The OKC Thunder at home today face a lacking Boston Celtics. The Thunder are sitting in 1st place in the west with a record of 25-7, while Boston is at 8th place in the east with a satisfactory record of 15-16. The Thunder got an exciting win against Denver in overtime (124-118) on February 19 with Durant and Westbrook scoring 91 points combined. Durant had a big 51 point game, and Westbrook not too far away had a 40 point game. The Thunder also won against the New Orleans Hornets on February 20th, and tonight they try to go for 11 straight wins at home. The statistics here don't really play a big role in tonight's game, although keep in mind that Kevin Durant is 0-4 and the OKC Thunder are 0-3 at home against the Boston Celtics. With that fact in the back of my mind, the Boston Celtics are not the championship caliber team they were in 2008. Tonight the Celtics are without Rajon Rondo who is suspended for throwing the ball at a referee, Jermaine O'neal is out with a wrist injury, Chris Wilcox is out with a groin injury, and Brandon Bass is also out with a knee injury. To add to that, Doc Rivers said he is only going to play Kevin Garnett 35 minutes and give Greg Stiemsma the start for Jermaine O'neal. Westbrook and Durant are scoring machines, Ibaka is playing stand out defense and with James Harden possibly coming back today from a sprained ankle I see the Thunder winning this game straight up with a good chance of covering an 8.5 point spread.
Result: At 7 minutes left in the 1st quarter, Boston gained a 15-5 lead. Watching how Boston started off despite it only being the start of the game, I thought the trend of Boston winning on the road in Oklahoma City could be a strong possibility. But with all the injuries and the limitless scoring options OKC has, OKC was up 72-49 at the half. By the 4th quarter, the Celtics fought their way back and found themselves only down by 7 with 3 minutes left in the 4th. Kevin Durant lead the Thunder to an 11-2 run in the last 2 minutes to finish off the Celtics at a final score of 119-104. Kevin Durant finished the game with 28 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists and 4 steals. Russell Westbrook finished the game with 31 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists. Paul Pierce finished with 23 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists and Kevin Garnett in 38 minutes finished with 23 points and 13 rebounds.
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