Thunder vs Celtics, final score: OKC suffers horrific collapse, squanders a won game to Boston, 100-99

box score | CelticsBlog

The Oklahoma City Thunder lost to the Boston Celtics on the road, 100-99, snapping their 6 game winning streak and all but burying the feel-good vibes from two days ago.

Let’s make a deal. I’m going to recap this game as quickly as possible and then:

Because if I think on this longer than about 10 minutes I’m going to throw my keyboard out the window.

OKC was terrible for 80% of this game. It was a weird anti-Raptors game where everything was off, layups were missed, defenses were missing, OKC was heavily outworked on the glass, and yet...even then, OKC only needed that 20% to put themselves in a position to win against a team missing so many key players.

And they did it! With clutch threes from Carmelo Anthony and Corey Brewer, followed by a series of made free throws, OKC was up 6 with 24 seconds remaining. Now here’s the anatomy of an inexcusable collapse:

• Let Jayson Tatum score in under 7 seconds.
• Have Russell Westbrook split 1 of 2 free throws.
• Let Terry Rozier run into a (to be fair, contested) three in four seconds.
• Have Carmelo Anthony brick two free throws that would have protected them from complete disaster.
• Give Marcus Morris an open look to win the game with a three (they weren’t even looking for a two).

But you know what the real recipe is? You miss 10 free throws against a bad team, and 4 of them in the final minute of play. That’s how you suffer an inexcusable loss in an inexcusable moment to a team that is mostly playing out the string because their seeding is locked up.

Just when we thought we had something.

Next game: vs Miami Heat on Friday, March 23 at 7PM CST