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There’s going to be some temptation, especially given the quality of the game itself, to treat Wednesday’s battle between the Boston Celtics and Oklahoma City Thunder as an NBA Finals preview. It makes sense on paper. The Celtics are the defending champions. The Thunder have one of the best net ratings in NBA history and are on pace to win 67 games. There is a pretty reasonable chance that the Celtics and Thunder face off in June with the Larry O’Brien Trophy on the line.
But calling this game — a 118-112 road victory that clinched a playoff spot Oklahoma City — a Finals preview ignores the wider picture. The Thunder didn’t have Jalen Williams. They obviously expect to have him in the postseason, and if they don’t, they aren’t winning the West. The same is true for the Celtics and Kristaps Porzingis. Cleveland, the first-place team in the East, gives Boston problems even at full strength. Neither the Thunder nor the Celtics were at full strength in this one.
That makes combing through the decisions and outcomes within this game so important. These teams might see each other again, but they hopefully won’t see each other under the conditions present on Wednesday. So let’s try to figure out what we can learn from this clash and put that in perspective ahead of a possible Finals matchup.
Here are our biggest takeaways from Oklahoma City’s enormous win over Boston.
The Thunder want the Celtics to shoot 3-pointers
Typically, the teams that succeed against the Celtics are the ones that limit their 3-point volume. Take the Orlando Magic. They’ve beaten the Celtics twice in five matchups across the last two seasons and have held them to 35.4 3-point attempts per game in that span. Boston’s average, by comparison, was 42.5 attempts per game last season and 48 this season. When a team shoots as well as Boston does, it makes sense to limit their volume.
The Thunder don’t play that way. They willingly surrender 3s, allowing the seventh-most attempts overall and more valuable corner 3s than anyone in an effort to maximize their rim defense and force turnovers. They entered this game with a plan: let the Celtics shoot as many 3s as they want. Here’s how that worked out for Boston:
- The Celtics attempted 22 3s in the first quarter. That’s the second-most 3s any team has ever taken in a quarter, trailing only when they took 23 earlier this season against Memphis.
- The Celtics took 36 3s in the first half. That’s the most 3s any team has ever attempted in the first half of a game.
- The Celtics attempted 63 total 3s. That’s tied for the third-most any team has ever taken in a game.
- The Celtics had a 3-point attempt rate of 67.02%. That’s the sixth-highest ever for a single game.
In terms of the outcome, this strategy worked. Oklahoma City won the game. It’s worth wondering, however, how viable this strategy would be in a possible Finals matchup. The Celtics have, after all, shot a pitiful 28 of 109 (25.7%) from deep in two games against the Thunder. Sure, defense matters on those long shots to an extent, but a lot of that is just bad variance. The Celtics aren’t going to shoot like that four times in seven tries.
The Thunder could survive hotter Celtics shooting if the tradeoff at the rim proves worthwhile. In some ways it did. The Thunder outscored the Celtics by eight at the rim, and more importantly, they drew 23 more free-throw attempts. The Thunder foul a lot by design, it’s the nature of their ultra-physical defensive style, so winning the free-throw battle by that margin is notable. You’re not going to get to the line much when you’re shooting 63 3s.
But Boston shot 11 of 12 in the restricted area and 18 of 22 in the paint overall. That Thunder defense was good at incentivizing 3s over layups, but when the Celtics did get to the rim, they scored there. The third quarter was especially important in this respect. All year, and really, throughout this entire Jayson Tatum-Jaylen Brown era, the question surrounding the Celtics was whether or not they’d be willing to pivot off of 3-pointers when they stop falling in high-leverage games. They did so in that third frame, attacking the basket relentlessly when the opportunity presented itself. Their rim offense was more than good enough to win them this game. Their jump shooting just failed them.
Oklahoma City can’t rely on that in the Finals, so expect to see the Thunder introduce several wrinkles if these teams see each other again. Fortunately, with Williams and Alex Caruso available, a lot of defensive doors open for the Thunder.
Oklahoma City’s role players can score
Even in a loss, the Celtics answered an important question we covered above. When they need to, they are capable of scoring at the basket against the Thunder. Oklahoma City had a different question to answer in this one, and it dates back to last postseason.
Oklahoma City’s offense is much more reliant on MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander than Boston’s or Cleveland’s is on any single player. The idea is for Gilgeous-Alexander to score his standard 30 or so points, of course, but also to leverage his rim gravity to create open 3s for everyone else. As Boston saw on Wednesday, those 3s can be fickle. The advantages that lead to them, though, can be used in other ways. The Thunder couldn’t beat the Mavericks in the playoffs last season in part because the rest of their offense couldn’t punish a Dallas defense that keyed in on Gilgeous-Alexander.
It’s a one-game sample, and Williams wasn’t even involved, but the Thunder have to be encouraged by what they saw offensively on Wednesday. Even in a scoreless night from Aaron Wiggins, the Thunder generated enough offense around Gilgeous-Alexander to win. They even won the minutes he rested by three points. There was no single, offensive sidekick for Gilgeous-Alexander. It was a group effort centered on their bulk. Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein proved problematic for Boston’s front court near the basket and are skilled enough with the ball in their hands to punish mismatches even when they get the ball far away from it. Cason Wallace and Luguentz Dort showcased why this team gets away with minimal perimeter height. They’re so strong and have such low centers of gravity that they can finish against longer defenders and even push some of them around.
Boston’s defense has been on cruise control for lengthy stretches this regular season. Porzingis changes everything as well. A lot of those acrobatic finishes Thunder guards pulled off on Wednesday aren’t going to be available when he’s patrolling the basket at 7-foot-2. But getting Williams back means a good deal to Oklahoma City as well.
This wasn’t the Dallas series. Oklahoma City’s supporting cast has improved substantially.
Boston can dictate the terms of engagement
Rim defense is a big component of Oklahoma City’s willingness to allow 3s, but the other major component is turnover generation. This is what the Thunder do best, especially to teams with reluctant ball-handlers. The Thunder generate 17.5 turnovers per game, which is not only the most in the league, but is a full turnover more than any other team. They want to take the ball away from you and turn games into track meets in which they score easy points in transition.
The Celtics are the opposite. Only the Thunder give the ball away less than they do, and Boston ranks 27th in the NBA in pace. They want a slow, grind-it-out game because they know they can out-execute basically anyone in a half-court setting. Through two head-to-head games, they’ve largely been able to dictate these terms. They turned the ball over just 13 times on Wednesday and 16 in their first matchup. That’s more than their average of just under 12, but it’s below Oklahoma City’s season-long average (17.3) pretty comfortably. Additionally, the Thunder average 16.1 fast break points per game, but have reached only 13 in both Celtics games.
This should give the Thunder an idea of what to expect in a series against the Celtics. They’re going to operate methodically, protect the ball and try to keep the pace down. This is playoff basketball in a nutshell, and no team in the current NBA does it better than the Celtics. The Thunder winning both of their regular-season games against Boston is in some respects a testament to their adaptability, but also, as we’ve covered, partially just shooting luck. If they do see the Celtics again, they probably have to go into such a series knowing that they’re not going to be able to generate turnovers quite as easily as they usually do and that Boston will eventually make the 3s it missed in the regular season.
This game was, in some ways, a bit of an experiment for the Thunder. They’ve seen how Boston reacts to a defense that gives it all of the 3s it wants. The Celtics will have adjustments ready if there is another matchup ahead between these teams. That’s the benefit of the doubt that champions get.
The Thunder are still working to receive that same treatment, but these two regular-season wins are a good start.
