Kevin Durant And Thunder Lose "Favoritism" Rematch, Fall To Celtics 92-83
Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder were out to "settle a score" in a game against the Boston Celtics and forward Kevin Garnett, but it was not meant to be.
The Thunder suffered a blowout to the Celtics by a score of 92-83 in front of a packed house at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City.
Some may remember last April, after a surprising loss to the Thunder at the TD Garden, when Celtic forward Kevin Garnett "went off" during a press conference and lashed-out at game officials for what he claimed as "showing favoritism" for emerging NBA superstar forward Durant of the OKC Thunder.
Garnett was fined $25,000 by NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Stu Jackson for his expletive-laden tirade where he claimed that officials of the game showed bias toward Durant by calling more personal fouls for him that night than for the entire Boston Celtics team.
The official box score from that night showed that Durant actually shot 15 free throws compared to 17 for the entire Celtic team, provoking Garnett to proclaim: "I thought we were playing Michael Jordan tonight, the way he was getting the whistle." Garnett went on to say, "Durant damn near shot more free throws than our whole team."
Most Thunder fans thought that this would be perfect bulletin-board material to motivate the home team to a win over the Celtics, but it did not happen. The OKC Thunder never led in a game where it was obvious that teams like the Celtics have "too many guns" for a young Thunder team without the leadership of a proven veteran.
A star-studded Celtic team with arguably no less than five future NBA Hall-of-Famers (Garnett, S. O'Neal, Allen, Pierce, Rondo) and a host of other NBA greats (Nate Robinson, J. O'Neal, Glen "Big Baby" Davis) came into Oklahoma City and never once trailed in the first half before cruising to a 58-37 lead at halftime.
The Thunder tried to make a charge in the second half by outscoring the Celtics 37-15 in the third quarter and cut a 21-point halftime lead to 74-63 at the end the quarter, but ran out of time as the Celtics cruised on to victory.
Kevin Durant silenced the favoritism critics by netting 34 points and Russell Westbrook chipped-in 16 points, 10 assists and four steals.
Thunder coach Scott Brooks said, "In order to play with a team like the Celtics, we have to play good basketball for 48 minutes, and we didn't do that tonight."
Thunder forward Jeff Green and Celtic center Shaquille O'Neal both sat out of the game due to injury. Thunder second-year center Serge Ibaka got his first start and had a good game with eight points and 11 rebounds.
Thunder veteran center Nenad Krstic had 13 points and eight rebounds. Starting guard Thabo Sefolosha played 23 minutes and failed to scored again for the second time this season.
Ray Allen led the Celtics with 19 points, Paul Pierce had 17 points and Rajon Rondo tied Westbrook for game-high honors with 10 assists. The deciding factor in this game was how the Celtics bench outscored the Thunder bench by a total of 33-12.
Only 8 different teams have managed to win an NBA Championship since 1980. Those teams not in any particular order are: Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit Pistons, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers, Houston Rockets and the Miami Heat.
