{"id":12715,"date":"2011-01-24T11:52:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T16:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12715"},"modified":"2011-01-24T11:52:31","modified_gmt":"2011-01-24T16:52:31","slug":"free-nba-expert-picks-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-new-orleans-hornets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-nba-expert-picks-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-new-orleans-hornets-12715\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NBA Expert Picks: Oklahoma City Thunder at New Orleans Hornets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at New Orleans Hornets
\nMonday, 1\/24\/10, 8:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 New Orleans -4
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 New Orleans -4.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 191.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 192<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Oklahoma City Thunder are the most dangerous underdog on the board tonight in the NBA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oklahoma City seems to be the perfect team to cool off New Orleans on Monday night by winning both meetings this season and four straight overall.\u00a0 The Thunder escaped with a 101-98 home victory over New York on Saturday when Durant hit a 3-pointer as time expired.\u00a0 \u201cOnce I let it go, it felt like everybody went silent,\u201d Durant stated.\u00a0 \u201cAnd once it went in, I really couldn\u2019t hear too much.\u00a0 I was just looking toward the bench.\u201d\u00a0 Even more impressive in the victory was the squad\u2019s 57 total rebounds and 22 on the offensive end, which both matching a season-high.\u00a0 The team is 28-15 overall on the season and an even 6-6 against Western Conference competition on the road.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 10-11 ATS on the road this season and currently an underdog on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Thunder are use to winning close games on the season and have compiled a 16-5 mark in contests decided by seven points or less.\u00a0 Oklahoma City has a dominant duo in Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook, as they are tied with Lebron James and Dwyane Wade for the highest scoring combo in the league at 51.0 points per game.\u00a0 Westbrook is the only player in the NBA averaging 22-plus points, five-plus rebounds and eight-plus assists.\u00a0 In order to make a run in the playoffs this season, the defense will need to raise its level of play, as the unit has held an opponent to fewer than 100 points just once in the last six games.<\/p>\n

New Orleans is dominating opponents on the defensive end and held San Antonio to a season-low 72 points in a home victory on Saturday after suffocating Atlanta in a 100-59 win the previous night.\u00a0 \u201cWe can\u2019t be satisfied,\u201d said coach Monty Williams.\u00a0 \u201cI know everybody is going to be talking about how the Hornets beat the best team in the league and making a lot out of that.\u201d\u00a0 The Hornets now turn their focus in trying to breakthrough against a dangerous opponent and how to stop Westbrook, who is averaging 30 points in his last four games against them.\u00a0 New Orleans is 2-5 ATS as a home favorite of 3.5 to 6 points.<\/p>\n

The Hornets are 29-16 on the season through 45 games and are 13 games above .500 for the first time since the conclusion of the 2008-09 season.\u00a0 New Orleans will ultimately be looking to hold Oklahoma City under the century mark tonight, as the team is 15-1 when holding opponents under 100 points at home this season.\u00a0 Their current eight-game winning streak has pulled the Hornets in range to take over the fourth place spot in the Western Conference and second position in the Southwest Division.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Thunder due to their 4-0 ATS mark in the series, while the Hornets are 6-14 ATS as a favorite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at New Orleans Hornets Monday, 1\/24\/10, 8:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 New Orleans -4 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 New Orleans -4.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 191.5 Current Total:\u00a0 192 Oklahoma City seems to be the perfect team to cool off New Orleans on Monday night by winning both meetings this season and four straight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[1193,3705,836,399,3693],"class_list":["post-12715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-kevin-durant","tag-monty-williams","tag-new-orleans-hornets","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715","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=12715"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12717,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12715\/revisions\/12717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}