Shai Gilgeous-Alexander outduels Jayson Tatum as Thunder beat Celtics: 6 takeaways
Tatum vs. SGA was the kind of 1-on-1 superstar showdown the NBA craves.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder pulled away from Jayson Tatum and the Celtics late, claiming a 118-112 win to sweep their season series against the defending champions.
Here are the takeaways:
SGA vs. Tatum was real basketball.
Gilgeous-Alexander was everything as advertised – a superstar stepping into his status as one of the best players in the world and finding that the throne is a comfortable fit. The MVP candidate scored 34 points on 11-for-20 shooting (including 10-for-11 shooting from the free-throw line) to go with five rebounds and seven assists, and the Celtics didn’t really have any answers for him, especially with Jaylen Brown looking out of sorts and not much like himself.
Tatum, meanwhile, was every bit as good – 33 points on 12-for-23 shooting with eight rebounds and assists. In the third quarter in particular, he put the Celtics on his shoulders and heaved them back into the game by attacking and demolishing Thunder big men in the pick-and-roll.
Tatum didn’t get SGA’s friendly whistle – just 5-for-5 from the free-throw line – and he was one of several Celtics players who could lament that if a couple of 3-pointers had fallen, they might have gotten a different result.
But Tatum vs. SGA was still the kind of 1-on-1 superstar showdown the NBA craves: Two marketable stars with genuine MVP potential on the upswings of their respective careers who could have long and productive careers going at each other.
That was a heavyweight showdown
Last week’s Celtics vs. Lakers matchup might have been the best narrative the NBA could ask for in a regular-season game given the arrival of Luka Doncic, the rise of the Lakers and the history of the two franchises, but Wednesday’s game was pure hoops.
The Thunder are the real deal – a team built perfectly to beat a team like the Celtics. Very few rosters can support a starting lineup without any seals for the Celtics’ killer whales to attack. Very few rosters can rotate fast enough to try multiple different defensive looks (including a 2-3 zone) to limit the Celtics’ pass-pass-shoot, 3-point-heavy offense. Very few teams can punish the Celtics that thoroughly for the minutes they play without Tatum (who was +4 in a six-point loss).
But OKC can do a little bit of it all, and they can even do it while matching the Celtics superstar for superstar in the Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Tatum showdown.
Both teams had a bit of a built-in excuse prior to Wednesday’s game if they lost. The Thunder could reasonably complain that they were without their second star since Jalen Williams was on the bench – an absence somewhat comparable to if the Celtics were without Jaylen Brown. The Celtics could complain that they were without Kristaps Porzingis, which is akin to the Thunder missing Chet Holmgren. Both complaints are valid.
But Wednesday’s game showed that the Thunder and the Celtics would be a heavyweight bout in the NBA Finals, and unlike last year’s Finals – when the media seemed to coalesce around a baffling narrative that the Mavericks were the favorites over the Celtics despite an absolute smorgasbord of mismatches that clearly pointed the other direction – it would be very hard to predict a winner. The only thing we know is that it would be an absolute battle and the kind of test of who is really the best team in the world that the NBA Finals always aspires to be.
A reporter asked Gilgeous-Alexander about how important beating the Celtics is for the Thunder.
“It’s huge,” he said. “Just because they’ve done what we’re trying to do, the games against them are always going to be heightened. They’re always going to be a little bit more exciting. They achieved what we’re trying to accomplish and there’s no better test than them here. You play for late June and the other team won late June, so playing against them is always fun.
“Always a really big challenge and something that we get to test ourselves against. And I guess we passed two tests so far.”
Jaylen Brown had a very tough evening.
If the Celtics and Thunder do meet in the Finals, one thing is abundantly clear: Jaylen Brown needs to be much better. Brown shot just 5-for-15 from the floor and missed all five of his 3-pointers, and he fouled out in the fourth quarter by inexplicably whacking Chet Holmgren across the arm after taking a brief respite when he picked up his fifth.
Brown is an essential part of the team every night, but especially against a team like the Thunder when his defense is really necessary against Gilgeous-Alexander. The Celtics have a lot of high-level defenders, but Brown prides himself on his ability to guard his yard against the best guards and wings in the league, and Gilgeous-Alexander might literally be the best guard in the league.
“I give credit to OKC,” Brown said. “Tougher team sets the rules. They had a good level of physicality tonight, and I could be more physical. I could use my body more, I settled in some spots, but I didn’t meet the level of physicality tonight. I had no free throw attempts, and that’s unusual. So just making sure you get your body healthy, etc. But, I didn’t meet the level of physicality tonight.”
Brown would not, of course, be expected to completely shut off Gilgeous-Alexander in a playoff series, but the Celtics need him to be elite on the defensive end, and he scuffled at a bad time on Wednesday.
The Celtics started hot and went icy cold.
The Thunder started hot and immediately put the Celtics on their back foot, but the Celtics responded by shooting 9-for-22 from 3-point range in the first quarter to end the quarter trailing by just three. Derrick White and Al Horford were particularly impressive, making three 3-pointers apiece while Tatum (two) and Pritchard knocked down triples as well. The Celtics didn’t score their first two pointer until two minutes into the second quarter when Payton Pritchard got a layup on the glass and was goaltended (Luke Kornet scored a put-back shortly afterward).
From there, the Celtics cooled off immensely from three – Tatum generated plenty of decent looks, but the Celtics simply weren’t accurate enough. They finished 20-for-63, breaking a franchise record for 3-pointers attempted and making just 31.7 percent of them.
“It didn’t feel like we took that many 3s,” Brown said. “Maybe it looked like it on TV or watching the game, but it felt like we had a lot of good looks. […]
“Maybe some 3s we took, we didn’t have too many, maybe was a little ill-advised. But it felt like we got some good looks. They didn’t go down, and theirs did. But overall just being more physical. Zero free throw attempts. I didn’t get a free throw tonight. That means I wasn’t aggressive enough, wasn’t physical enough at my job. Even when they choose not to call fouls, or whatever the case may be, I’m still able to get at least one free throw attempt. I had zero tonight, so that just lets me know I wasn’t aggressive enough.”
Without Horford and White, the rest of the team was just a cringeworthy 20.5 percent from behind the arc.
The free-throw disparity was high.
The Celtics took a ton of 3-pointers (63 to OKC’s 37) and hoisted more long two-pointers than you’d like to see on any given night from a team of their caliber.
Still, the 35-12 disparity in free throws attempted stands out, whether you believe it was due to the officiating, the shot selection or simply because the Celtics needed to do a better job of defending without fouling (or some combination of the three).
“You have to match the level of physicality,” Joe Mazzulla said. “So you have to do that, but we foul a 3-point shooter at the end of the quarter, we jump on a pump fake, we don’t show our hands on a tendency drive. There’s a level of physicality that you have to play with. You also have to do your best to defend without fouling, so just a small balance there, but definitely ones that we could take away.”
In any case, the Celtics struggled to overcome the 15-point deficit they spotted the Thunder at the free-throw line.
A tough back-to-back ahead
The Celtics get a couple of easier opponents in the near future, but the schedule itself doesn’t let up – they will hit the road for a back-to-back against the Heat at 7 p.m. on Friday followed by the Nets at 6 p.m. on Saturday. The less-than-24-hours back-to-back, which includes a flight from Miami to Brooklyn that won’t be short, could be a tough test.
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