After winning their first game of the season’s second half on Thursday night at The Q, the Wine and Gold hit the road for a big-time Sunday afternoon matinee in Oklahoma City.
Since falling to the Cavaliers back on December 19 in Cleveland, the Thunder have gone 23-6, including 14-3 over their last 17 games. On Friday night, the Thunder dropped a heartbreaker to the Pacers – with Monta Ellis canning a three-pointer with 18 seconds to play as OKC relinquished a seven-point lead in the final three minutes.
In the Cavaliers’ first game out of the Break, they beat up a shorthanded Bulls squad on Wednesday night at The Q for their fourth straight win. In those four victories, no Cavs opponent has led the game at any point past the first quarter and in their last three, no opponent has gotten closer than nine points in the fourth.
Things won’t come anywhere as easy on Sunday afternoon against a team that had won nine straight at Chesapeake Energy Arena before Indy’s upset on Friday.
After squaring off against each other in last Sunday’s All-Star Game, two of the game’s greatest players – Kevin Durant and LeBron James – will get after it again this Sunday in OKC.
After an injury-plagued season last year, Durant has returned to MVP form. Heading into the matchup with Cleveland, Durant has scored 20-plus points in 40 straight games, the longest current streak in the NBA. This year, the Thunder are 37-11 with Durant – who’s averaging 32.6 ppg over his last five outings – in the lineup. In OKC’s mid-December loss to the Cavs, Durant finished with 25 points on 7-for-17 shooting.
After a pretty quiet All-Star Game for LeBron, he came out strong against Chicago on Thursday night, barely missing his second triple-double of the season with 25 points, nine boards and nine assists. The four-time MVP was excellent against OKC in their first meeting of the season – netting a game-high 33 points to go with nine boards and 11 helpers. In 22 career matchups against the Thunder, LeBron is averaging 29.7 ppg, tied for his highest scoring mark against any team (Boston).
Kyrie Irving had his three-year string of All-Star appearances snapped due to his abbreviated first-half of the season, but despite the snub, Irving went into the Break playing at an All-Star level.
The man he’ll match up with on Sunday afternoon, Russell Westbrook, was named to this year’s All-Star squad, and he proceeded to take his second straight MVP award at the contest’s conclusion.
Irving finished with 19 points in the victory against the Bulls, snapping his two-game stretch of 30-plus point games. Still, Kyrie has topped the 20-point plateau in seven of his last nine games, averaging 26.0 points on 54 percent shooting during that span.
Westbrook has been sensational all year long and is on pace to join Oscar Robertson as the only players in NBA history to average 24+ points, 10+ assists and 7+ rebounds per game for an entire season. In 55 games this season, Westbrook has tallied 37 double-doubles and eight triple-doubles.
Former Cavalier Dion Waiters has moved into OKC’s starting lineup over the last nine games and although he hasn’t lit up the scoring column – averaging 9.7 points per – the Thunder have gone 7-2 in those contests.
Waiters has been up and down in his first full season with OKC, but the Thunder have definitely prospered when Waiters has done well – going 18-3 in games that the former Syracuse standout reaches double-digit scoring. Waiters finished with 14 points in last year’s appearance at The Q, but had only four points on 1-for-7 shooting in his lone appearance against Cleveland this season.
Waiters will match up with J.R. Smith, who went into the All-Star Break on fire but struggled in the first game on the other side, going 1-for-9 from the floor – including 1-of-5 from long-distance – against Chicago. Still, since the start of 2016, only Stephen Curry has hit more three-pointers than J.R.’s 77. As he continues his climb up the NBA’s three-point list, Swish needs four triples to pass Jason Richardson for 17th on the all-time rankings.
Iman Shumpert – who was still on the mend when these two squads matchup up in mid-December – made the trip to Oklahoma City, but after tweaking his shoulder against Chicago, will be a gametime decision for Sunday’s contest.
The Cavaliers’ most versatile perimeter defender, Shumpert’s presence – taking turns on two of the game’s top scorers – will be at a premium in OKC. Another Cavalier reserve who recently returned from injury is Matthew Dellavedova, who returned to the lineup on Thursday after missing the previous five games before the Break and will factor big defensively in Sunday’s marquee matchup.
Timofey Mozgov looked active and engaged in Thursday’s win over Chicago, finishing with 11 points and seven boards – and the Cavaliers will need him focused again in OKC as he takes on one of the best reserve big men in the league in Enes Kanter. Even with Waiters moving into the starting lineup, the Thunder have one of the better benches in the Association – a group that’s gone 21-4 this season when outscoring the opponent’s second unit.
