BOSTON — This was one the defending champions wanted. The Oklahoma City Thunder clamped the visiting Boston Celtics late in a January victory, and in its title defense Boston had not yet lost a season series to another contender.
Except OKC did it again Wednesday, leveraging an 8-0 run midway through the fourth quarter to create separation in what had been to that point a great game between two great teams. The Thunder won the prizefight 118-112 showing a level of maturity that belied their youth, the very mettle you need to win a championship.
But Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault did not want his team to get ahead of itself.
“It’s March,” he said, “not June.”
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Thunder superstar Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the NBA’s MVP favorite, who collected his customary 34 points, seven assists and five rebounds, was a little more willing to entertain this as a statement win.
“Because they’ve done what we’re trying to do, the games against them are always going to be a little more heightened and exciting,” he said. “They’ve achieved what we’re trying to accomplish, and there’s no better test in the NBA. We play for late June, and they’re the team that won, so playing against them is … something that we need to test ourselves against, and I guess we’ve passed the two tests so far.”
Oklahoma City was without its second All-Star, Jalen Williams, as he nurses a hip strain, but Chet Holmgren, who missed three months of his own to injury, stepped into that secondary role. His 23 points, 15 rebounds and ceaseless rim protection wreaked havoc in the absence of Boston’s Kristaps Porzingis.
Boston was also without a co-star, Jaylen Brown, though he played. Brown scored 10 points on 15 shots and fouled out in 38 minutes. He refused to blame the right knee issue that has cost him four games in recent weeks, instead crediting those who deserved it: Cason Wallace and OKC’s relentless defense.
“Tougher team sets the rules,” said Brown. “I didn’t meet their level of physicality.”
The Celtics as a whole did not meet the Thunder’s level of physicality. They did not make a 2-point shot in the first quarter, when 20 of their 22 attempts came from 3. Their 35 first-half threes attempted were a record, and they finished 20 of 63 (32%) from distance. These were the shots they could find. Even if their creators could get around Wallace and Lu Dort on the perimeter, Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein waited in the middle.
This is a problem for the Celtics if these two teams meet in June. Not many opponents can claim to be a matchup problem for Boston, but Oklahoma City can after owning the fourth quarter in both meetings.
The Celtics skated to the championship last season largely without Porzingis, who has missed the past six games of this season to an unidentified viral infection. They will need him to defend their championship — against the Cleveland Cavaliers, before they get a chance to meet OKC again — and Boston knows it.
“We’ll feel a lot better when we have everybody,” said Jayson Tatum, whose 33 points, eight rebounds and eight assists kept Boston in the game. “I’m looking forward to having our full team at full strength for this last stretch. We’ll fine-tune some things up and get ready for the fun part of all this.”
That would be the playoffs, when the Celtics will remain the champions until someone knocks them off. They have won it before, so therefore believe they can do it again. The Thunder cannot say the same.
But they said all they needed to on Wednesday. When asked what separated the Celtics from the pack last season, Gilgeous-Alexander may as well have been talking about his own team’s mentality in Boston.
“They don’t flinch or budge,” he said. “When you play against them, they are confident, and they know what they’re trying to accomplish on both ends of the floor, and they do it at a high level. I think that’s what makes them so good. Whether the ball goes in or out for them doesn’t deter the way they play.”
In fact, Tatum said the same of them.
“They play the right way,” he said. “They know what they want to do on both ends. This was high level.”
The only knock against the Western Conference-leading Thunder now is the fact they have not reached a conference finals as a team. They lost in the second round last season to the Dallas Mavericks.
“We got better than we were last year,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, whose Thunder (54-12) clinched a playoff berth on Wednesday.
“I think we got a couple new guys who made our team a lot better,” added Holmgren, “but I also think that everyone that returned worked their tail off this summer and came back even better.”
Scary thought. If poise and maturity are the only criticisms left to hurl at the Thunder, it was as if Daigneault knew that and wanted us to know: This game on this night showed his team has both.
“It was a 48-minute effort,” said the 40-year-old Massachusetts native. “This was a hard game to win. The [Celtics] keep coming. They shoot threes, so they can cut into leads quickly. There was a lot of lead changes, and I just thought our team’s poise and discipline and competitiveness was on display tonight.”
And if it is again come June, Brown countered, “We’ll be ready.”
“We’ll see when we get there,” added Tatum.
The defending champions have work to do. The Thunder made that clear.