BSJ Game Report: Thunder 150, Celtics 117 - C's relax against shorthanded Thunder and pay the price

Everything you need to know about the Celtics loss to the OKC Thunder, with BSJ insight and analysis

The Celtics started out playing okay but just missing shots, but that devolved into the offensive issues bleeding into their defense. A back-and-forth first quarter gave way to an embarrassing second quarter that started a torrent of Thunder baskets. Once again, their misses led to defensive mistakes, and they gave up a 40-point quarter. They followed it up by giving up 48 in the third. The entire fourth quarter was garbage time. The 150 points OKC scored was a franchise record.

Box Score

HEADLINES

Turnstiles: I was afraid we’d have to sit through another rim-related delay with all the dunking the Thunder were doing. This was basically a layup line for OKC, who scored 70 (!!!) points in the paint against the Celtics. That's an outrageous number, and it wasn’t all just breakaways because they got 27 points off turnovers. The Celtics gambled for steals, over-helped, and fell asleep all night long. 

Bench woes: More on this later, but the Celtics' bench was disgustingly bad in this one (minus 17 mostly garbage time points for Payton Pritchard). This team was built to be versatile and deep, and they're struggling to get much from their depth at the moment. 

Mental toughness (or lack thereof): The concept of mental toughness is often misused, but it definitely applies to this game, where the Celtics displayed a stunning lack of it. 

No, it’s not that they relaxed and let a young team missing its star get going. It’s that they never got back on track. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the Celtics came out of the half and laid an ungodly whoopin’ on the Thunder. In fact, part of me expected that. That they came out of the half the way they did, and that they gave up 48 points in the third -- that's a complete lack of mental toughness. That's the embarrassing part. That they knew at halftime what they were facing and STILL had that third quarter. 

TURNING POINT

You bet I’m going with that beginning of the third quarter. Boston came into it down 20, and it would have been very easy to go on a little bit of a run, cut the lead down to 10 or so heading into the fourth, and win the game. Instead, the Thunder outscored Boston 16-11 over the first four minutes or so to push their lead to 25. You knew right there that the Celtics weren’t coming back. 

ONE UP 

Payton Pritchard: I’ll give Payton some love here. 17 points on 7-13 shooting and 3-4 from deep is good just because he’s been really struggling from the field lately and any performance where he puts the ball in the hole is a good one. Maybe he can get back to being a spark off the bench when the rest of the guys are struggling. 

THREE DOWN

Jayson Tatum: Somehow he finished with 27 points but he gambled so much on defense that he killed the Celtics in the second quarter. I don’t care what the shooting numbers say, Tatum was terrible after the first quarter. 

Marcus Smart: He managed 8 assists but he also managed to get ejected. His frustration with the officiating (and probably the embarrassment of getting his butt kicked), boiled over into an explosion. If I’m being honest, I think knowing that he was getting subbed out and his night was over is what led to him saying ‘eff it, I’m letting them have it’ in that moment, but you still can’t do that. It doesn’t get him anywhere with the refs. 

The “other” guys: Derrick White, Malcolm Brogdon, Grant Williams, Al Horford, all had varying degrees of bad nights. Horford actually played well early but I think he was swept into the mess of the game. He can only do so much. White, Brogdon, and Williams are three guys counted on to give a spark off the bench, and they couldn't. 

TOP PLAYS

ONE TAKE KARALIS WILL PROBABLY REGRET LATER 

- The bench has to find itself. 

One of the most exciting elements to this team was how second quarters were going to be death for other teams. In November, they were putting up an offensive rating of 128.8 in second quarters. In December it dropped to 111.8. In their last 10 games, it’s 100.8. 

They went from winning second quarters by 9.3 points per 100 possessions, to losing them by 6.8, a 16-point swing that has crushed them. 

Brogdon is at the center of this. His production has been steadily declining since mid-December. This chart tracks his game score, a catch-all stat that gives a rough idea of a player’s overall single-game performance (via Cleaning The Glass): 

The high point came on December 10. 

Whatever is happening with Brogdon needs to change and do so in a hurry because a lot of other guys feed off him. He was supposed to be the difference maker, handling the second unit so Tatum can give up some of the on-ball duties and do more of what he does best. 

White, Williams, and Hauser will probably find more success and consistency as Brogdon does, but it’s on all of them to get back on track. 

This team has to follow a specific formula to be great, and they're nowhere close in some of these games. The bench is supposed to be a strength. It needs to get back to being one. 

Next up: Boston heads to Dallas for a Thursday night game against Luka Doncic and the Mavs