The Celtics allowed a season-high 35 free throws to the Thunder in Wednesday’s 118-112 loss, the most surrendered by the team in a full calendar year. Boston is the second-best team in the NBA in defensive free throw rate, making the high volume free throw night a dramatic change of pace from the norm.
Boston also only attempted 12 free throws the entire night after taking a franchise record 63 3-point attempts. Oklahoma City’s edge of 23 free throw attempts undoubtedly led the visitors to a victory while helping them overcome a poor shooting second half (41 percent) on the road.
That sharp discrepancy earned the ire of many Celtics fans throughout the tough loss but Jayson Tatum refused to cast any blame on the officials for Boston’s defeat.
“Yeah, it’s tough,” Tatum said. “You’re not going to keep them off the line. They’re very intentional about that, and they have been all season. You’re not going to be the first team where they shoot 5 free throws or something crazy like that. But there is a balance between that and 35 free throws. Granted, some of them were fouls.
“Some of them we gotta be better at. But I’m not saying that’s why we lost or that’s the ref’s fault or anything like that. That’s how it’s going to be in the playoffs. So yeah, you want to match that intensity and you just want it to be the same on both sides. But that’s not why we lost. At all.”
Joe Mazzulla pointed to some lessons learned from the undisciplined defensive performance that could come in handy down the road in a potential NBA Finals matchup.
“You have to match the level of physicality,” Mazzulla said. “So you have to do that, but we foul a 3-point shooter at the end of the quarter, we jump on a pump fake, we don’t show our hands on a tendency drive. There’s a level of physicality that you have to play with. You also have to do your best to defend without fouling, so just a small balance there, but definitely ones that we could take away”
Jaylen Brown was one of the biggest foul culprits in the defeat, fouling out with just under four minutes remaining in the fourth quarter while attempting to intercept a pass.
“We’ve got to be smart and physical at the same time,” Brown said. “We know that they like to draw fouls with reach-ins and foul bait, so we’ve just got to be a little smarter. But also on offense got to be even more aggressive and physical.
“We shot a lot of 3s but at the same time getting to the basket, being physical on our drives even more, that could be something I could have done better. I think that’s something to definitely look at. Obviously we only play them twice a year and we dropped both games, but definitely some information we can learn from, so we take that information in stride and move forward.”
The Thunder were the only team to sweep Boston in their season series so far this year. Brown and the Celtics will get a chance to bounce back on Friday night as they begin a two-game road trip against Miami.
