Thunder strike back | Cavs on the trade market?
The Athletic NBA Daily
The Athletic
4.1 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2025
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
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 DuFour
With: Zena Keita & Joe Vardon
Executive Producer: Andrew Schlecht
Audio Producer: Grayson Moody
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning and welcome to the NBA Daily for January 17th, 2025. |
| 0:11.2 | Coming up, we got Thunder Cavs 2. |
| 0:13.5 | Not as good as the first one. |
| 0:15.3 | Not at all. |
| 0:16.4 | Oh, man, we got the unrivaled league for women's basketball, |
| 0:19.7 | and Zina's going to tell us all about that. |
| 0:21.3 | And we have Joe Varden to tell us about the Cavs side of their embarrassing loss of the thunder. |
| 0:34.5 | Good morning, everybody. |
| 0:35.8 | Good morning, Zena. |
| 0:37.4 | Man, I really, I hate to be so disappointed about a sequel, but Cavs Thunder 2 just did not live up to the billing. |
| 0:45.6 | The first game was game of the year. |
| 0:47.7 | Second one was the worst game of the Cavs season by a long shot. |
| 0:54.2 | So we're going to get to the Cavs side of that after our little break with Joe Varden |
| 0:59.2 | because he's in the arena and, you know, he's the voice of the Cavs for us. |
| 1:03.4 | So, Zina, I got to talk about the Thunder. |
| 1:06.3 | They are something else. |
| 1:07.8 | They just tied the Cleveland Cavaliers by winning the game last night |
| 1:12.1 | in convincing fashion. They tied them for the best record in the league. They're now 34 and 6. |
| 1:18.5 | Shea Gilgis Alexander puts up 40 in 30 minutes. They, they're the best team in basketball. |
| 1:26.7 | Yeah. And OKC deserves all of the esteem. |
| 1:31.1 | Their play tonight was not only dominant. |
| 1:34.7 | It was good. |
... |
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