It will be the second time in less than a week that the two conference leaders Oklahoma City Thunder and Cleveland Cavaliers meet at the PayCom Center on Friday.
Before this fixture, both teams published what they would call facile victories in the most recent match they have played; the hosts were able to neutralize the Sixers’ prowess while on the away side they thrashed the Pacers.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have been constant forces for big chunks of the current campaign, and/or their response to Thursday’s loss to the Cavaliers served to underlined their readiness to challenge for the championship.
Proudly, Mark Daigneault’s men have won the following three games with an aggregate by a margin of 82 points after coming from Wednesday’s whipping of the 76ers with 118-102 in the Wells Fargo Center.
Charging for the MVP award, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was scorching again and led the scoring with 32 points on 12-15 FGs to go along with 9 assists both of them being the highest of the game.
With 33 out of 39 victories this term, the Thunder are in for a 70-win season and that has not been experienced in the NBA since the warriors of the 16/17 season with 73 wins out of 9 losses.
As for the Thunder team, they will obviously hope to follow the Warriors in that respect and at the same time avoid the fate of the ‘16 Warriors, who blew a 3-1 lead in the NBA finals.
Friday clash is the last of a 7-games in 11 days string against Eastern Conference opponents for the hosts before they travel to the American Airlines Center to play against the Dallas Mavericks, Saturday.
After losing to the Indiana Pacers for the first time since early December on Monday, the Cleveland Cavaliers wasted no time in getting retribution, defeating the Pacers 127-117 on Wednesday.
After 24 minutes of play at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Kenny Atkinson's team was ahead by one point. However, they turned things around in the third quarter to increase their lead to eleven, which made the last twelve minutes easier to handle.
The Cavaliers, who are currently 34-5 on the season, have the greatest record of any NBA team right now and are expected to finish with 70 wins, much like their next opponents, who are predicted to make it back to the finals after a 13-year break.
Although the Cavaliers won the last game between the two teams, they had lost the previous three matches and will be very cautious about losing to the home team again.
With games against the Minnesota Timberwolves, Phoenix Suns, and Houston Rockets coming up, the away team will begin a stretch of four straight games against Western Conference teams on Friday.
