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, Wednesday night we get the game of the season. This is the game looking to the future, but with teams winning now: The West-leading Oklahoma City Thunder head to Cleveland to take on the Cavaliers (7 p.m. ET, ESPN) 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 winning streak (Thunder) vs. a team on a 10-game winning 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 Thunder are 11-0 against the East this season, while the Cavaliers are 10-0 against the West.
• 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. That’s the headline for this game.
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 Kerr at Golden State.
What makes Oklahoma City so tough to score on is that they don’t roll out a bad defender in their starting rotation; there is no guy to target. The Thunder are physical, jump passing lanes, force turnovers and contest everything. 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 scariest thing about the Thunder is how they are this good, and Hartenstin and Holmgren have yet to play together.)
The other side of the court likely will 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 rebounds a game. He can knock down a 3 (36%), but what gets the Thunder offense going is when he heads downhill into the paint, where he can score or kick out to quality shooters. That’s where Mobley and Jarrett Allen come in; they have to keep SGA from owning the paint, which is much easier said than done. Jalen Williams is playing like an All-Star as a secondary shot creator, and he will be a problem for the Cavs.
To contain the Thunder, Cleveland has to take away OKC’s transition game — don’t turn the ball over, and get back off makes and misses.
Cleveland has a size advantage in this game, and the Thunder are willing defensively to concede 3-pointers (and corner 3s) to protect the paint. If a hot-shooting Cleveland can take advantage of that, they can win.
Oklahoma City is physical and comes at teams in waves — they came back on Boston and New York last week because OKC wore them down. Can Cleveland withstand the depth and defensive physicality?
This is the must-watch game of the NBA regular season. If you’re a fan who wants to know what June might look like in the NBA — and what the future looks like — this is the game to watch.
