{"id":497527,"date":"2026-02-22T21:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/497527\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T21:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T21:35:07","slug":"thunder-121-113-cavaliers-23-feb-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/497527\/","title":{"rendered":"Thunder 121-113 Cavaliers (23 Feb, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA CITY — \u2014 Isaiah Joe<\/a> scored 22 points and Cason Wallace<\/a> added 20 points and 10 assists to help the short-handed Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> beat the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> 121-113 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Chet Holmgren<\/a> had 17 points, 15 rebounds and three blocks for Oklahoma City (44-14), which made 21 of 41 3-point attempts (51.2%), including six by Joe, and converted 17 turnovers into 31 points.<\/p>\n

The Thunder played without injured starters Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a> (abdominal strain) and Jalen Williams<\/a> (strained right hamstring). and key contributors Ajay Mitchell<\/a> (abdominal strain) and Alex Caruso<\/a> (sprained left ankle).<\/p>\n

Donovan Mitchell<\/a>, James Harden<\/a> and Sam Merrill<\/a> each had 20 points for Cleveland (36-22), which lost for the first time in eight games. The Cavaliers, who made 13 of 39 3-pointers (33.3%), fell behind early but couldn’t complete the comeback against the hot-shooting Thunder. <\/p>\n

Oklahoma City turned to the long ball early and built a 28-5 lead on the strength of five 3-pointers, including three by Joe. Oklahoma City made 14 of 22 (63.6%) from beyond the arc before halftime, but by then Cleveland had cut the lead to 64-55 on a jumper by Mitchell to beat the buzzer.<\/p>\n

The Cavaliers got eight quick points from Merrill in the third quarter, and took a 69-68 lead \u2014 their first of the game \u2014 on a short jumper Jared Allen. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Jared McCain<\/a> and Joe gave the Thunder an 82-75 advantage. But Cleveland scored 11 of the next 14 points, and got a 3-pointer by Jaylon Tyson<\/a> to tie the score 86-all.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City got consecutive 3s from Lu Dort, Kenrich Williams<\/a> and Wallace to build a 102-95 lead in the fourth. Back-to-back jumpers by Isaiah Hartenstein<\/a>, who had 10 points in the quarter, gave the Thunder a 106-98 lead they never relinquished.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Cavaliers: Host New York on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Thunder: Visit Toronto on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA CITY — \u2014 Isaiah Joe scored 22 points and Cason Wallace added 20 points and 10 assists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-497527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}