The Thunder's first season in Oklahoma City has hit the final stretch. Oklahoma City began the countdown of the last 10 games with Sunday's loss at Boston.
With 20 wins on the ledger, the Thunder need just one victory to surpass the franchise's total during the last season in Seattle. "We just want to finish out strong," Oklahoma City forward Jeff Green said. "We have to focus on the defensive end. It's going to be tough because right now teams are picking it up, and we're sort of in a slump right now.
"But we've got to maintain our focus and get back to the way things were a couple of weeks ago and just finish out strong."
The latest setback leaves Oklahoma City just 1-5 in its last six games. The Thunder finish out their current road trip at San Antonio before hosting Portland on Friday. Of the last nine games, five are against Western Conference playoff contenders.
"We play against pretty good teams, playoff teams most of those games," center Nenad Krstic said. "We just need to look to get better... We can use these games to see where we're at right now."
CELTICS 103, THUNDER 84: The slump continued for Oklahoma City, which lost for the fifth time in six games Sunday at Boston. The Thunder dropped to 20-53 on the season and 6-30 on the road.
Oklahoma City led by as many as eight points in the third quarter and went into the fourth trailing just 71-68 before the Celtics peeled off a 15-5 run. The Thunder never really challenged from there.
Rookie point guard Russell Westbrook paced Oklahoma City with 23 points, with Kevin Durant adding 21. Paul Pierce scored 27 for Boston, which also got 19 points and 10 rebounds from Kevin Garnett replacement Glen Davis.
