Celtics, Thunder look to rebound from recent losses

Two groups coming off lackluster performances will look to regroup Tuesday night time when the visiting Boston Celtics tackle the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Oklahoma City wrapped up the 2022 portion of its schedule with a 115-96 residence loss to Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve. The Thunder shot 38 % from the sector (35 of 92), together with 12-for-36 on 3-point makes an attempt. Philadelphia by no means trailed and outscored Oklahoma City 66-42 within the paint.

The Thunder trailed by 33 within the first half and by no means sliced their deficit beneath 14 factors after that.

“You never want to be down 30, but if you are, you want to keep playing, and I thought we did that (against Philadelphia),” Oklahoma City head coach Mark Daigneault mentioned. “Every guy, the effort in the second half was there. Nobody was letting go of the rope. It just obviously was too much to overcome because of the start. The lesson is that we don’t want to give that energy in a 30-point game. We want to give that energy at the beginning of the game and give ourselves a chance.”

Boston had its four-game profitable streak finish with Sunday night time’s 123-111 loss at Denver. Jaylen Brown (30 factors) and Jayson Tatum (25) did a lot of the scoring for Boston, which trailed by double digits for many of the contest.

The Celtics’ protection allowed the Nuggets to shoot 57 % from the ground (45-for-79) and 56.7 % from 3-point vary (17-for-30).

“I don’t think anything went particularly wrong,” Brown mentioned. “I think they just made a lot of shots. … Like, a lot of those are shots we wanted to live with. Bruce Brown, 4-for-6 from 3. Bones (Hyland), he hit some tough shots as well. … (Shooting) 17-for-30 from 3? That’s an anomaly. Give credit to them.”

Unlike Denver, Boston struggled from 3-point vary within the loss. The Celtics missed 24 of their 33 makes an attempt from distance. Boston shot 46 % from the sector total (40 of 87).

“On the defensive end, you just have to stay poised and understand that they’re hitting those shots and just try to tread along three, four stops in a row to get some easy baskets,” Boston interim head coach Joe Mazzulla mentioned. “It was one of those games where I don’t have a great feel on why it went the way it went, so I kind of want to study it more.”

The Celtics have failed to shoot higher than 35 % from 3-point vary in six of their final eight contests and have shot beneath 30 % from behind the arc in 5 of these video games.

Oklahoma City entered its recreation in opposition to Philadelphia having scored at the very least 100 factors in 26 consecutive video games. Josh Giddey (20 factors) was the Thunder’s main scorer within the loss.

“We weren’t good to start the game on both ends of the floor,” Giddey mentioned. “I think they got a lot of open looks and boards. They made shots, but our offense was too stagnant. We didn’t get enough looks. We spoke pregame about getting out and making them run. We didn’t do it early and we didn’t do it a lot of the game. So, a slow start and you can’t afford that against an experienced team like Philly.”

–Field Level Media