The last two NBA champions — and current betting favorites to meet in this year’s Finals — squared off Thursday night in Oklahoma City.

The result: thriller worthy of the game’s biggest stage.

The Celtics pushed the Thunder to the brink despite playing without starters Jayson Tatum and Derrick White and key reserve Nikola Vucevic, but they could not complete what would have been their most impressive win of the season.

Free throws by OKC center Chet Holmgren broke a tie with 0.8 seconds remaining to secure a 104-102 victory for the defending champs.

Holmgren drew the decisive foul while battling Sam Hauser for a rebound after a missed Alex Caruso 3-pointer. Boston did not have a traditional big man on the floor at the time, and Holmgren used his 7-foot-1 frame to overpower the 6-foot-7 Hauser.

All of the Thunder’s other points in the final four minutes came on tough midrange jumpers from reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who hit contested shots from 14, 15 and 17 feet to ward off Boston’s upset bid. Gilgeous-Alexander led all scorers with 35 points on 13-of-18 shooting, breaking Wilt Chamberlain’s record for consecutive games with at least 20 points (127).

Jaylen Brown nearly matched OKC’s top star despite far less efficient shooting. Brown finished with 34 points, seven assists and six rebounds, going 13-for-14 from the foul line to offset a 10-for-25 showing from the field. His 19-foot turnaround jumper tied the game at 102-102 with 23 seconds remaining.

It was the second time in two games that a severely shorthanded Celtics team gave a Western Conference power a scare. In Tuesday’s 125-116 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, they trailed by one midway through the fourth quarter with Payton Pritchard and Vucevic inactive and Brown ejected before halftime.

Baylor Scheierman and Pritchard started in place of Tatum (Achilles injury management) White (right knee contusion) on Thursday, and Luka Garza continued to see big minutes in place of Vucevic, who is out until at least late March after undergoing surgery on his fractured ring finger.

Pritchard scored 14 points in his first start since Feb. 1, including a halftime buzzer-beater, but missed on a would-be game-winning heave as time expired. Scheierman had 11 points, five assists and seven rebounds, including three of the Celtics’ 12 offensive boards.

Their three-game road trip now complete, the Celtics will play six of their next seven games at TD Garden. That stretch begins with a matchup against the woeful Washington Wizards on Sunday (6 p.m.) and ends with a home rematch against OKC on Wednesday, March 25.

Brown shot just 2-for-7 from the field in the first quarter and picked up two fouls, but he also notched two early steals against a Thunder team that rarely turns the ball over, with both leading to transition buckets at the other end. Pritchard hit two stepback midrange jumpers in the opening three minutes, and Hauser hit a 3-pointer off a Scheierman offensive rebound.

But Boston’s biggest first-quarter difference-makers were a pair of young bench players: Ron Harper Jr. and Hugo Gonzalez.

Harper, fresh off a career-best 22-point outing in Tuesday’s loss to San Antonio, drove for a reverse layup shortly after checking in. Gonzalez followed with back-to-back makes at the rim — one a putback after his initial shot was blocked, the other a cutting layup off a mid-air pass from Brown. Later in the quarter, Harper buried a three, then stole the ball away from Gilgeous-Alexander. Gonzalez capitalized on the ensuing fast break to put Boston ahead 28-27.

Gonzalez and Harper combined to score 11 of their team’s 28 first-quarter points.

With Tatum, White and Vucevic not in uniform and Brown and Neemias Queta both in early foul trouble, the Celtics closed the opening period with a lineup of Gonzalez, Scheierman, Harper, Jordan Walsh and Garza — all five of whom were not NBA rotation players last season.

Boston then opened the second quarter with a three by Walsh and consecutive putbacks by Walsh and Garza. Walsh, who’d played just one total minute over the Celtics’ last three games, also drew an offensive foul during that stretch and hit another 3-pointer two minutes later.

Those plays were part of a 17-4 run — the bulk of which came with Gilgeous-Alexander on the bench — that stretched Boston’s lead to 43-31.

The Thunder rallied once their centerpiece superstar reentered, ripping off an 11-0 run to vault back in front with 2:25 to play in the first half. But the Celtics used a barrage of 3-pointers to retake the lead before halftime — first Garza, then Gonzalez, then Scheierman and finally Pritchard, who drilled another of his patented buzzer-beaters to make it 59-56.

It was Pritchard’s seventh made field goal with zeroes on the clock this season, six of which have come since the start of 2026.

One word to describe Boston’s first half: balance. Other than Queta, who was held scoreless (and then sat behind Garza to begin the second half), the other nine Celtics who saw the floor all scored between five and 10 points over the first 24 minutes. Six different players registered an offensive rebound.

Brown took charge in the third quarter, pouring in 14 points as the Celtics kept the Thunder at bay. Gonzalez’s relentless defense and rebounding also caused problems for OKC, which led for just 46 seconds in the quarter.

Jared McCain sank a go-ahead 3-pointer early in the fourth off a Pritchard turnover, but Brown responded by blocking a top-of-the-key three by Holmgren and racing for a fast-break dunk.

In another key sequence, Jaylinn Williams appeared to put the Thunder in front with a clutch and-one layup, only to have it negated when a successful Celtics challenge revealed Williams had pushed off on Pritchard. For the first eight-plus minutes of the fourth quarter, neither team held a lead larger than three points.

Gilgeous-Alexander ended that streak when he converted a second-chance midrange jumper over Gonzalez to make it 98-84 with 3:21 to play. And that didn’t hold for long. Queta drew a foul on the ensuing possession and made both free throws, and Pritchard tied it up with a long two as the shot clock expired.

It was one of just three jump shots Boston made in the fourth quarter.

Other observations:

— Why didn’t Tatum, who started the previous three games after returning from Achilles surgery last Friday, suit up for this one? Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla said the DNP was part of his reintegration process.

“You just trust the people around him,” Mazzulla said in a pregame interview with Amazon Prime sideline reporter Cassidy Hubbarth. “You trust the sports science team. You trust his training. You trust his work ethic and everything that helped him get to this point. You just trust those things, and the most important thing is he continues to get healthy and continues to stay healthy as we continue to get better as a team.”

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