The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 40 points in the first 3 quarters en route to a victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers in a matchup between the league’s two best teams. Dave DuFour and Zena Keita breakdown the Thunder win, Shai’s MVP performance, and discuss the new Unrivaled basketball league and the potential ramifications for the NBA. Then, the Athletic’s Joe Vardon joins the show from Oklahoma City with the Cavs’ perspective on their loss, why they struggle against perimeter size, and who they are targeting on the trade market.Host: Dave DuFourWith: Zena Keita & Joe VardonExecutive Producer: Andrew SchlechtAudio Producer: Grayson MoodySubmit your questions to The Athletic NBA Daily mailbag: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5939460/2024/11/25/nba-podcast-mailbag-athletic-daily/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for January 17th, 2025. Coming up, we got Thunder Cavs 2. Not as good as the first one. Not at all. Oh, man. We got the unrivaled league for women's basketball and Zena is going to tell us all about that. And we have Joe Varden to tell us about the Cavs side of their embarrassing loss to the Thunder. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, Zena.
Man, I really I hate to be so disappointed about a sequel, but Cavs Thunder 2 just did not live up to the billing. The first first game was game of the year. Second one was the worst game of the Cavs season by a long shot. So we're going to get to the Cavs side of that after our little break with Joe Varden, because he's in the arena and, you know, he's the voice of the Cavs for us.
So, Zena, I got to talk about the Thunder. They are something else. They just tied the Cleveland Cavaliers by winning the game last night. In convincing fashion. They tied them for the best record in the league. They're now 34-6. Shea Gildas Alexander puts up 40 in 30 minutes. They're the best team in basketball.
Yeah, and OKC deserves all of the esteem. Their play tonight was not only... dominant, it was good. It's the type of game tape that you show young kids on how you should play defense, how you should play in transition, how you should play as a team. And they officially put the Cavs in a position to prove that their win over OKC just a week ago was not a fluke. They have depth.
I mean, you saw Brandon Carlson, some undrafted rookie out of Utah, come in in the Give some buckets. You saw OKC have legendary buy-in into their defense, into playing fast and responsible. They made the Cavs have to force threes up. This is the Cavs that have played an inside-out game all year long, and they made them look like they couldn't... Couldn't win shell defense drills in practice.
Like, it was tough for the Cavs to be able to find buckets inside. And OKC, good on them for showing up in this game and getting that revenge win.
Yeah, OKC created 21 turnovers. And we keep saying, I stole this from Andrew Schleck, that this is the most disruptive defense in NBA history. And, I mean, they did that to the Cavs, who are pretty good at protecting the basketball. Shea Gildas Alexander, in my opinion, All he has to do is maintain pace here. I think he wrapped up the MVP with this performance. Again, it's on national TV.
This stuff matters quite a bit. And to put up 40 and three quarters, that's a dominance that we think about when Steph Curry was doing this in his unanimous season where he was unanimous MVP. This is the stuff that stands out when you're going to vote come May.
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