Boston easily put the game out of reach within three quarters.
When the final buzzer sounded, the score stood at 128-107.
The Celtics comfortably took G1 with a massive 21-point margin.
Jayson Tatum secured G1 MVP honors with 33 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists~~
Poor Donovan Mitchell, meanwhile, once again scored 29 points in a losing effort in the playoffs.
The next matchup to get underway was the Oklahoma Thunder against the Sacramento Kings.
The Kings had an excellent roster and tremendous bench depth. In any other year, they would absolutely have qualified as an elite powerhouse.
Unfortunately, the Thunder Team standing before them not only had all those same strengths, but were considerably better!
Your core was Fox and Little Sabonis.
Mine was Alexander paired with Brow!
Your role players were Big Joe, Wagner, and Monk.
My "role players" were Westbrook! Cunningham! Barrett!
Your bench had Barnes and Hield.
Mine had Bane and Grimes.
On paper alone, the Thunder already held a comprehensive advantage in everything from the quality of their stars to their roster depth and supporting cast.
Under those circumstances, winning was an almost absurdly difficult task for the Kings.
Almost the entire game played out exactly as the Thunder Team had expected.
The final score stood at 130-117.
They had not wrapped things up effortlessly within three quarters the way the Celtics had.
But the way the Thunder won might have been even more outrageous.
The Celtics had relied on sheer ability, using their utterly unreasonable "five-pronged assault" to destroy all the Pistons' resistance head-on.
The Thunder, meanwhile, maintained an iron grip on the pace of the game on top of their overwhelming advantage in every area.
For the Kings' players, the hardest part was the strange feeling they could vaguely sense: "The Thunder