You can’t win a trophy in January, but you can earn respect. The Cleveland Cavaliers may have done just that as they defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder with an impressive 129-122 win.

The Cavs relentlessly attacked the Thunder’s defense where they were weakest. Oklahoma City allows the most corner three-point attempts in the league. Cleveland came out right away, hitting a three-pointer in the corner on its first two possessions before moving inside to take advantage.

The Thunder only have one traditional center in Isaiah Hartenstein that they have felt comfortable with while Chet Holmgren is sidelined. The Cavs used this to their advantage as Jarrett Allen and Evan Mobley continually attacked the paint. They went after Hartenstein and whoever they scored an imbalance against.

The Thunder forced the ball out of the hands of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell as much as possible and dared Allen and Mobley to beat them in the short roll. But unlike in the past, the bigs there did a great job keeping the offense going.

Mitchell struggled to get anything going. He forced shots early and never really found a rhythm, scoring just 11 points on 3-16 shooting.

You don’t want to get too much out of a regular season game in January, but this showed how much the Cavs have grown over the last two seasons. The New York Knicks also forced the ball out of Mitchell’s hands, made the bigs beat them in the short roll and dared the Cavs to make corner threes. This Oklahoma City team did the same thing, but the Cavs answered the bell. They beat her because all these things made them feel good.

The Cavs’ offense didn’t suffer, although Mitchell did. They found ways to further enhance their offense by finding the shooter in the corner whenever the defense rotated. Cleveland made 8-14 (57.1%) threes from beyond the arc. This resulted in an offensive rating of 129 (91st percentile) for the game.

Cleveland won this game in the final minutes when they broke OKC’s back by grabbing three straight offensive rebounds in demoralizing fashion in a one-possession game. What could have been a two-point game with 1:30 left ended with the Cavs holding a five-point lead with less than a minute to play.

It was like the opposite of the Knicks series.

Garland put the final nail in the coffin in the 129-122 win, firing a teardrop into the lane to ice it.

Allen led Cleveland with 25 points on 9-11 shooting, 6 assists and 12 boards. Mobley contributed 21 points, 10 rebounds and 7 assists.

Cleveland also benefited from strong contributions from its role players. Dean Wade (11 points), Max Strus (17 points) and Ty Jerome (15 points) all scored timely baskets in the win.

This was a test of whether the Cavs’ style of basketball was enough to compete against the best teams in the league. Once again it was like that. Cleveland is now 3-1 against the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Oklahoma City. That only loss was by three points and without four rotation players.

It’s difficult to ask more of a team at this point in the season.

The Cavaliers have shown time and time again that they are not only good, but that they are a title contender who is winning at a historic pace. That was proven once again when they defeated the best team in the Western Conference.