4 stories from the Cavs win over OKC on Saturday

Sometimes basketball games aren’t the prettiest to watch. Saturday night was one of those times for the Cleveland Cavaliers as they got by an Oklahoma City Thunder team that kept crawling back all night. The Cavs prevailed 94-87.

Some expressed afterward that the Cavs would have lost a game like this in the past. But this season is much different than the previous ones. This year, the team now holds a 28-19 record and is in fifth place in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. There are so many positives to this team. So many great moments and things that make this group such a likable bunch and the most exciting thing going on in Cleveland sports right now.

Saturday night’s game was one where the Cavaliers kept building leads of 11 or 18 points only to have the Thunder continue to push back and close those gaps. It took a few made free throws in the closing seconds by Cavs guard Darius Garland to finally make the last surge by the Thunder at the end.

There were also bad moments for the Cavs last night as their big man Lauri Markkanen went down in the second quarter with a high ankle sprain, and is reportedly expected to be out for “a while,” per Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor.

The pressure of being in the spotlight and winning now may at times get to this young and talented Wine and Gold squad. That seemed to be the case last night, as the team seemed out of sorts. There was also the issue of free throws where the Cavs players couldn’t hit the ocean with their attempts.

They finished going 18 for 35. That’s right, they missed 17 free throws. When I’ve coached middle school basketball teams in my past, my players didn’t do that poorly. That was 17 points that the team left off the board and likely would have made their efforts in the game much less stressful if they had concentrated on the line.

I’m imagining the Cavaliers players are on the line this morning shooting 100 of them and running laps when they don’t hit two in a row. The Cavs will have to focus more on those free opportunities at the line if they are going to make a playoff push.

With that, there were far more positives in the game last night not to recognize in this game, so let’s look at a few of those.