When these two teams met last week, the story was about how the Cavaliers’ offense overwhelmed the Thunder’s defense.
In Thursday’s rematch, the Thunder defense showed how elite it can be — and so did Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who scored 40 on the night.
EFFICIENT. EFFECTIVE. SHAI GILGEOUS-ALEXANDER.
⛈️ 40 PTS (in 29 minutes)
⛈️ 17-26 FGM
⛈️ 8 AST
⛈️ 2 STLThunder win the rematch and Shai becomes the 2nd player to score 40+ PTS in less than 30 minutes this season! pic.twitter.com/frjuKu3IAN
— NBA (@NBA) January 17, 2025
Oklahoma City’s pressure defense led to seven first-quarter Cavaliers turnovers, which let the Thunder get out in transition where they are the most dangerous. The result was a 22-2 Oklahoma City to end the first quarter that had them up by 18 points after 12 minutes. That lead jumped out to 25 in the second, and the game was never in doubt after that. OKC’s lead got as big as 42 before they cruised in for the 134-114 victory.
The Thunder defense held the Cavaliers to a 108.6 net rating for the game, 14.1 points per 100 below their league average.
This is an especially impressive win considering Oklahoma City was without both of its seven-footers — Isaiah Hartenstein and Chet Holmgren. This forced the Thunder to go small and switch everything, which threw the Cavaliers off despite having their own two seven-footers (Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen) on the court.
Lu Dort scored a season-high 22 points for OKC, while Jalen Williams added 19. Darius Garland had 20 points and nine assists for Cleveland.
