Best of the East Meets Tops of the West; Offense Versus Defense, Cavs Prevail
By Teodoro Medina Reynoso
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 10 Jan 2025
The best of the East met the top from the West featuring offense versus defense.
The Eastern best team Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the visiting Western topnotcher Oklahoma City, 129-122 employing a balanced offense to overcome the Thunder's vaunted defense.
It was only the third meeting in the league of two teams with winning streak of ten or more games The Cavs extended theirs to eleven while snapping OK'S winning skein at fifteen. The win also improved Cleveland's record in the Eastern Conference to 31-4, five games ahead of the second running Boston Celtics. Despite the loss, OKC remains on top of the Western Conference at 30-5, also five games in front of the Houston Rockets.
As usual, Cleveland had seven players in double figures led by the front court duo of Jarett Allen and Evan Mobley who scored 25 points and 21 points, respectively, while combining for 22 rebounds. They were supported by fellow starters Darius Garland with 18 points, Dean Wade and Donovan Mitchell with 11 points apiece.
Demonstrating Cav's fire-power, Max Struss and Ty Jerome came off the bench for 18 points and 15 points respectively while Caris Levert added 8 points.
For OKC, Shai Gilgeous Alexander led the scoring as usual with 31 points. He was backed up by fellow starters Jaylin Williams who scored 25 points and Isiah Hertenstein with 18 points plus 11 rebounds aside from both leading the team in assist at 9 and 8 respectively. Carson Wallace tossed in 15 points but Lue Dorf could only come up with 7 points.
Actually, both teams shot well from the field including the three points area with above 40 percent shooting but Cleveland had more attempts and connections which more than offset OKC's slightly better rebounding, ball stealing and blocking.
Had OKC won, it would have beaten all three Eastern top teams having earlier beaten New York and recently Boston whom the Thunder limited to their lowest second half scoring in a 105-92 comeback home win.
Though the win maintained the Cavs as the league's overall best team, Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson downplayed it as just one of the 82 games of the full season schedule and as not indicative of how things will go if ever the two advance to the NBA Finals.
OKC also continues to miss its main big man Chet Holmgren who is still recuperating from injury.
The two teams will meet again next week with OKC hosting the Cavs.
The author Teodoro Medina Reynoso is a veteran boxing radio talk show host living in the Philippines. He can be reached at teddyreynoso@yahoo.com and by phone 09215309477.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Teodoro Medina Reynoso.
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