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OKLAHOMA CITY — Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was uncharacteristically impatient when asked about facing the Boston Celtics in a Sunday afternoon time slot.
“Absolutely,” Gilgeous-Alexander said while interrupting a reporter inquiring about the Oklahoma City Thunder’s game against the defending NBA champions. “They won; we’re trying to win. That will be a very fun basketball game.”
Gilgeous-Alexander then followed with, “Sorry to cut you off.”
Eager to get a crack at a Celtics team that went 16-3 in the playoffs last summer, Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t disappoint Sunday. He scored 33 points and made critical defensive plays that helped his team erase a 10-point halftime deficit and beat Boston 105-92.
“At the root of it all, I like to go against the best and see where I stand, how good I really am,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “That’s all it comes down to.”
The Thunder are now 30-5 this season. They have won a franchise-record 15 consecutive games. (That mark excludes the NBA Cup championship against the Milwaukee Bucks, as the game didn’t count toward the standings.)
Last spring, Gilgeous-Alexander finished second in NBA MVP voting. He is one of the favorites to win the award this year. His numbers during the Thunder’s winning streak, which dates to Dec. 3: 33.1 points (54.9 percent shooting), 5.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.3 blocks. Gilgeous-Alexander is tied with Jayson Tatum for second in the NBA in isolation points scored, behind only the Los Angeles Clippers’ James Harden.
He also doubles as an important part of a historically dominant Thunder defense. In the second half of Sunday’s game, the Thunder held the Celtics to 8-of-40 shooting. The 27 points Boston mustered in the final two quarters were the fewest an NBA team has scored in any half this season.
At the 4:36 mark of the third quarter, Luguentz Dort was whistled for clipping Tatum’s left foot after he hoisted a jumper. Tatum’s free throw pushed Boston ahead 75-66. The rest of the game, the Celtics scored 17 points.
The Celtics committed seven turnovers in the fourth quarter, and Gilgeous-Alexander made one of the game’s momentum-shifting defensive plays with 5:14 remaining, pinning Tatum’s transition layup attempt on the backboard, then feeding Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein for a dunk. It was a four-point swing, which gave the Thunder a nine-point advantage.
WHAT A SEQUENCE FOR THE THUNDER 😱
SGA blocks it then lobs it up to Hartenstein!
CROWD BUZZING… OKC UP 9 ON NBA TV! pic.twitter.com/cTXCg6bkE1
— NBA (@NBA) January 5, 2025
“He wants to win,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “If you want to win, you have to do the invisible things.”
Daigneault has a team of players who enjoy the unglamorous parts of the game. Jaylen Brown, who returned for the Celtics after a two-game absence because of a shoulder strain, scored 21 points in the first half. To start the third quarter, the Thunder shifted Dort, their bulldog stopper, to defend Brown, and the Celtics forward shot 0-of-7 from the field and went scoreless in the second half.
The Thunder are lapping the competition in several key defensive metrics. They are averaging 11.8 steals per game, which is 1.4 more than the next closest team. The 22.3 deflections they average per contest is the second-most of any team since 2016-17, when the NBA began tracking that stat. The 102.7 points per 100 possessions Oklahoma City allows is 3.5 points per 100 possessions fewer than the Houston Rockets, the team that ranks second in that category.
Defensively, there is Oklahoma City, and then there is everyone else. And the Thunder have yet to deploy their two-center lineup of Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren. Hartenstein missed the first 15 games of the season with a hand fracture. Holmgren hasn’t played since Nov. 10 because of a hip fracture. The Thunder are 27-3 in games either Hartenstein or Holmgren plays in.
On Sunday, they improved to 19-1 with Hartenstein in the lineup. The lefty blocked two shots in Oklahoma City’s dominant defensive fourth quarter, including a denial of Kristaps Porziņģis at the rim.
Get your tickets to the IHart block party 🚫 pic.twitter.com/Dr3TdOHqSJ
— OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) January 5, 2025
Shortly thereafter, Hartenstein ripped the ball away from his Latvian counterpart. Hartenstein was one of seven Thunder players who recorded a steal.
Behind its relentless, shape-shifting defense and another 30-point performance from its MVP candidate, Oklahoma City dominated the second half against the defending champions.
Gilgeous-Alexander wanted this opportunity — and he didn’t waste it.
“They’ve (the Celtics) done things I’ve dreamt about doing,” he said. “There is no way to get there without playing teams like that. That’s what I wake up for. That’s what I play the game for. That’s what (Sunday) was about.”
(Photo: Joshua Gateley / Getty Images)
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