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Celtics-Thunder takeaways: Porzingis dominates as C’s clinch NBA’s best record originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Wednesday night at TD Garden, the Boston Celtics clinched the No. 1 overall seed in the NBA playoffs with a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The C’s took care of business against a short-handed Thunder squad that played without star guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (quad) and talented young wing Jalen Williams (ankle). Boston played at full strength and it showed in the final score, 135-100. It closed out an otherwise tightly contested matchup with a 42-17 fourth quarter.
With this victory, the Celtics are now 11-0 at home since Feb. 4. They’re a league-best 60-16 on the season.
Kristaps Porzingis and Jayson Tatum led the way for the C’s with 27 and 24 points, respectively. Jaylen Brown, back in the lineup after missing Monday’s win with a hand injury, dropped 15 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter.
Josh Giddey (17 points) and Luguentz Dort (15 points) led the Thunder in the scoring column.
The Celtics will host the Sacramento Kings (44-31) on Friday night. First, here are three takeaways from Wednesday’s win.
OKC still has no answer for Kristaps Porzingis
The last time these two powerhouses met on Jan. 2, Porzingis dropped a team-high 34 points on 12-of-18 shooting in a losing effort. Three months later, the Thunder still lack a solution for the Celtics big man.
Porzingis picked up where he left off against OKC with 17 points and nine rebounds in the first half. “The Unicorn” made seven of his 10 shots in the first two frames, including all three of his 3-pointers.
Porzingis dominated the Thunder on both ends of the floor. In addition to his 27 total points on 11-of-14 shooting, he racked up 12 boards while protecting the rim with five blocks.
According to Celtics stats guru Dick Lipe, Porzingis is only the second Celtic ever to have at least 27 points, 12 rebounds, five blocks, and four assists in a game since the block stat became official in 1974. Robert Parish is the only other player in franchise history to accomplish the feat, and he did so three times.
Porzingis, acquired from the Washington…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/celtics-thunder-takeaways-porzingis-dominates-022411965.html
Author : NBC Sports Boston
Publish date : 2024-04-04 02:24:11
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