The Thunder sure could use a win. Oklahoma City has dropped 13 in row, including Wednesday night's rout at the hand of LeBron James and Cleveland.
It also marked the third consecutive defeat for interim coach Scott Brooks and the first blowout loss of his brief tenure. The Thunder was competitive in setbacks to New Orleans and Phoenix. "We feel pretty good about where we're going," Joe Smith said. "We just can't take any steps backward. We've got to continue to improve, continue to move forward."
The 13-game skid is one shy of the franchise record set in Seattle. Trying to break the streak, Brooks has switched up the lineup and rotation, and begun to tweak the playbook.
"I add a little wrinkle to what we have now, or add a play or add a set of my own, and I've done both," Brooks said. "You can't do it all in one week, one day or one month.
"You just have to trust the players will listen and buy in. What we want to do is, 'Guys, we're going to play hard and we're going to worry about the other things second. But we've really got to establish that we're a hard-playing team."
CAVALIERS 117, THUNDER 82: LeBron James played just 17 minutes Wednesday night. Turns out Cleveland didn't need its superstar to handle woeful Oklahoma City, which was playing the second half of a back-to-back. Chris Wilcox led the Thunder with 14 points and Kevin Durant added 13. Oklahoma City (1-15) has lost 13 straight games and owns the league's worst record. Interim coach Scott Brooks is 0-3.
James scored 14 points in his limited run, which ties for the shortest stint in his NBA career. The Cavs opened the game with a 13-0 spurt and never looked back. Zydrunas Ilgauskas paced Cleveland with 17 points and all 12 players on the roster scored.
