Despite regularly being bombarded by disrespectful takes and slanderous commentary over these past few weeks, Wednesday night, the OKC Thunder managed to ace arguably their biggest test of the season by taking down the surging reigning champion Boston Celtics on the road out at TD Garden.
Behind the attention-grabbing efforts of MVP front-runner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (34 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds), Oklahoma City pulled out a tightly contested 118-112 win, which not only further distanced them from the rest of the threats in the Western Conference but officially punched their ticket to the postseason.
As of this writing, they join the Cleveland Cavaliers as the only other team to have secured a playoff berth and, with this, have many former non-believers pegging them as the favorites to come away with this year's Larry O'Brien Trophy.
Of course, not all have been completely swayed by OKC's recent triumph over the defending champs.
In fact, on a recent episode of First Take, former NBA big and current ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins made it abundantly clear that he's still taking the Celtics as his pick to win it all, as he highlighted one particular factor that he believes would have changed the entire matchup and ripple-effect storylines between Boston and the Thunder.
"I don't have them beating the Boston Celtics. I have to remind people, although it was a great game last night, although Chet Holmgren rose to the occasion, SGA set the tone and dominated the game... the Boston Celtics were missing a key piece -- Kristaps Porzingis. He is so crucial to their offense. He provides balance. We're talking about one of the best post-up guys in the NBA... You look at last night. Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein both had it their way. I think defensively, you bring a 7-3 Kristaps Porzingis back it's a difference-maker," Perkins said.
Kendrick Perkins glosses over how Thunder were short-handed vs Celtics
Without a doubt, it's easy to see how Perkins may have a point about why Boston playing Oklahoma City without Kristaps Porzingis impacted the game. After all, a team missing one of their top-three core weapons is never an ideal situation to be in.
However, what's infuriating about this take is that he so carelessly glossed over the fact that the Celtics weren't the only short-handed team that night. The Thunder were also missing their second-best player, Jalen Williams, who is out of the rotation for at least the next two games due to a recently sustained hip injury.
While the frontcourt being without the menacing and multi-faceted talents of Porzingis and his averages of 18.9 points and 1.6 blocks per game on 40.3 percent shooting from deep may have been a grave absence for Boston, there's a strong case to be made that playing without J-Dub has an even greater impact on the Thunder.
While he's clearly their second-best scoring weapon with averages of 21.3 points per game and has been a true Swiss Army Knife talent for coach Mark Daigneault this year, of those who have played in over 35 games this year he also ranks second on the team behind just SGA in win shares (6.9) and PER (20.1).
Add this to the fact that during their previous tilt against one another when both Porzingis and Williams were available, it was Oklahoma City (who were Chet Holmgren-less at the time, by the way) who came away with a 105-92 win, and it only reinforces the notion that this argument Perkins laid out for why he's "absolutely" taking the C's over the Thunder is short-sighted and poorly thought out.