The Oklahoma City Thunder just keep on winning, beating elite teams along the way, and Tuesday night was no different as they defeated the Boston Celtics 127-123.
The Thunder had built a big lead over Boston but the Celtics were able to close the gap in the 4th.
However, they were unable to overcome it all for the victory, which gave the Thunder another banner win, this time against the owner’s of the best record in the NBA. The Thunder have won 8 of their last 9 games which has them currently second in the Western Conference.
“That’s a talented young team, and I don’t believe this was some fluke game for them,” Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis said, according to ESPN’s Tim MacMahon. “They’ve been playing really well. They’re at the top of the West, no? So a really good team to go up against and a really good experience for us.”
The Thunder’s five-game winning streak includes a 23-point blowout victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves at home and a 26-point blowout win on the road over the defending NBA Champion Denver Nuggets.
“It says that we’re really playing together and we’re prioritizing winning over anything else,” Thunder big man Chet Holmgren said.
“But as far as long term, it doesn’t really prove anything, I guess you could say, or it doesn’t kind of satisfy anybody.
“We know we have a long ways to go. We’re at 32 games into the season, so we still have 50 games left. We got a lot of lessons to learn, a lot of lessons we’ve already learned from that we’ve got to kind of keep in the back of our mind.”
The development of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been front and center during the Thunder’s season, and he is currently 3rd in the NBA in scoring.
“I think we all stay in the moment and I think that’s why we’ve been able to get better,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “We just stay in the moment, attack the day, attack the program in front of us. Then we all have the right intentions and want to win at the end of the day.”
“He’s learned how to impact the game in other ways and that’s why he’s a really good player,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said of Gilgeous-Alexander. He’s not just a hired-gun scorer.”
