It was a midseason battle between the two best NBA teams this season.
The Cleveland Cavaliers had rocketed to a 31-4 record. The Oklahoma Thunder came into the Wednesday night game on a 15-game win streak and an impressive 30-5 record. This looked to be an early preview of a potential NBA championship series this upcoming June. The game did not disappoint in front of a frenzied Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse crowd and a national TV audience as the Cavs won 129-122.
The game had a boxing match feel to it as each team traded blows with over 30 lead changes. But in the end, the Cavs had a few lasting punches to walk away with the victory.
The Cavaliers made the big plays
There were many big-time plays made by Cavs players throughout the game. The difference was the play of Cleveland’s big men, Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley, who knocked down shots in the paint and gobbled up rebounds to keep the Cavs in possession of the ball on multiple occasions in the closing minutes.
Allen finished with his customary double-double as he had 25 points and 11 boards on the night. Seven of those boards were on the offensive side of the ball and kept crucial Cavs possessions alive. Mobley finished with 21 points and he too had double-digit rebounds with ten.
Cleveland began the season by going 15-0 and had continued an impressive drive through the season as they racked up the wins. However, the national sports media had not given Cleveland much attention primarily because Cleveland is considered a small market in the sports world.
So it was an opportunity for the Cavs to show the world on national tv what they are made of and they certainly showcased that from the start.
Cleveland opened up a quick 6-0 lead behind opening three-pointers by Dean Wade and Darius Garland. But the Thunder stormed back quickly, and the rest of the game was a lot of little mini-runs by each team, so the leads by either team never grew by more than six or seven points.
At the end of the first quarter, Oklahoma City led 32-25. The Cavs star guard Donovan Mitchell struggled to get going as he went 0-for-6 from the floor. But other bench players like Max Strus and Ty Jerome got hot in the second quarter to help Cleveland stay close and eventually grab the lead at the break 62-59.
Struss had three 3-pointers and Jerome had seven points in a 37-point second quarter by the Cavs. Also, Allen had a big 15 points at the half as he was a menace in the paint. Strus finished the night with 17 points while Jerome had 15 points in just 11 minutes.
The second half was much of the same as both teams battled back and forth to try and get the upper hand. Every time you thought one team was gonna maybe go on a roll the other team fought back.
Early in the third period, Wade hit two more three-pointers to start the Cavs on a big 21-11 run as they took the lead 87-81 after having fallen behind 70-66. Wade, who often gets overlooked in the starting rotation finished with 11 points and continued to play outstanding defense throughout the game.
The Thunder got the lead back 94-92 in the latter stages of the third quarter. That lead was short-lived as Strus hit another big three-pointer and Mitchell had one too to close a high-scoring third quarter and give Cleveland the 103-102 lead.
The fourth quarter was tight as again each team battled for the lead. A flurry of buckets by Jerome again coming off the Cavs bench helped punch the lead back up to 114-107. Oklahoma City would counter a few more times but never got the lead back. Mitchell hit a big three-pointer to take the Cavs back up 123-118. The Thunder got to within two points again at 124-122 at the two-minute mark. But an aggressive post move by Cleveland big man Mobley got the lead to 127-122 and then with 27 seconds Cavs point guard Darius Garland secured the win with a nice bucket and the 129-122 final score.
With the win, Cleveland moves to 32-4 on the season and certainly should have more of the attention of the national media after this hard-fought win.
The Cavs are back on the court Thursday as they host the Toronto Raptors. Next Thursday, January 16th, the Cavs go to Oklahoma City to battle the Thunder which should be another epic battle of the two best teams in the NBA