{"id":10669,"date":"2010-11-15T11:30:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-15T16:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10669"},"modified":"2010-11-15T11:30:13","modified_gmt":"2010-11-15T16:30:13","slug":"free-nba-picks-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-utah-jazz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-nba-picks-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-utah-jazz-10669\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NBA Picks: Oklahoma City Thunder at Utah Jazz"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Utah Jazz
\nMonday, 11\/15\/10, 9:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Utah -6
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Utah -6
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 205
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 205<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Utah Jazz ended a perfect road trip with PG Deron Williams' buzzer beater at Charlotte<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oklahoma City continues to struggle on the defensive end after dropping a 117-104 contest to San Antonio on Sunday.\u00a0 The Thunder are allowing 105.8 points per game to rank 26th in the NBA after surrendering 98.0 points to finish fourth in the Western Conference last season.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re having trouble stopping the basketball,\u201d said head coach Scott Brooks.\u00a0 The one-two punch of forward Kevin Durant and guard Russell Westbrook struggled to get things going in the loss, coming into the game scoring 53.2 points combined, which was the highest average for teammates in the league.\u00a0 Each scored at least 30 in wins over Philadelphia and Portland, but that streak ended with Durant scoring 23 and Westbrook with 19.\u00a0 The team is 2-6 ATS on the season and the NBA lines page finds them getting a generous six points.<\/p>\n

The Thunder will need to sure up its perimeter defense to have a chance in pulling off the upset tonight, allowing the Spurs to shoot 11 of 20 from three-point territory.\u00a0 \u201cThey did a good job of exposing us in many areas,\u201d said Brooks.\u00a0 \u201cWe had trouble guarding the three-point line.\u00a0 When you make a mistake they capitalize on it.\u201d\u00a0 Oklahoma City did welcome back forward Jeff Green to the lineup on Sunday after missing three games with a sprained ankle.\u00a0 He scored 12 points against San Antonio and was averaging 19.4 points and 7.2 rebounds before the injury.\u00a0 Durant is likely to have a big game in this contest due to averaging 34.8 points per game over the last four meetings with the Jazz.<\/p>\n

Utah returns home after quite a road trip in winning five consecutive games after trailing by 11 or more points in each contest.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure out what\u2019s going on in the first half,\u201d said point guard Deron Williams.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s just two different teams out there.\u00a0 The first half we don\u2019t get out and run.\u201d\u00a0 Five Jazz players scored in double-digits in the 96-95 win in Charlotte to finish off the perfect road trip, led by forward Al Jefferson\u2019s 19 points.\u00a0 Part of the team\u2019s success early in the season is ranking second in the NBA in three-point defense, allowing opponents to hit just 30.2 percent from beyond the arc.\u00a0 Utah is 6-4 ATS on the season and 102-84 ATS over its last 186 games.<\/p>\n

The Jazz are definitely led by point guard Deron Williams, who is averaging 21.3 points and 10.1 assists per game.\u00a0 He connected on the game-winning floater at Charlotte with less than a second remaining in the contest.\u00a0 \u201cI knew it was good as soon as it left my hand,\u201d the All-Star guard commented.\u00a0 It hasn\u2019t been all good for the Illinois alumn, missing 10 of 15 shots from the floor on Saturday, but his teammates know he\u2019s the go-to guy in clutch situations.\u00a0 \u201cBring us home,\u201d said Jefferson to Williams in the fourth quarter of Saturday night\u2019s win.\u00a0 The team is a perfect 5-0 versus the Eastern Conference, but just 2-3 versus Western foes.<\/p>\n

Bettors will find that the Thunder are 1-6 ATS versus the Western Conference, while the Jazz are 1-4 ATS in their last five home games.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on the best NBA handicappers anywhere and get a season package at Maddux Sports today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Utah Jazz Monday, 11\/15\/10, 9:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Utah -6 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Utah -6 Opening Total:\u00a0 205 Current Total:\u00a0 205 Oklahoma City continues to struggle on the defensive end after dropping a 117-104 contest to San Antonio on Sunday.\u00a0 The Thunder are allowing 105.8 points per game to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[676,2895,3301,1193,399,3298,3862,838,3693],"class_list":["post-10669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-al-jefferson","tag-deron-williams","tag-jeff-green","tag-kevin-durant","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-scott-brooks","tag-utah-jazz","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10670,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10669\/revisions\/10670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}