{"id":548101,"date":"2026-01-20T03:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/548101\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:43:14","slug":"11-stats-to-explain-cavs-one-sided-136-104-loss-to-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/548101\/","title":{"rendered":"11 stats to explain Cavs one-sided 136-104 loss to Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> weren\u2019t able to get their offense going as they fell to the Oklahoma City Thunder 136-104<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The stats in the table below are from Cleaning the Glass<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Effective Field Goal Percentage<\/p>\n

Offensive Rebounding Percentage<\/p>\n

Offensive Turnover Percentage<\/p>\n

Free Throw Rate<\/p>\n

Cavs<\/p>\n

41.8%, 3rd percentile<\/p>\n

36.1%, 82nd percentile<\/p>\n

19.8%, 10th percentile<\/p>\n

30.8, 87th percentile<\/p>\n

Thunder<\/p>\n

68.3%, 97th percentile<\/p>\n

16.3%, 5th percentile<\/p>\n

12.3%, 72nd percentile<\/p>\n

14.4, 17th percentile<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s dive into the numbers.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The Cavs couldn\u2019t get anything to fall, going 8-35 (22.9%) from three (5th percentile<\/a>). This was their lowest three-point percentage for a game this season. It\u2019s a make-or-miss league. The best teams are typically the ones that make the highest percentage of threes. Their inconsistent outside shot is part of the reason why the results have been as they are.<\/p>\n

This was Cleveland\u2019s fourth time shooting 25% or worse from beyond the arc. They\u2019ve lost all four times they\u2019ve done so. Last season, the Cavs only shot 25% or worse on three occasions.<\/p>\n

The Cavs\u2019 eight three-point makes tie their fewest for a game this season. Part of this is due to their poor shooting, and the other part is due to their lack of attempts. The Cavs were in the 25th percentile<\/a> for three-point attempts on Monday. Shooting fewer threes has been a recent trend. They\u2019re 12th in three-point attempts since Dec. 13<\/a> and 18th in January<\/a>. This comes after leading the league in attempts at the start of the season. The Cavs didn\u2019t need more three-point attempts on Monday, considering how bad they were shooting it. However, it is alarming how much the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. I\u2019m not sure what the offensive identity of this team is on nights like this.<\/p>\n

The Thunder outscored the Cavs by 45 points from three. It doesn\u2019t matter how good you are in other areas. There\u2019s no overcoming being outscored by this much from three. The Thunder shot extraordinarily well from deep as they connected on 23 of their 47 attempts (48.9%).<\/p>\n

The poor shooting was compounded by not being able to finish inside as the Cavs converted just 47.2% of their shots at the rim (3rd percentile<\/a>). The Cavs did their best to get to the rim. They went 17-36 on shots in the restricted area (90th percentile<\/a> for attempts). But that doesn\u2019t matter if you aren\u2019t able to get anything to fall. The Thunder were able to pack the paint due to how bad Cleveland was shooting from three. They never could establish any kind of offensive flow.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City registered a 130.7 half-court offensive rating<\/a> (99th percentile<\/a>). The Thunder executed exceptionally well in the half-court. They swung the ball to the open man and trusted their offensive process. The Cavs dared players like Lu Dort to beat them with their outside shot, and they did.<\/p>\n

The Cavs turned it over 21 times. This led to Oklahoma City getting 23 points off turnovers compared to Cleveland\u2019s eight.<\/p>\n

Cleveland outscored Oklahoma City 22-5 on second-chance points. The Cavs secured 24 second-chance opportunities to the Thunder\u2019s four. The Cavaliers did this without letting the Thunder run in transition, as Oklahoma City was in the 9th percentile<\/a> in transition points off of live offensive rebounds. This is the only area of the game the Cavs excelled in.<\/p>\n

Cleveland\u2019s 24th different starting lineup was outscored by 12 points in just over 10 minutes of play. The Cavs went with a starting group of Donovan Mitchell, Jaylon Tyson, Dean Wade, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen. That group struggled to get anything going offensively due to their lack of ball handling. They also didn\u2019t do enough defensively to make it work. I understand and even agree with the reasoning behind this group. It just didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n

The Cavs are 2-8 when Mitchell scores 21 or fewer points in a game he plays. The Cavs have gone as Mitchell has from a scoring perspective this season. When he scores more than 35, they usually win. When he scores 21 or fewer, they almost always lose.<\/p>\n

Mitchell shot just 27.8% from the field. It was his third-worst shooting percentage for a game this season. Similar to his scoring numbers, the Cavs are 2-6 when he shoots under 40% from the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 The Cleveland Cavaliers weren\u2019t able to get their offense going as they fell to the Oklahoma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,193,5759,864,839,576,1178,2286,6,310,475,179,3966,3965,70610,312],"class_list":{"0":"post-548101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-dean-wade","11":"tag-donovan-mitchell","12":"tag-dort","13":"tag-evan-mobley","14":"tag-jarrett-allen","15":"tag-jaylon-tyson","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-oklahoma","18":"tag-oklahoma-city","19":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","20":"tag-oklahomacity","21":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","22":"tag-th-percentile","23":"tag-thunder"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115925365988114115","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}