{"id":12842,"date":"2011-01-28T06:40:56","date_gmt":"2011-01-28T11:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12842"},"modified":"2011-01-27T20:43:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-28T01:43:19","slug":"free-nba-picks-washington-wizards-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/free-nba-picks-washington-wizards-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder-12842\/","title":{"rendered":"Free NBA Picks: Washington Wizards vs Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Wizards at Oklahoma City Thunder
\nFriday, 1\/28\/10, 8:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -10
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -10.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 206.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 207.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Oklahoma City Thunder are double-digit favorites in hosting the Washington Wizards<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Washington has lost two games in a row and is coming off a 120-109 loss to Denver due to allowing the Nuggets to connect on 12 of 23 three-point shots.\u00a0 The Wizards are winless in 21 road games this season and will try to break the spell by playing their next four games away from the nation\u2019s capitol.\u00a0 \u201cI think our guys are looking forward to going on the road,\u201d said coach Flip Saunders.\u00a0 \u201cSometimes going on the road for a four-game trip is better than going for one game, because you have the opportunity to bond a little bit.\u201d\u00a0 Washington is 5-16 ATS on the road this season, but 2-0 ATS as a road underdog of 9.5 to 12 points.\u00a0 The NBA lines page is worth taking a look at throughout the day on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Wizards will be matching up with the Thunder for the first of two meetings this season, as they lost last season\u2019s series, 2-0.\u00a0 Washington has been led by rookie point guard John Wall, who is leading all rookies this month in scoring (13.8 ppg) and assists (10.8 apg).\u00a0 He also joins just three other players in the league that currently averages at least 15 points, nine assists and four rebounds this season.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City is coming off an exciting 118-117 overtime victory over Minnesota and All-Star forward Kevin Durant proved to be the different by scoring a career-high 47 points.\u00a0 The Thunder snapped a three-game road losing streak with the win and are now 17-6 in contests decided by seven or fewer points.\u00a0 \u201cIt was fun to be a part of,\u201d Durant commented.\u00a0 \u201cThat team over there, I\u2019ll tell you one thing, they played very hard, very talented.\u00a0 Their record doesn\u2019t do much justice to their team.\u201d\u00a0 The squad is a solid 16-6 at home on the year, including a 7-1 mark when facing off against Eastern opponents.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is a perfect 3-0 ATS versus Southeast division opponents this year and 16-5 ATS over the past three years.<\/p>\n

The Thunder are led by the offensive exploits of Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook, who are currently tied with Miami\u2019s Lebron James and Dwyane Wade in the race to become the league\u2019s highest scoring duo.\u00a0 Offensively, the team also takes care of its opportunities on the charity stripe, shooting a league-best 83.4 percent from the free throw line.\u00a0 Additionally, Oklahoma City leads the NBA in free throw makes (25.2) and ranks second in attempts per game (30.2).<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in backing the Wizards due to their 5-2 ATS record versus a team with a winning percentage above .600, while the Thunder are 1-4 ATS in their last five games overall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Wizards at Oklahoma City Thunder Friday, 1\/28\/10, 8:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -10 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -10.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 206.5 Current Total:\u00a0 207.5 Washington has lost two games in a row and is coming off a 120-109 loss to Denver due to allowing the Nuggets to connect on 12 […]<\/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":[1193,399,3298,644],"class_list":["post-12842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-kevin-durant","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-washington-wizards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12842","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=12842"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12843,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12842\/revisions\/12843"}],"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=12842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}