{"id":12098,"date":"2011-01-01T12:07:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-01T17:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12098"},"modified":"2011-01-01T12:07:40","modified_gmt":"2011-01-01T17:07:40","slug":"nba-picks-ats-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-san-antonio-spurs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-ats-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-san-antonio-spurs-12098\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks ATS: Oklahoma City Thunder at San Antonio Spurs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT San Antonio Spurs
\nJanuary 11, 2011 at 8:35 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -6.5
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -6.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 204.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 203.5
\nOpening Moneyline: San Antonio -290 \/ OKC +240
\nCurrent Moneyline: San Antonio -300 \/ OKC +240<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Kevin Durant is averaging 27 ppg in his career against Tim Duncan and the Spurs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

San Antonio continues to roll.\u00a0 They have the best record in the league at 28-4 and are 18-2 at home, but Oklahoma City is a good road team at 10-5, and NBA oddsmakers have given them the benefit of the doubt, setting the line 6.5 points in San Antonio’s favor.\u00a0 San Antonio just took down two of the other elite powers in the Western Conference, beating Dallas last game by 6 and blowing out the Lakers by 15 the game before.\u00a0 Oklahoma City has won their last two games against Atlanta and New Jersey, but dropped a game to Dallas before that by 10.<\/p>\n

San Antonio has won 11 straight at home, but Popovich is still finding reason for fault.\u00a0 The Mavs were without Nowitzki last game and still managed to keep it close.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t take too much out of the win,\u201d Popovich said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t show very much. We didn\u2019t improve as a team, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duncan has posted 33 double doubles in 47 games against the Oklahoma City franchise (dating back to the Seattle Supersonic days), but is still struggling this year and is having the weakest year of his NBA career.\u00a0 That’s not to say he isn’t effective, however, as he showed some “vintage Duncan” last game against the Lakers big frontline, going for 17 points and 11 boards.\u00a0 He will have to take advantage of the Thunder’s weaker frontline, though Ibaka is a great defender capable of frustrating many of the big men in the league with his speed and tenacity.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City has won 9 of their past 12 and the total has gone UNDER in 5 of their past 5 on the road.\u00a0 They are 9-4 in their past 13 road games and the total has gone OVER In 5 of their last 7 in San Antonio.\u00a0 They have lost 5 of their last 6 in San Antonio and are 3-9-1 ATS in\u00a0 their last 13 road games against the Spurs.\u00a0 The total has also gone OVER in 4 of their last 6 in San Antonio, and they have lost 11 of their past 13 at the AT&T Center.<\/p>\n

San Antonio is 2-4 ATS in their last 6 home games and the total has gone UNDER in 8 of their last 11 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 7 against Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

Some key matchups for tonight’s game:
\n
\nRussell Westbrook vs. Tony Parker & George Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Parker & Hill are two of the few players in the league with the lateral speed and quickness to stay in front of Westbrook, and will be able to force him to take more jumpers than he may be comfortable with, though his jumper has improved.\u00a0 Westbrook has emerged as one of the best point guards in the league and is teaming up with Durant to put up 50+ points a night.\u00a0 His 8.1 assists per game rank him 9th in the league and he is a lock to make his first all star apperance this year.\u00a0 Parker and Hill are both capable scorers, but Westbrook should be able to control them with his strength and size (he’s 6’3″, 3″ taller than Parker and 1″ taller than Hill) and keep them from getting too many easy looks in the paint.
\n
\nKevin Durant vs. Richard Jefferson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Richard Jefferson is winding down his NBA career but is still a capable defender.\u00a0 The problem here is that he doesn’t have the length (few do at SF) to contest Durant’s jumpers.\u00a0 Durant went for 34 last meeting between the teams and should be able to do similar damage tonight.\u00a0 He’s averaging 27.3 points per game in his career against San Antonio.\u00a0 Jefferson is having a solid year with 13.6 points per game and he’s shooting a stellar 43% from beyond the arc.\u00a0 Durant will have to keep an eye on him to prevent him from getting too many open looks from the corner three.<\/p>\n

While San Antonio has been dominant both at home and overall, this still should be a good game.\u00a0 The matchups are favorable for the Thunder which gives them the ability to make this a close one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT San Antonio Spurs January 11, 2011 at 8:35 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -6.5 Current Line:\u00a0 San Antonio -6.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 204.5 Current Total:\u00a0 203.5 Opening Moneyline: San Antonio -290 \/ OKC +240 Current Moneyline: San Antonio -300 \/ OKC +240 San Antonio continues to roll.\u00a0 They have the best […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":5488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[399,141],"class_list":["post-12098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-san-antonio-spurs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12098","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12099,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12098\/revisions\/12099"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}