Sixth sense
The Thunder galloped past the Cavaliers, 95-86, for its sixth straight win.
CLEVELAND – The Cavaliers called a timeout with 13 seconds on the clock. That’s how close the Thunder’s eventual win was over a shorthanded Cavaliers team Wednesday night.
But the Cleveland fans anticipated what the Cavs hadn’t yet accepted and streamed toward the exits at Quicken Loans Arena.
Cleveland’s Kyle Korver missed the 3-point attempt, and the Thunder were finally able to run out the clock and escape with a 95-86 victory. OKC extended its winning streak to six games.
“We got really good looks, and we didn’t make them,’ Thunder coach Billy Donovan said. “... It was one of those things, I give our guys a lot of credit, they hung in there and just kept battling through it and found a way to get things done defensively.”
OKC (6-4) was the heavy favorite heading into Wednesday’s game at Cleveland (1-10). While the Thunder were down star point guard Russell Westbrook, the Cavs were even more injury-plagued, missing would-be starters Kevin Love (toe), George Hill (shoulder soreness) and losing starting forward Cedi Osman (lower back spasms) less than six minutes into the game.
But the improved-shooting trend the Thunder rode into Wednesday’s game came to an abrupt halt. The Thunder
shot just 32.6 percent from the field in the first half. They shot 3-of-12 from beyond the arc in the first two periods. That mark would have been worse if it weren’t for a last-minute shot by Paul George to end the half.
George is making a habit of firing up long shots at the ends of quarters, and making them. The 28-foot 3-pointer he hit to end the first half was no half-court shot like he made earlier this season, but it was almost just as shocking considering the Thunder’s shooting struggles in the first half. That shot gave the Thunder a 48-40 lead going into the second half.
Oklahoma City quickly built that lead to 16 points by scoring the first eight points of the third period, but it wouldn’t last.
With 7:42 left in the fourth quarter, Cavalier forward JR Smith sank a 3-pointer and the crowd at Quicken Loans Arena, which had thinned out in the 11th game of a onewin season, mustered up the lung power of a soldout audience.
On the next possession, Korver hit a corner jumper and the Cavaliers grabbed a brief lead.
Then Schroder took over. He scored seven points in the last six minutes of the game to finish the night with a seasonhigh 28 points. On the other end of the floor, the Thunder, as George put it, “stopped the bleeding.”
“I thought we had an attention to detail just to get back,” George said. “I thought we did a good job of keeping Tristan (Thompson) off the rebounds, keeping (Larry) Nance off the rebounds. We did a good job of stopping them from taking multiple shots at the basket. I thought that was the key.”
The Thunder finished the night shooting just 41 percent from the field. They found their best 3-point shooter Alex Abrines for 10 3-point attempts, of which he made three.
But against a depleted Cavaliers team, OKC weathered that collective shooting slump and finished the game with a win, minus Westbrook.