more free throws than the Thunder, and the refs were the least of your issues). But the simple fact is that Oklahoma City dominated the second half with their physicality and grit. The Celtics didn’t match it on a big stage.
Tuesday’s tilt in Denver can prove that half was an outlier. But the Celtics have to 1) Bury that loss and 2) Bring the necessary intent. We’ll keep saying it: It’s hard to stay focused when you can’t achieve your only true goal until June. But you've got to find something that moves you before then.
The Celtics haven’t made their lives easier with the way they’ve sometimes gone astray. We’ve been spoiled by how easy they routinely made winning look throughout the 2023-24 season. This season is far more of a grind, and the Celtics have to embrace the focus needed to get where they want to go.
