With Shai Gilgeous-Alexander taking an absence, Malcolm Brogdon knows that he and the Boston Celtics went too complacent last Tuesday against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Brogdon, who dropped 17 points off the bench, spoke to reporters following the OKC’s 150-117 demolition win over Boston and admitted that they should have kept that aggression going in despite the unavailability of the home team’s best player.
“We took a deep breath and relaxed,” Brogdon said upon knowing that they will face an SGA-less Thunder, via Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe. “Honestly we should know better than to come out and not play with aggression, not play with energy and urgency.”
Gilgeous-Alexander sat out of Tuesday’s game due to a non-COVID illness. As he is being highly touted as one of the deadliest guards in the NBA – glorified by his fifth-ranked scoring average of 30.8 points within the league – his nonexistence was an expected key for Boston to easily pick up the win in Oklahoma City.
Instead, the young and gritty OKC troop hammered a shocker on the NBA’s current top team in a collective effort. Five different players have scored double-digit marks on the match en route to an overwhelming 150 points – a franchise-high since moving to Oklahoma in the 2008-2009 season.
OKC also dropped 48 points in the third quarter – a franchise record. They also manhandled the Cs within the pain and capitalized on the inactivity of Rob Williams III, scoring 70 points compared to the 46 by Boston.
Connecting a robust 59.2 percent of their 98 field goal attempts, the Thunder were able to pull away an emphatic victory against the Boston team that poses one of the best offense-defense combinations around the league.
Brogdon and the Cs will look to snap their two-game losing skid as they are set for a marquee showdown with Luka Doncic and the Mavericks on Thursday in Dallas.
