BOSTON -- With 20 seconds left Tuesday night, the Oklahoma City Thunder led the Boston Celtics by six. And, well, spoiler alert, the Celtics won the game.
The road to what could be a costly collapse by the Thunder was pretty straightforward, too. It started with Jayson Tatum finishing a mostly uncontested layup, then Russell Westbrook split two free throws with 16.8 seconds left to give OKC a five-point lead. The Celtics' Terry Rozier drilled an open but very deep 3-pointer, then Carmelo Anthony missed both free throws, setting up what felt like the inevitable.
It really was just a matter of who was going to hit the game-winning 3 for the Celtics -- Al Horford felt like the most likely candidate -- but after a scramble, the ball settled in Marcus Morris' hands on the right wing. A quick pump fake to clear one defender and then a launch over the outstretched hand of Steven Adams, and it was all net.
The Thunder still had 1.2 seconds to work with, and Westbrook has downed one opponent with just a second on the clock already this season (the Sacramento Kings). This one caught front iron, and what seemed like an ugly but necessary win for the surging Thunder turned into a calamitous 100-99 loss, especially in the jammed Western Conference.
Entering the day, teams that led by five or more in the final 20 seconds of the game were 884-0. Make that 884-1.
For shame for the Thunder, too, who after about 43 minutes of quite terrible basketball played in their prototypical haze turned up the offensive execution. Paul George drilled a walk-up 3 to put the Thunder up two with five minutes to go, with Anthony following it a possession later with one from the wing. Westbrook found Anthony again in almost the exact same spot for another 3, which answered a Tatum 3 that was extra spicy with an ankle-break of Corey Brewer mixed in.
With everyone in the building expecting a heat-check from Anthony, he turned down the spot-up 3 to find Brewer in the corner for a splashdown. It was set to be a seventh straight win for the Thunder and a solid road follow-up to one of the season's top triumphs, a road win in Toronto on Sunday.
Instead, it was the alternative. Not that the loss was completely unexpected -- the Thunder have made a habit out of head-scratching losses this season -- but it became pretty stunning considering how in hand the game was. The Celtics obviously scrapped, and the shots that had to go in did, but this was more of a Thunder disaster than it was a Celtics success. But that's the season for OKC in a nutshell: two steps forward and one step back, with the responsibility of it all hanging almost exclusively on themselves.
The Thunder missed a heap of opportunities to extend a lead, but the first half was rugged in the perfect kind of Boston way, with offensive possession attrition for both teams. The Thunder were sloppy, taking rushed shots and, at times, just throwing it straight out of bounds. The swings for the Thunder can be drastic from night to night -- from an effortless 132 points going up in Toronto on Sunday to what happened in Boston on Tuesday -- but that's the nature of featuring an offense against inconsistently efficient players.
It was the kind of game screaming for a Westbrook takeover, with him either winning it or losing it mostly on his own. And it was obvious that he realized the same thing late in the third when he cranked a pull-up 3. Billy Donovan typically leaves Westbrook in when he gets rolling a bit, but this time, he oddly subbed out the reigning MVP with two minutes left in the third. The result was a mini-run by the Celtics to close the quarter, cutting OKC's lead to two on a Shane Larkin banked buzzer-beater.
Without Kyrie Irving, who will get a second opinion on his sore knee, the Celtics played scrappy, creating turnovers and staying after Westbrook with multiple defenders. It appears to be touchy territory for the Celtics, but as Brad Stevens said pregame, they've been fortunate to create a "cushion" in the standings early in the season.
But his group knows how to play together and has a way about them that can find just enough when needed. It was patchwork, with Rozier doing a little, Larkin providing a spark, Morris scoring here and there, Horford hitting some shots in the third and Tatum carrying the heaviest offensive burden. The defense was stout. They hit their free throws and minimized mistakes. They made the Thunder execute and make shots.
It's an annoying question to ask whether this team lost the game or the other team won it, but with the way Tuesday's contest went, it's kind of hard not to look at the Thunder losing it much more than the Celtics winning it. And the Thunder can't afford to be giving games away. The Celtics probably have already waved goodbye to the top seed in the East, but their position as No. 2 is solid and basically secured. They know their spot and are more focused on health as they head into the postseason than anything else.
The Thunder, though, are caught in the whirlpool of the West and in a position where every game matters. They turned in an ugly opening 43 minutes and appeared to have salvaged it with five very good ones. They just forgot about those pesky final 20 seconds.