Recap: Thunder at Cavaliers

By Nick Gallo and Paris Lawson | okcthunder.com

It was a clash of styles inside of Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The Thunder, who is one of the league leaders in pace, faced the Cleveland Cavaliers who are tied for the slowest pace in the NBA. Similarly, the Thunder rank in the Top 5 in points-in-the-paint per game while the Cavaliers boast the number one offensive rating and hold their opponents to the second-fewest paint points each night. 

Cleveland managed to impose its will throughout the first half – building up a lead of as many as 17 points. The second half, however, was a different story. OKC picked up its pace offensively and won the third quarter 26-23. The team extended its lead through the fourth thanks to a 17-4 Thunder run to erase the deficit completely and tie the game 89-89 with 6:52 left. 

Cleveland responded with a 10-0 run of its own to push the lead back out to double figures in the span of a few minutes and ultimately the Thunder fell 110-102.

Nick: On one early Cleveland possession, the Thunder stopped a few initial actions, then deflected the ball in the middle of the floor. The result was Cavaliers big man Jarrett Allen being forced to kick the ball out to the perimeter with less than five seconds left on the shot clock. Caris Levert ended up with the ball, but without enough time to line up a good look. He airballed the shot, resulting in the first of two shot clock violations the Thunder’s defense forced in the first quarter. 

Paris: Coming into the ball game, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had been averaging 10.7 points over the last six first quarters. After 12 minutes of action in Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse, the Thunder’s leading scorer kept that trend alive by posting 11 points with a balanced diet of buckets - from attacking the lane to getting to the free throw line with a perfect 3-for-3.

Paris: Aleksej Pokuševski using his size and length to his advantage as he serves as the roll man for the Thunder’s offense. As he took a seat with just under four minutes left in the first half, Pokuševski racked up a game-high 10 rebounds – a career high mark for the 7-footer in a half. All of those boards came against the twin towers of Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley in the lane. By the end of the night, Pokuševski registered his ninth career double-double with 16 points, 14 rebounds and even swatted away three blocks. 

Nick: Recently Mark Daigneault revealed that as the Thunder wants its players making quick decisions with the ball that generally when players catch the ball, the staff wants the players thinking: “shoot, then drive, then pass”. Tre Mann made two immediate decisions off the catch to drive to the lane. On the first one, he attacked all the way to the rim and scored. A few possessions later, he once again blew by a closeout and kicked the ball into the right corner for a wide open catch-and-shoot 3-pointer for Darius Bazley. 

Nick: After a missed 3-pointer by Cleveland’s Darius Garland, the Thunder executed an excellent fast break, playing precisely to its up-tempo, ball movement-focused offensive style. Josh Giddey started the fast break on the right hand side of the floor with a couple quick dribbles before firing the ball across mid-court to a slashing Lu Dort. As Dort caught, he saw Jalen Williams cutting in from the left side and immediately dished the ball to the rookie, who finished at the rim with a layup. Within seven seconds of Garland’s three-pointer going up, Cleveland was pulling the ball out of its own net with two more Thunder points on the board.

Paris: While Pokuševski reached double-figure rebounding in the first half, Thunder guard Josh Giddey took the crown in the second half. At the end of the third frame, Giddey registered 12 rebounds after pulling down seven boards in the third frame alone. The 6-foot-8 guard pulled down boards and helped to ignite the Thunder’s offense by breaking out in transition on his own. With 17 points at the end of the night, Giddey registered his 10th double-double of the season and 26th of his career. 

Nick: The Thunder hit four 3-pointers from the left corner in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter, including two each from Aleksej Pokuševski and Isaiah Joe. While the Thunder wasn’t electric shooting the ball from behind the arc, the group stayed with it and kept trusting the extra pass mentality that opened up those corner looks. With Cleveland’s defense over-extended, the closeouts were too far away to impact the Thunder’s shot attempts in that early quarter rhythm. While OKC’s starters were on the bench, the Thunder’s reserves gave the team a massive punch. 

Paris: After winning the third quarter 26-23, the Thunder came out of the gates strong in the final frame. The team’s run extended to 19-7 into the first four minutes of the fourth quarter to close its deficit to just four points with just under nine minutes left to play in the game. Even out of the timeout called by Cleveland, OKC kept the foot on the gas and stretched out its run 25-9 to tie the game at 89 with 6:52 left. 

“We strung some stops together and really moved the ball. A lot of it was because we were playing in transition off the stops. They did a good job sharing it and we didn't make a ton of shots up until that point and then we had a nice little flurry and the game came back around for us.” - Mark Daigneault 

“We played on their terms for a lot of that match. They’ve got a lot of big guys and they tend to slow it down and when they make it a slugfest like that, that falls into their hands. We fell into that trap a little bit tonight. We got down by 17 at one point and got it back to tie a tie game in the fourth. So credit to the guys, we fought and we gave ourselves every chance to win that game but I think we played on their terms for way too long.” - Josh Giddey

The Thunder’s longest road trip of the season, one that spans 5,000 miles and four time-zone changes, comes to a close in Dallas with a matchup with the Mavericks on Monday night. That will conclude the Thunder’s five-game trip, setting up a stretch of 11 out of 13 games at Paycom Center, including a six-game homestand.