Curling off Isaiah Hartenstein’s screen, Jalen Williams bumped Baylor Scheierman off him. The move created ample space at the elbow. Pulling up from the mid-range, the 24-year-old’s shot attempt didn’t have enough air behind it as it bricked the front of the rim. Million-dollar move, ten-cent finish.

The Oklahoma City Thunder saw their 12-game win streak ended in a 119-109 loss to the Boston Celtics. They weren’t able to come up with some big-time moments down the stretch.

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Williams finished with seven points on 2-of-9 shooting, three rebounds and three assists. He shot 0-of-3 from 3.

Yeah, it might be a minute before Williams is fully back to form. After the Philadelphia 76ers had him looking like his All-NBA self, the Celtics brought him back down to reality a bit. Williams couldn’t help out Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as he was mostly in the background of this one.

The Thunder need Williams to be more aggressive. You give him some leeway, considering it was his second game back, but time is running out for him to shape into form. You can’t have two of your recent All-Star players get outplayed by Boston’s role players, though.

As said ad nauseam, the Thunder have two big goals left — get the first seed and have Williams find a groove. This was a bad game for both. This comes with the territory of being out for so much time this regular season with a variety of injuries. Not much you can do about it now, but make the best of a bad situation.

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“Basketball is like a seesaw. You’ve got to find an equal balance of getting stops in order to kind of flow your offense a little bit. I think we got to be a little better in the half-court offensively,” Williams said. “When teams do score, we still have to be able to generate good looks and we didn’t do that well enough for the whole night.”

While the Thunder have been the NBA’s most dominant team, Williams has been sidelined for most of it. He’s been on the record several times that he’d easily take the trade-off of a championship ring for an injury-depleted regular season, but that doesn’t make the process any easier. Especially when most of his missed time is accounted for by a nagging soft-tissue injury.

“When you pull your hamstring or have the same injury twice, it’s like a mental obstacle of getting back into doing moves as explosive as you want. Obviously, I mentioned the minute restriction and all of that stuff,” Williams said. “Definitely not an excuse. Just something you get over. But that’s just what goes on throughout playing.”

Now, about OKC’s other big goal — capturing the first seed. Expect a thrilling finish. The San Antonio Spurs are just two games back from the Thunder. With three weeks to go, both sides will control what they can control and then scoreboard watch the other’s games.

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While Gilgeous-Alexander was pretty blunt about how important the first seed is, Williams doesn’t see it as a big urgency. At least for him. Right now, he’s focused on getting back into rhythm. Whatever happens after that, he’s fine with.

“For me personally, I don’t really focus on what other people are doing. If I’m being 100. Obviously, I’m not dumb. I know what the standings are. Wherever the chips fall, they fall,” Williams said. “I think for me personally, it’s how much better I can get back to myself and how much faster I can feel normal and getting confident when I play out there? Before we have to really win games. That’s a really big one for me.”

Losing at Boston isn’t a catastrophic result. The Celtics are viewed as a top-five team. And considering how the last time these two teams met played out, they likely had this one circled in their calendar. Still, OKC’s margin for error is paper-thin the rest of the way. They can stomach one — maybe two — more losses to keep the first seed.

Let’s see what happens.

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“It’s also a luxury. That’s what people want to see. That’s what we want. Where winning really matters in order to get homecourt advantage for the playoffs. It’s not San Antonio-based. It’s about how many wins we can get,” Williams said. “That’s what makes it fun and cool. That’s why it’s called the wild, wild West.”

This article originally appeared on OKC Thunder Wire: Jalen Williams doesn’t sense urgency for OKC Thunder to grab 1st seed