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Bleacher Report’s Grant Hughes sees the Boston Celtics as the second-biggest threat to dethroning the Oklahoma City Thunder as NBA champions. Hughes asserted that only the San Antonio Spurs pose a greater threat to the Thunder than Boston.
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“Jayson Tatum’s return injects some wild-card energy into a potential Finals matchup between the Boston Celtics and Thunder,” Hughes wrote on Sunday.
“Tatum is not an unknown commodity. He won a ring in 2024 and was named to the All-NBA team the four seasons before that. His late-season reintroduction to a Celtics team that seemed to thrive without him and already has fringe MVP contributions from Jaylen Brown makes Boston a threat to everyone.”
“The March 12th meeting in Oklahoma City didn’t say much because neither Tatum nor Derrick White suited up for the Celtics,” Hughes continued. “On the other side, Isaiah Hartenstein and Jalen Williams were out with injuries. In that game, the Thunder won by two points. We know that nearly half of the relevant playoff starters didn’t participate.”
“In theory, Boston’s championship experience and surplus of defenders could at least give it some real selling points against SGA,” Hughes added. “It’s going to require young players like Hugo Gonzalez, Jordan Walsh and Baylor Sherman to perform well against an unstoppable team like the Thunder, but Boston saw the performance of those three in the regular season. If Boston has an exploitable weakness, the big man rotation could become quite inconsistent behind Nemeans Queta.”
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Contrary to Hughes’ final assessment, Luka Garza has been great for the Celtics recently, scoring 22 points against the Memphis Grizzlies the night before.
Overall, though, it makes sense for Hughes to rank the Celtics as the Thunder’s second most worrisome threat.
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