It’s rarely wise to issue concrete statements after a single night of regular-season basketball, but everybody who watched Wednesday’s potential NBA Finals preview between the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder can safely call it one of the best games of the year. Even without Jalen Williams, Alex Caruso, and Kristaps Porzingis, the action on display rivaled what typically happens in a high-level playoff game. Pretty much everyone involved had an awareness of the moment, there was merciless shotmaking on both ends, and complex defensive schemes were enhanced by speed, effort, and physicality.
The Thunder won, which is undeniably impressive, especially since they were on the road and absent their All-Star wing. But coming in, we already knew how resilient and skilled they are. With 10 lead changes and Boston misfiring on a bunch of open 3s, the result is less important on its own than how it materialized.
Against a swarm of elite on-ball defenders who covered him straight up and in a matchup zone that essentially functioned as a soft double-team, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 34 points and looked like the top-tier MVP candidate he’s been for the past couple of years. There isn’t much else you can say about this dude. His pace is uncanny. He made Jaylen Brown’s knees wobble more than once. He attacked the rim whenever Boston didn’t pack the paint, and he got to his spots in the midrange and vacationed at the free throw line.
Chet Holmgren was often a problem Boston didn’t have an answer for, shining at center in a starting lineup that OKC had not previously deployed. Lu Dort, who stepped up in Williams’s absence, was a defensive irritant who punished Boston repeatedly from deep in the first half.
On the other side, Jayson Tatum did more than hold his own, finishing with 33 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists. Brown, meanwhile, forgot how to exert his myriad physical advantages, fouling out halfway through the fourth quarter, missing all five of his 3s, and failing to attempt a single free throw.
The Celtics missed six more 3s than the Thunder even attempted and went 5-for-27 in the second half after jacking up an NBA-record 36 3s in the first two quarters. This is … not what you want. It’s a frustrating brand of basketball and, at times, hard to watch. But it also doesn’t register as a cause for concern in the grand scheme of the Celtics’ status as bona fide championship contenders, if not the East’s favorite to make the Finals. Most of the Celtics’ looks came within a favorable offensive flow against a ravenous defense that didn’t have a ton of success in turning them over. If Payton Pritchard, Jrue Holiday, or Brown had made a few more of their wide-open looks, there’s a decent chance that Boston would have won the game. If these two teams meet up in June, the Celtics won’t think back to this mid-March slugfest and believe they need to dial it back from downtown. If anything, they’ll lean in further. It’s who they are and why they’re great.
On the other end, Boston probably doesn’t need to change much of its defensive strategy against SGA, either. The Celtics changed coverages, disguised some double-teams, and, for a brief stretch, hoped that the 38-year-old Al Horford (who was very good, minus some harebrained passes) could hold up on an island. The Thunder responded to almost all of it with precision and intent. Most of the time, SGA found open teammates when Boston’s pressure forced him to get off the ball.
And sometimes, the Celtics simply made a mistake at the point of attack. The Thunder don’t capitalize on blunders every single time they happen—it’s the reason some people (definitely not me!) doubt this team’s ability to win four playoff rounds—but they punished the Celtics more than once. Here’s Brown staying on SGA instead of switching the screen, which was what he was supposed to do. Derrick White spots the mistake right away and starts his rotation up to Isaiah Joe before the ball leaves Gilgeous-Alexander’s fingertips. Instead of flying out to cover White’s man in the weakside corner, Brown follows SGA’s pass, and Boston gives up a wide-open corner 3:
Both teams left some strategic meat on the bone, but the losing team’s decisions were actually more interesting. If we get a Thunder-Celtics matchup this spring, expect Gilgeous-Alexander’s man to be way more active in setting ball screens on Tatum and Brown. The Thunder can counter with a zone—which they spent plenty of time in on Wednesday night—but Boston wouldn’t have a hard time cracking it, especially with a healthy Porzingis on the floor.
So long as the Denver Nuggets and Cleveland Cavaliers still exist, it’s premature to say that the Thunder and Celtics are on a collision course. But as we already knew before last night’s game began, both of these teams are endlessly versatile, are deep as hell, and carry themselves with the confidence it takes to win a championship. There are very few, if any, holes to pick at, and both teams allow very little margin for error. They’re so evenly matched and similarly constructed that it’s hard to pick a favorite. But from where we sit today, if the Celtics and Thunder do meet in the Finals, people who love basketball will be able to stake their claim as the obvious winners.
