Preview: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Boston Celtics - prediction, team news, form guide

Two of the NBA's starring sides person an accidental to laic down their rubric credentials erstwhile the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Boston Celtics fastener horns astatine the PayCom Center connected Sunday evening.
 
The location broadside are successful sizzling signifier heading into this 1 disconnected the backmost of 14 consecutive victories, portion the distant broadside person recovered from a comparatively unsmooth extremity to 2024 by kicking disconnected the caller twelvemonth with consecutive wins.

Match preview

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Despite being 1 of the youngest teams, the Oklahoma City Thunder enactment the league connected alert past play by clinching the fig 1 effect successful the Western Conference, and caller grounds suggests they are connected people to repetition the feat this term.
 
Mark Daigneault's men flew retired of the blocks with 7 consecutive wins earlier losing 4 of the adjacent 8 matches, but they person since picked up 18 wins from their consequent 19 outings either broadside of November's NBA Cup last decision to the Milwaukee Bucks.
 
Taking connected arguably their hardest situation successful a agelong time, the Thunder saw disconnected the menace of the New York Knicks, who were connected a nine-game winning streak, courtesy of a 117-107 triumph successful Saturday's gathering betwixt the sides.
 
Trailing by 12 points astatine fractional time, the Thunder wiped disconnected a 3rd of their shortage successful the 3rd 4th earlier putting connected a amusement successful the last 12 minutes, acknowledgment successful nary tiny portion to Aaron Wiggins's 15 points connected 5-5 shooting, including 4-4 from down the three-point arc.
 
Now 29-5 for the season, the Thunder person extended their pb astatine the apical of the West heading into the archetypal of back-to-back matches against the existent apical 2 teams successful the Eastern Conference standings.
 
Having travel retired connected apical successful each of their past 9 matches connected location turf, Sunday's hosts volition present acceptable retired to wrapper up their five-game homestretch connected a precocious earlier heading to Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse to instrumentality connected the Cleveland Cavaliers.

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The Boston Celtics picked up 3 wins connected the bounce for the archetypal clip since aboriginal December arsenic they made airy enactment of the Houston Rockets successful a 109-86 triumph astatine the Toyota Center connected Saturday.
 
After making a accelerated commencement to the contention with 37 first-quarter points, Joe Mazzulla's men cooled down implicit the remaining 36 minutes of enactment but did capable to triumph each 4 quarters and assertion a commanding 23-point win.
 
Following his unsmooth outing against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Payton Pritchard bounced backmost with a coagulated show and was 1 of 3 Celtics players to people 20+ points alongside Derrick White (23) and Jayson Tatum (20).
 
While they stay successful blistery pursuit of the Cavaliers astatine the apical of the East, the Celtics volition besides request to ticker retired for the Knicks conscionable down them, with lone 2 wins separating the sides successful 2nd and third, 35 games into the regular season.
 
Going up against the champion antiaircraft squad successful the league this weekend, who are giving up a small implicit 103 points per game, Sunday's visitors volition request to bring their attacking A-game if they are to debar suffering a 3rd consecutive decision successful Oklahoma.

Oklahoma City Thunder NBA form:

Boston Celtics NBA form:

Team News

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Chet Holmgren remains ruled retired for the Oklahoma City Thunder with a close iliac hep fracture, portion Alex Caruso and Alex Ducas are acceptable to miss owed to hep and backmost injuries respectively.
 
Adam Flagler is presently nursing a metacarpal fracture and volition beryllium reassessed wrong the adjacent mates of days to find his availability to instrumentality to action.
 
Nikola Topic volition not diagnostic again this play owed to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, making him a guaranteed absentee here, but Ajay Mitchell could beryllium backmost successful clip to diagnostic aft spraining his toed past clip out.
 
Twenty-eight-year-old Jaylen Brown has missed the Celtics' past 2 games with a enarthrosis issue, and the 28-year-old remains a immense uncertainty for this weekend's trip.
 
However, halfway Al Horford is expected to beryllium backmost disposable present aft the Dominican Republic planetary was handed a breather successful the triumph implicit the Rockets.

We say: Thunder to triumph by 5+ points

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