- Boston Celtics (26-6, 1st in the East) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (22-9, 2nd in the West)
- When: Tuesday, 02 January 2024 at 7:00pm CST
- Where: Paycom Center, Oklahoma City, OK
- Offensive Rating – BOS: 120.8 (2nd) / OKC: 118.9 (6th)
- Defensive Rating – BOS: 110.4 (3rd) / OKC: 110.3 (2nd)
- Net Rating – BOS: 10.4 (1st) / OKC: 8.7 (3rd)
The Set-Up
22-9. Let that sink in for a moment. When you are in the thick of it, you usually don’t get to appreciate what you are watching. But 22-9. For a team that was said to be in a rebuild just last season. For a team that many thought would be in a rebuild for several seasons. This team was in the playoffs just three years ago. And they were in two play-in games just this past April. It literally took three draft cycles to get them back to where they are at. No major free agent signings. No number 1 picks. Just great scouting and development.
As we head into the new year, where do we go now. Do we let this thing ride out and see how far we can go with the team as currently constructed? Do we make a move to shore up any weaknesses we may have on the periphery? Or do we push all of our chips in (correction: some of our chips (we have so many we can afford to push in chips and still have plenty left)) to get a top-tier talent to put alongside our core? It is a question in which the answer will materialize here within the next month to month and a half. The Thunder have 20 games between now and the trade deadline. It’s going to be a wild ride from now to then.
This is the first meeting of the year between these two teams. Their next meeting is on April 3rd.
Betting Info
- Line: BOS -4.5
- O/U: 239.5
Injury Report
OKC
- None
BOS
- None
Three Big Things
- Rebounding – I hate to beat the crap out of a dead horse, but these types of stats usually matter in this kind of game. Against the Brooklyn Nets, the Thunder allowed 17 offensive rebounds. Fortunately for them, the Nets did not make the Thunder pay for that. But against a team like Boston, who also happens to be one of the best rebounding teams in the league, that will definitely come back to bite you in the butt. The Thunder will need to gang rebound, especially in the shallow post, as Boston shoots a ton of 3’s (No. 1 in the league in both attempts and makes) and those tend to bounce closer to the free throw area instead of closer to the rim.
- Pace – The Thunder look to push the pace a lot more than the Celtics. One thing that I’ve noticed over the past couple of games, especially since the Clippers on 21 December, is that the Thunder are looking to push as soon as they gain possession. They’ve flummoxed several top tier teams (Clippers, Nuggets, Knicks) in the past week just with this alone.
- SGA – This is a tent-pole game. A game that if you perform well, you can point to it as an example of what kind of season you had. As SGA forges his path towards MVP contention, this is the kind of game that carries a lot of weight. Boston is No. 4 defensively in stopping points in the paint. It’s an unstoppable object vs. immovable force type situation.