Taking stock of Celtics’ title aspirations after loss to Thunder

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Taking stock of Celtics’ title aspirations after loss to Thunder originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

We’re not in the business of dismissing losses. The Oklahoma City Thunder bullied the Boston Celtics in the second half of Sunday’s potential NBA Finals preview and the Celtics limped out of the Paycom Center with their first double-digit loss of the season.

Boston’s offense was a clunky disaster in the second half and the Thunder made things look even worse with their physicality and grit, whether that was ripping away loose balls and creating easy transition opportunities, or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander swatting Jayson Tatum at the rim to thwart Boston’s last gasp comeback attempt.

The Celtics did themselves no favors with their shot-making. In the shadow of Oklahoma City’s Bricktown, the Celtics built a brick town of their own. Boston is now 5-5 against teams ranked in the top 10 in defensive rating, per Cleaning the Glass tracking, but that mark drops to 2-4 when you zoom in on teams that are top 10 in both defensive rating and point differential.

By comparison, OKC is 7-2 against those teams and Cleveland is 3-1, with Boston being the lone loss.

It does seem fair to suggest that Boston’s offense was uniquely bad in Sunday’s game. In fact, here are three of our favorite statistical anomalies from that tilt:

1. Tatum tallied 15 potential assists in Sunday’s loss, well above his season average of 11.6 per game, and the Celtics made just one (ONE!) of those shots.

Tatum routinely generated quality looks for teammates but the only make off his feeds was a Kristaps Porzingis alley-oop dunk in transition. Tatum averages 14.8 points created by assists per game, but that number dipped to two in Oklahoma City.

2. Boston didn’t do itself any favors on the clean looks it generated against Oklahoma City. The Celtics were 10 of 27 (37 percent) on all open shots (4 to 6 feet) and a ghastly 3 of 21 (14.3 percent) on all wide-open looks (6-plus feet), per NBA tracking.

Boston was 8 of 39 (20.5 percent) on all open-or-better 3-pointers, including missing 17 of the 20 wide-open 3-pointers it took. For the season,…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/taking-stock-celtics-title-aspirations-162448380.html

Author : NBC Sports Boston

Publish date : 2025-01-07 16:24:00

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