It was not all doom, gloom, and frustration for the Boston Celtics in the wake of their 127-123 road loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder on Tuesday night. Veteran Boston big man Al Horford had high praise for his former ball club, and star Celtics center Kristaps Porzingis also seemed impressed with the team his club fell to — as well as Boston’s response to struggles in their matchup vs. the Thunder.
“That’s a talented young team, and I don’t believe this was some fluke game for them,” said the Latvian big man postgame via ESPN staff writer Tim McMahon.
“They’ve been playing really well. They’re at the top of the West, no?,” asked Porzingis. “So a really good team to go up against and a really good experience for us.”
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The Celtics still need to respond to the sort of droughts that ultimately put them into too much of a deficit to recover faster and perhaps more creatively than they have to date, as this close loss serves to illustrate.
But it’s hard to get too upset about a team that is still the league leader in terms of winning percentage a handful of games shy of the midpoint of the season. They may yet have work to do to become the best version of themselves, but they certainly aren’t all that far off, either.
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