The Celtics suffered a tough loss on Thursday night in Oklahoma City, and while it’s hard for a team that has experienced as much success this season as Boston to experience a moral victory, this game was pretty damn close.
Going into the game, the Celtics ruled out Jayson Tatum and Derrick White; JT as part of his recovery from his achilles, and White because of a knee contusion he suffered late in the Spurs game on Tuesday night.
But even without those players, Jaylen Brown, Payton Pritchard, and the rest of the Cs’ roster were able to go toe-to-toe with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending champs. OKC was missing Jalen Williams and Isaiah Hartenstein, but with Chet Holmgren and Alex Caruso back in the fold, they were as close to full strength as they’ve been in a while.
And while the Celtics didn’t pull out the win, they were right in this game for every second, and were able to impose their will and play their own game, even against the best team in the league.
Celtics’ style won out even against Thunder
Even facing the Thunder, and even without multiple key players, the Celtics were able to lean on the things that have made them successful: stifling defense and hounding SGA, minimizing turnovers, creating extra possessions on the offensive glass, and generating good, open looks from three-point range.
All season long, the Celtics have been forced to rely on young, unproven role players, and all season long, those players have stepped up and met the challenge. There is always going to be a sense of concern that this kind of energy and effort-based system built around these kinds of players won’t hold up in the playoffs, but those concerns were largely eschewed on Thursday night.
Unproven players lived up to playoff-atmosphere
Between the matchup of the last two champions, the Thunder, at 51-15, trying to battle for the best record in the league, and SGA vying to break Wilt Chamberlain’s record of consecutive 20+ point scoring games, the Paycom Center was electric, and there was a borderline Finals-level intensity on the floor and inside the building.
The Celtics relied heavily on Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, Jordan Walsh, Ron Harper Jr., Luka Garza, and others, and all of those players rose to the occasion and then some. Each one played well and held their own, guarding elite players all night, holding their own on defense, battling on the glass, taking care of the ball, and knocking down open shots.
They brought the energy and physicality that they have all year, and the opponent didn’t make them blink at all. Obviously, this wasn’t a playoff game, but it’s about as close to a simulation as we’ll see, and the Celtics’ supporting cast passed this test with flying colors, showing a ton of promise for the playoffs next month.