BOSTON — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was almost gone an hour before Celtics leadership, Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, departed TD Garden. 

All he left behind was a trail. A symbol. A signal. His logo, a mirrored emblem of his No. 2, graced the Garden. And the Prudential Tower. And the Converse Lovejoy headquarters. A memento to remember him by should his name be invoked three months from now in the same city.

A distant town, roughly 1,600 miles away, needed him. A town in the Northeast was nearly sick of him. His mark illuminated the Boston night; he and the Thunder answered a helpless call. 

The Thunder hadn’t been without All-Star Jalen Williams for more than four games all season. It certainly hadn’t prepared to be without him against the defending champions. 

Wednesday night’s 118-112 win in Boston, in a building where ear drums and unready teams go to die, made a strong case for being more impressive than the 53 others. 

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Holding off the defending champions wire to wire in a game that clinched a playoff spot adds enough seasoning to the pot. Manufacturing offense without a star that averages 21.3 points in a game that practically demands it puts it to a boil. 

The Celtics took a franchise-record 63 3-pointers — some of them gut-wrenching, many of them seemingly excessive. But this is what they do: put your favorite team in rotation, watch them squirm and bludgeon them from deep. 

But Oklahoma City, still the league’s youngest team, stomached that shot diet. Not only that, it reinforced its most redeemable traits: depth and defense. 

In nine minutes without Gilgeous-Alexander, the Thunder outscored Boston by three. Centers Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein played in their wackiest lineup yet, one without SGA or Williams. One they made work. 

They played off each other like shooters and handoff-men do (who’s Donte DiVincenzo again?). Holmgren added 23 points and 15 boards on 8-of-14 shooting just two nights after shooting 3 for 11 in a loss. He curled and found his fellow big for a lob. Hartenstein found cutters. 

Sophomore Cason Wallace hit monumental shots in the fourth quarter, scoring eight of his 14 then. Kenrich Williams entered the fourth a minus-15 and left it a plus-9 with deflections and grit. Lu Dort made three 3s of his own. 

Wallace smothered Brown, having the heaviest (and most blinding) hand in the Celtic star’s 5-of-15 performance before fouling out in the fourth quarter. 

All of it was the set-up for the signal. 

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Boston had funneled Gilgeous-Alexander to his best spots, only to collapse there and put multiple sets of hands on the ball. He kept returning. 

Through the 3s, through the daunting offensive tasks, through a defense still revered, even if it’s been chipped away at and targeted since it raised a banner. He returned enough to drill a couple of his biggest shots from those same spots, a pair of 15-footers inside the final five minutes. 

34 points, four boards, seven assists, and a fine reminder for those who lost track of SGA’s season as recently as Monday. 

OKC held Boston to one of its bottom-20 scoring games of the season, responding to a 18-6 Celtics run to close the third quarter. The Celtics were outscored by six in the final quarter, missing 11 of their 14 3-point attempts. 

The team that waltzed through last May and June without a semblance of a response was left shrugging Wednesday. 

“It’s tough,” Brown said of defending SGA. “That boy good.” 

Gilgeous-Alexander, a study in his opponents, analyzed the Celtics’ DNA. What makes them reigning champions, and why it can feel like a heart attack when they’re rolling. 

“They don’t flinch or budge,” Gilgeous-Alexander said of Boston. “When you play against them, they are confident, and they know what they’re trying to accomplish out there on both ends of the floor, and they do it at a confident, high level. And I think that’s what makes them so good.”

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The Thunder’s genes are just fine, too. Its group is too young to have the scars Boston has. The near-decade of data that helped reach the mountain top. All OKC really has is wins like these, the ones that leave you chuckling because the circumstances don’t reek of a win. 

It didn’t flinch. Nor budge. It was confident, and seemed to know what it was trying to accomplish, too. The makings of a team OKC itself reveres. Still, sorry if Gilgeous-Alexander isn’t committed to the idea that the Thunder’s Wednesday look is how a champion appears, that this is what Larry O’Brien-worthy hoops look like.

“No, we have a lot to get better at,” he said. “To play the final game of the season in late June is a long, long ways away. I would hope we’re not playing our championship basketball today. I hope we get — how many months is that? Three. I guess we have three months to get better now. I hope we get better and are playing way better basketball than we are now.”

He shut the door on a regular season-series widely believed to be a preview of this year’s NBA Finals. Too bad coach Mark Daigneault isn’t into preorders. 

“We’re in March, not June, so I’m focused on March,” Daigneault said. 

Point the bat signal in the air for Gilgeous-Alexander three months from now. He and his resilient group might just leap to action then, too. 

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Things in 3s

Your therapist shows you an image of a basketball court and asks you what you see. You see hardwood. Mark Daigneault sees a place to dive. Joe Mazzulla sees one line, an arch 20-feet out.  

No one shoots more 3s than the Boston Celtics. And somehow, on Thursday, they outdid themselves by shooting a franchise-record 63 3-pointers. 

In the first quarter, Boston took 24 shots. Only two of them were non-3s. All nine of its makes were from deep then. 

Those shots came in waves. The Thunder cupped its hands and split the sea. 

“You just can’t overreact,” Daigneault said. “You stick to the plan, but it takes maturity. Guys want to win, and there’s a tendency sometimes to want to do more, but sometimes that’s not the best thing when it comes to close outs. And I just thought the guys showed great poise maturity through that tonight.”

The Celtics made six of their 14 3-point attempts in the second quarter. Derrick White had five by half. Al Horford had four. Jayson Tatum did, too. 

OKC stomached that. It contested and held its breath, closing out but not flying by, watching as Boston seemingly drilled big 3 after 3, including Sam Hauser’s deep ball for a lead with a minute left in the third. 

In the second half, the Celtics connected on just five of their 27 attempts. They hunt matchups perhaps as much as any team in the NBA, and sought defenders like Isaiah Joe and (for some reason) Cason Wallace in between attempts. They held their own, staying sturdy to withstand the storm. 

“At some point you guys gotta sit down and compete,” Daigneault said. “And I thought the compete level tonight, you know, in those situations, was great.”

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