{"id":13829,"date":"2011-03-04T11:50:34","date_gmt":"2011-03-04T16:50:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13829"},"modified":"2011-03-04T11:50:34","modified_gmt":"2011-03-04T16:50:34","slug":"nba-picks-ats-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-atlanta-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-picks-ats-oklahoma-city-thunder-at-atlanta-hawks-13829\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Picks ATS: Oklahoma City Thunder at Atlanta Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Atlanta Hawks<\/strong>
\nMar 4, 2011 at 7:30 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Atl -2.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Atl -4<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 191<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 191<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Atlanta -165 \/ OKC +145<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Atlanta -175 \/ OKC +155<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Josh Smith will be challenged by Ibaka tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oklahoma City may be without Durant again, but if Russell Westbrook continues to dominate as he has, it probably won’t matter.\u00a0 Though Atlanta is favored in this game, it is only by 4 points, and 2.5 when betting opened, so vegas oddsmakers are giving the Thunder their due props.<\/p>\n

Atlanta is lucky they won’t encounter Durant, who has averaged better than 30 points a game in the last 4 matchups against the Hawks.\u00a0 In other injury news, Josh Smith is day to day with a right knee injury.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of OKC’s last 5 games and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of OKC’s last 6 games against the Hawks.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 11-3 SU in their last 14 games against Atlanta and the Thunder are 6-1 SU in their last 7 at home against the Hawks.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 8 of Atlanta’s last 9 games and the total has gone UNDER In 10 of their last 15 at home.\u00a0 Atlanta is 15-4 SU in their last 19 at home and the Hawks are 3-6 ATS in their last 9 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 4 of the last 6 games against the Thunder and Atlanta is 3-11 SU in their last 14 games against Oklahoma City.\u00a0 Atlanta is 0-5 ATS in their last 5 games against OKC and they are 0-5 ATS in their last 5 at home against the Thunder.\u00a0 Atlanta is 1-6 SU in their last 7 at home against Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/p>\n

Russell Westbrook vs. Mario Chalmers & Mike Bibby<\/p>\n

Though both Lebron James and Dwyane Wade had promised Bibby they would help when he is up against a quicker point guard, I expect Chalmers to see the lion’s share of the minutes against the lightning quick Westbrook.\u00a0 If the Heat try to play Bibby, Westbrook will just get off that much more.\u00a0 Westbrook has scored 20 or more in 3 of his last 4 games, and is averaging 22 points per game on the year, along with 8.4 assists per game.<\/p>\n

Bibby will lend a new element to the Heat’s attack, as he shoots 44% from threes this year.\u00a0 When defenses collapse on Wade or Lebron, Bibby will be there to punish them with a 3.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be surprised to see his scoring average get up in the 13-14 point per game area once he acclimates to Miami’s offense and gets ample playing time. Chalmers has been playing well, but quite simply he is not the player Bibby is and will find himself facing more time on the pine as time goes on.<\/p>\n

Serge Ibaka vs. Josh Smith<\/p>\n

Ibaka has done admirably this year as it looked like he would following his standout performance against the Lakers in the 2010 playoffs when he blocked 7 shots in game two.\u00a0 This year he is averaging 9.2 points per game and 7.3 rebounds, and also an outstanding 2.1 blocks per game.\u00a0 Josh Smith knows a thing or two about shotblocking as well, and averages 1.7 blocks per game this year, down from his 2.1 last year.\u00a0 Smith is a much better scorer than Ibaka though, averaging 16.7 pionts per game, as well as 8.7 rebounds per game and 3.4 assists per contest.\u00a0 Smith, always an able bodied defender, also averages 1.4 steals per game.\u00a0 Ibaka is going to have to do everything in his power to keep Smith from getting going.<\/p>\n

Though the Thunder are underdogs in tonight’s game, even without Durant they have a great shot at winning the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Atlanta Hawks Mar 4, 2011 at 7:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Atl -2.5 Current Line: Atl -4 Opening Total:\u00a0 191 Current Total: 191 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Atlanta -165 \/ OKC +145 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Atlanta -175 \/ OKC +155 Oklahoma City may be without Durant again, but if Russell Westbrook continues to dominate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[834,3276,399],"class_list":["post-13829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-josh-smith","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13829","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=13829"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13833,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13829\/revisions\/13833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}