Jayson Tatum scored 33 points to go with 8 rebounds and 8 assists in Wednesday night's loss to the Thunder at TD Garden.
Jayson Tatum scored 33 points to go with 8 rebounds and 8 assists in Wednesday night's loss to the Thunder at TD Garden.Erin Clark/Globe Staff
The Celtics 60th 3-point attempt of an unrepentant night for their preferred shot was symbolic, an airball by Derrick White, a signature Celtics shot that fell short as they ultimately would.
The Celtics better hope that shot wasn’t a hoops harbinger of coming attractions if they were to tangle with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals – the Green falling short of defending their NBA championship.
Oklahoma City withstood an air siren-worthy barrage of 3-point attempts from the Celtics, a franchise-record 63 in all, to secure a 118-112 victory at TD Garden in what certainly felt like it could’ve been a dry run for these teams for June. OKC, coached by Leominster native Mark Daigneault, swept the season series from the Celtics.
Sure, a Celtics-Thunder NBA Finals lacks the poetic Shakespearean plotlines of the NBA’s two greatest houses, the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, renewing their fight for supremacy. It doesn’t have the juice of watching the last two NBA champions, the Celtics and the Denver Nuggets, face off with an undercard/undercurrent of Jayson Tatum vs. Nikola Jokić for Face of the League. It lacks the intrigue of the last team to repeat as NBA champs, the Golden State Warriors, trying to prevent the Celtics from matching that feat. But if Wednesday night was any indication, Celtics-Thunder is the best the NBA has to offer for a Finals matchup.
Sign me up for six or seven games of this in June.
Jaylen Brown struggled through a 5-for-15, 10-point performance.
Jaylen Brown struggled through a 5-for-15, 10-point performance.Erin Clark/Globe Staff
Celtics fans might be hoping their team doesn’t encounter possible league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and OKC again. The Celtics remain the most likely lifters of the Larry O’Brien Trophy. But the Thunder have taken them out of their game twice this season. They’re the team that can challenge them.
Before Celtics fans point out the Green weren’t whole with Kristaps Porzingis still hors de hoops due to an illness, let’s recognize the Thunder won without the services of their best non-SGA player. That would be All-Star wing Jalen Williams, absent with a hip injury.
Plus, Oklahoma City downed the Celtics, 105-92, on Jan. 5 when the Celtics did have KP and their ideal rotation. That contest saw the Celtics limited to a season-low 92 points and season-worst 19.6 percent from 3-point range.
Let’s talk threes.
This whole game felt like a Joe Mazzulla fever dream. The Celtics first 10 field goals were threes. They didn’t put a 2-point field goal through the basket until Luke Kornet tapped in a White miss with 10 minutes left in the first half. In the first half, the Celtics racked up 36 of their 48 shots from 3-point range. They hit 15 threes. But were only 5 for 27 in the second half.
Striking it rich from range turned into fool’s gold.
Impressively, OKC, which by defensive rating is the best defensive team in the league, stuck to its guns and its game plan. They were unrattled.
“We’re in March, not June, so we’re focused on March,” said Daigneault, when asked what his team’s effort meant. “But I think the biggest thing against them is you got to just understand that they’re going to make some tough shots. They’re going to make some tough plays. They’re going to make threes.
“I mean, White, in the first half, or first quarter, I thought we got a nice contest on a lot of his stuff, and he was banging those shots. You just can’t overreact. You know, stick to the plan. But it takes maturity. Guys want to win. And there’s a tendency sometimes to want to do more … and I just thought the guys showed great poise and maturity through that time.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s leading scorer, showed he’s a problem Wednesday night against the Celtics.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league’s leading scorer, showed he’s a problem Wednesday night against the Celtics.Erin Clark/Globe Staff
They did, and that’s what it’s going to take for any team to unseat the Celtics. Trying to out-Celtic the Celtics is unlikely to succeed given their offensive chemistry, potency, and efficiency.
For the Celtics part, there was a lesson in this loss as a dress rehearsal for the postseason. They were reminded of vulnerabilities. Young OKC big man Chet Holmgren collected 23 points and 15 rebounds and got looks so good that they belonged on a fashion show catwalk.
SGA, the league’s leading scorer, showed he’s a problem. It was jarring to see how easily he got by Jaylen Brown, an excellent wing defender.
“That boy good,” said Brown. “I’m a big fan of his game, shifty, crafty around the basket, knows how to use his body well, draws fouls, and he has been hitting the three-ball too. Tough. Definitely a guy that you watch, you study to be better if we end up playing them down the line.”
It’s tempting to fulminate against the volume of threes the Celtics took (63 of their 94 shots), to point out that OKC boasts the best 3-point defense in the NBA (33.5 percent), and that the Celtics are 2-2 this season in games in which they’ve attempted 60 or more threes.
But three-balling is today’s NBA, and the Celtics are the apogee of it. It’s their identity. This game wasn’t lost on the 3-point line. It was lost when Brown struggled through a 5-for-15, 10-point performance. It was lost when the Celtics let the Thunder be the aggressors on both ends. It was lost when the Celtics allowed the Thunder to win the early moments of the fourth quarter when both SGA and Jayson Tatum, who poured in 33 points to go with 8 rebounds and 8 assists, were off the floor. It was lost when the Celtics kept fouling with Oklahoma City (35) almost tripling Boston’s 12 free-throw attempts.
The Celtics came in as winners of 15 of their last 18 games, including victories over the Lakers and Nuggets.
OKC was the most severe test before the playoffs. No remaining opponent on their schedule over the final 16 games possesses the pedigree of OKC. The only contender left on the schedule is the New York Knicks. That’s using the term generously considering the Knicks are 0-7 against the league’s three best teams.
So, this was the last great test for the Celtics and an opponent they could see in June in the NBA Finals.
“We’re just kind of fine-tuning up and getting ready for the fun part of all of this,” said Tatum, who didn’t bite when asked if the Celtics would be motivated by OKC becoming title favorites. “It should be a lot of fun. Excited to just be up for the challenge, whatever that may be.”
The challenge in the end could be OKC. That might not be the best result for the Celtics, but it would be the best series for basketball fans.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.