BOSTON — Not since Kevin Garnett returned to his old stomping grounds in December has an opposing player enjoyed a warmer TD Garden welcome than Kevin Durant did Wednesday night.
Durant made mincemeat of the Boston Celtics in his first visit to Causeway Street since 2012, racking up 28 points, nine assists and seven rebounds in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 130-109 win.
Had a star player like, say, Kobe Bryant or LeBron James — or even Durant’s OKC sidekick, Russell Westbrook — put up that kind of stat line, he would have been subjected to boos and jeers aplenty from the capacity Garden crowd.
But Boston fans would love to see Durant, an impending free agent, in Celtics green next season. So, they treated him a bit differently.
Rather than booing the former NBA MVP, the Celtics faithful pleaded with him, raining down chants of “Come to Boston” whenever Durant stepped to the free throw line.
Durant, who earlier in the day expressed his fondness for the city of Boston, said after the game he couldn’t make out the crowd’s message to him.
“I didn’t even hear that, man,” he said. “I couldn’t understand what they were saying. They said that?”
When informed that yes, the fans were saying he should come join the Celtics in free agency, Durant replied, “No thoughts, really. I’m just happy we won.”
The Thunder did win, and they won big, leading by as many as 30 and never trailing as they secured their sixth victory over the Celtics in their last seven meetings. Oklahoma City’s stars handled to bulk of the heavy lifting, with Durant and Westbrook combining for 52 points on 17-of-35 shooting.
Sixteen of those points came in the third quarter, during which the Thunder outscored the Celtics 42-26 to effectively put the game away.
“Well, I mean, hey, everybody’s got a vulnerability against Kevin Durant,” Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. “We all saw Russell Westbrook, I mean, he’s the fastest guy in the league, probably. Maybe (John) Wall. But at the end of the day, those guys are elite, elite athletes, and you’re going to have to adjust and change to them. You come in with a game plan, sometimes it feels great, sometimes it doesn’t. When Durant was out, we tried zone, we tried everything. And it just didn’t — nothing really stuck well enough.”
Thumbnail photo via David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports Images
