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Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Donovan Mitchell.
League-best offense vs. league-best defense.
In a season where fans have seemed to fixate on the fading stars of the past, this is the game of the season. This is the game looking to the future: The West-leading Oklahoma City Thunder head to Cleveland to take on the Cavaliers in a showdown of the two best teams in the NBA this season. The numbers don’t do this game justice:
• It’s the first-ever meeting of a team on a 15-game win streak (Thunder) vs. a team on a 10-game win streak (Cavaliers).
• It’s the 31-4 Cavaliers — on a 72-win pace — against the 30-5 Thunder, the first-ever interconference meeting between teams with an .850 winning percentage or higher.
• The last time two teams won 30 of their first 35 games in the same season was 1971-72 (Lakers and Bucks).
This is a potential NBA Finals preview (Oklahoma City beat the other big threats out of the East in Boston and New York last week). It’s also a showdown of the best offense in the NBA in the Cavaliers, against the Thunder’s best defense in the league.
Cleveland’s offense starts with the guard tandem of Mitchell and Darius Garland, but what has put it over the top is the emergence of Evan Mobley as a shot-creating, floor-spacing big under head coach Kenny Atkinson. There is a lot more ball and player motion under the new coach, a sign of what he learned as an assistant under Steve Kerry in Golden State.
What makes Oklahoma City tough to beat is that they don’t roll out a bad defender in their starting rotation, they are physical, jump passing lanes and force turnovers. They can switch anything if they want, and they have Isaiah Hartenstein waiting in the paint to clean up any mistakes. This is a game where they will miss having Alex Caruso coming off the bench (hip injury). It’s also a game where they will miss Chet Holmgren as a matchup for Mobley.
The other side of the court will likely decide this game — OKC’s eighth-ranked offense vs. Cleveland’s eighth-ranked defense.
It starts with Gilgeous-Alexander, who is playing at an MVP level averaging 31.3 points, 6.1 assists and 5.6…
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Author : NBC Sports
Publish date : 2025-01-08 15:44:00
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