CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a season-high 43 points and made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 32.6 seconds remaining as the Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 117-112 on Monday night in the first of a two-game set.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander attempted 35 shots, the most in the NBA during the first two weeks of the season, and made 14. He was 11 of 12 from the free-throw line in 38 minutes as the injury-depleted Thunder bounced back after two straight road losses by 20-plus points.<\/p>\n
The fourth quarter saw eight ties and eight lead changes before Gilgeous-Alexander drilled his fourth 3-pointer. Cleveland\u2019s Sam Merrill missed a perimeter shot from the corner before Ajay Mitchell made it a two-possession game by sinking two free throws with 15.4 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City has been reeling since the loss of three starters to long-term injuries. Mitchell scored 20 and Isaiah Hartenstein pulled down 14 rebounds.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander matched his highest scoring total in 17 games against the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n
Rookie Meleek Thomas, making his first NBA start, and Donovan Mitchell led Cleveland with 17 points apiece. Mitchell also had 11 assists and Evan Mobley had 16 points.<\/p>\n
It was the Cavaliers\u2019 first loss at home in four games this season.<\/p>\n
The first half had 15 lead changes and two ties before the Thunder went on a 16-6 run over the last five minutes of the second quarter to take a 59-48 lead at halftime.<\/p>\n
Gilgeous-Alexander made a pair of free throws to give Oklahoma City a 69-55 advantage with 9:26 remaining in the third. The Cavaliers battled back by going 9 of 17 from beyond the arc in the quarter.<\/p>\n
Cleveland opened the fourth on an 18-9 run but could not sustain its momentum.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The teams meet again on Wednesday in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
See AP\u2019s full NBA coverage here <\/p>\n
Joe Reedy, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a season-high 43 points and made a go-ahead 3-pointer with 32.6 seconds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":956241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-956240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/956241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=956240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=956240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}