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It was the Russell Westbrook show for the first three quarters, and Kevin Durant took over late as the Oklahoma City Thunder downed the Cleveland Cavaliers 106-91.
Westbrook led the game in scoring with 27 points, 10 assists, and 6 rebounds. He was efficient throughout the game only taking 16 shots, with the only downside of his game tonight being his eight turnovers. Durant scored seven points in a 1:40 in the 4th quarter to put the game away with four minutes remaining. Kevin Martin also scored 16 on nine shots, mostly against the struggling Cavalier bench.
The Cavaliers started the game off strong with a 17-7 run, but, as usual, couldn't sustain when the second unit began filtering throughout the lineup. The Thunder ended the first quarter on a 20-4 run and the Cavaliers never fully recovered from there. It seemed that Cleveland was unable to play defense without fouling (in the first half, the Cavs committed 14 personal fouls compared to the Thunder's seven), and it showed as the Thunder scored 50 points in 18 minutes after the Cavs' sizzling start.
They did show life in the third quarter, getting the Thunder lead down to three with two seconds left in the quarter. However, Westbrook then hit a running 30-foot jumper as time expired to stretch the lead back to six, deflating the Cavaliers. After that, it was all Thunder in the 4th as they eventually ballooned their lead back to 19 before putting their bench brigade in to close the game out
Kyrie Irving was his usual self, scoring 20 points with five assists and four rebounds. Alonzo Gee scored 18 points while surprisingly leading the team with 17 shots, although they were sagging off of him most game basically begging him to shoot. Daniel Gibson also had a strong game off the bench with 16 points. There will be some question marks as to why Dion Waiters was not in the game in the 4th quarter, but Gibson and Gee both played well tonight so I won't question Coach Byron Scott's lineup decisions.
Overall, this game pretty much just proves that OKC is a better team than Cleveland this year. I really can't pick out too many complaints with this game on behalf of what the Cavaliers did or didn't do, and they still lost by 15 points. It's not a surprising result, and hopefully the Cavs can end this six game road trip on a high note against the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday night.