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In a reunion with his former Boston teammates, Kendrick Perkins and the Oklahoma City Thunder got just the kind of victory he enjoys most.
Kevin Durant had 23 points and 10 rebounds, Russell Westbrook scored 15 points and Thunder beat the Celtics 91-79 on Sunday to stretch their winning streak to five games.
Boston was able to slow the Thunder from their best-in-the-NBA scoring pace of 107 points per game, but Oklahoma City’s lowest output since Jan. 13 was still enough to come out ahead in this one.
”I told the guys coming into this game that it’s going to be one of those low-scoring games, one of those nights that we have to grind out, so that’s what we did,” said Perkins, who won the 2008 NBA title with Boston. ”Every night, we can’t go out and expect to put up 100 points and the score to be 120-100. Some nights, it’s going to be like this.”
The Thunder limited Boston to 25 percent shooting in the second half after the Celtics shot 51 percent in the first. Boston dropped off to 33 percent in the third quarter and all the way down to 18 percent in the fourth, when the game got away…
Paul Pierce had 20 points to lead Boston, which had its own run of five straight wins broken. Kevin Garnett chipped in 10 points and 11 rebounds.
The Celtics finished at 38 percent shooting for the game with 19 turnovers, more than four above their average, while falling to 14-5 since All-Star Rajon Rondo’s season-ending knee injury…
Martin added 12 points off the bench for Oklahoma City, which moved to 28-4 at home.
— Reported by Jeff Latzke of the Associated Press
