For the second straight week, the NBA’s top two teams will face off in a massive regular- season matchup as the Cleveland Cavaliers take on the Oklahoma City Thunder Thursday night.
Watch the Cavs and Thunder LIVE tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET/ 4:30 p.m. PT with a subscription to TSN+.
The last game between the two juggernauts on Jan. 8 saw the Cavaliers (34-5) extend their win streak to 11, while ending the Thunder’s (33-6) 15-game win streak in a 129-122 victory in Cleveland. The game featured 30 lead changes and zero double-digit leads.
“It was just pure basketball,” said Cavs coach Kenny Atkinson after last week’s showdown. “Forget who won, who lost – it was just great. Great for the game.”
“It was a great game,” said Thunder coach Mark Daigneault postgame. “Great environment, great test for both teams. That was a good experience.”
The Thunder have won three in a row by an average of 27.3 points since their loss to the Cavs, while Cleveland has since split a home-and-home series with the Indiana Pacers.
This time, the Thunder will play host to the Cavs with Oklahoma City looking to extend their nine-game home winning streak. On the other side, Cleveland is the NBA’s best road team. They hold a 14-3 record away from Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse and have won six straight road games by an average margin of 15.8 points.
Canadian Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 31 points in the last meeting, adding five rebounds, four assists, three steals, and two blocks in another MVP-level effort.
The Hamilton, Ont., native surged ahead of Denver Nuggets’ superstar Nikola Jokic on the NBA MVP Ladder after averaging nearly 33 points in three consecutive games against the Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, and New York Knicks, the top-three teams in the East.
Gilgeous-Alexander is on pace to become just the third player to average 30+ points and 2+ steals in consecutive seasons.
The Thunder boast the NBA’s best defence and are on pace to become just the second team to lead the league in steals, opponent field goal percentage and opponent three-point percentage. Gilgeous-Alexander (2.03), Jalen Williams (1.77), and Cason Wallace (1.71) rank third, fifth, and sixth, respectively, in steals per game.
The Cavaliers have the NBA’s most powerful offence and are on pace to be the 12th team in NBA history to lead the league in field goal percentage and three-point percentage and first since the 2017-18 Golden State Warriors.
The Cavs backcourt of Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland are on track to join Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson as the only backcourt pair to each average 20+ points on 40 per cent three-point shooting in a season.
“It’s what the NBA’s about,” said Gilgeous-Alexander after the last meeting between the teams. “A chance to play the best teams, the best players in the world. It’s what you wake up for. It’s what you get excited for before you go to sleep.”
The Thunder are 22-2 with centre Isaiah Hartenstein in the lineup but will be without the big man tonight, as he has been ruled out with a calf injury.
Both teams are red-hot entering tonight’s potential NBA Finals preview. The Cavs are 18-1 in their past 19 games, while the Thunder are 17-2 in that same span.