{"id":14817,"date":"2011-04-11T11:43:13","date_gmt":"2011-04-11T16:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14817"},"modified":"2011-04-11T13:54:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-11T18:54:27","slug":"the-kings-last-stand-sacramento-wraps-up-franchise-history-against-the-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/the-kings-last-stand-sacramento-wraps-up-franchise-history-against-the-oklahoma-city-thunder-14817\/","title":{"rendered":"The Kings’ Last Stand: Sacramento Wraps Up Franchise History Against the Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Sacramento Kings<\/strong>
\nApril 11, 2011 at 10:05 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 OKC -5.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: OKC -5.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 208<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 208.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 OKC -235 \/ SAC +195<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 OKC -240 \/ SAC +200<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Cousins has dominated but has to improve his decision making<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many Kings fans may show up for tonight’s game with tears of nostalgia — maybe the ones from the Mike Bibby – Chris Webber – Peja Stojakovic era.\u00a0 That’s because this represents one of the last two home games in Sacramento before the Kings are relocated to Anaheim next season.\u00a0 What makes it worse is that there will be no playoff games.\u00a0 The Kings haven’t been relevant in a decade and their only hope of contention is that Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins develop into a dynamic duo.\u00a0 Cousins has a lot of areas to work on and Tyreke Evans must return to the form he was in during his rookie season when he posted a 20\/5\/5 line.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City is the probable 3 seed in the West and the Thunder have only desperate hopes of catching the Lakers.\u00a0 The positive that the Thunder can draw is that they just beat the Lakers 120-106 on Sunday, as Durant scored 31 points and the Thunder won their 54th game of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a step in the right direction, but we want to get to something bigger, but it was kind of a statement win for us,\u201d Durant said.<\/p>\n

Westbrook also had an outstanding game.\u00a0 He posted 26 points, 7 assists, and 6 rebounds.\u00a0 The Lakers dropped their fifth straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fourth quarter defense was the best as we could possibly play against one of the best teams in basketball,\u201d Oklahoma City coach Scott Brooks said. \u201cAnytime you can beat the Lakers it\u2019s a good win. They\u2019re one of the best teams and they haven\u2019t won a lot of games lately, but they\u2019re going to be right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 12 of Oklahoma City’s last 17 games and the Thunder are 15-3 SU in their last 18 games.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Oklahoma City’s last 8 games on the road and the Thunder are 7-2 SU in their last 9 on the road.\u00a0 The Thunder are 5-0 SU in their last 5 games against the Sacramento Kings and the Thunder are 4-2 SU in their last 6 road games against the Kings.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Oklahoma CIty’s last 7 games when on the road against Sacramento and the total has gone OVER in 13 of Oklahoma City’s last 19 games on the road against the Kings.<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Sacramento’s last 7 games.\u00a0 Sacramento is 4-11 SU in their last 15 games at home and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of their last 5 at home.\u00a0 Sacramento is 0-5 SU in their last 5 games against OKC.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER In 13 of Sacramento’s last 19 games against the Thunder and the Kings are 2-4 SU in their last 6 games at home against the Thunder.\u00a0 The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Sacramento’s last 7 games at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kendrick Perkins vs. DeMarcus Cousins<\/strong><\/p>\n

Aside from the high turnovers, one could really not expect much more than Cousins has already delivered.\u00a0 14.0 points per game, 8.7 rebounds per game, 2.5 assists per game, 1 steal per game.\u00a0 His field goal percentage is horrid for a big man at 42%, but that will improve as he becomes more accustomed to facing players that are his size every night.\u00a0 The 3.3 turnovers, as alluded to, is absolutely horrendous for a player that is only seeing 28 minutes a game and averages less than 3 assists per game.\u00a0 Perkins, unlike Cousins, is not depended upon for offense.\u00a0 His defense, however, is among the best for big men in the league and he added another big and tough body to the Thunder’s rotation.\u00a0 Along with Nick Collison and Serge Ibaka, the Thunder have a strong rotation of big bodies to cover Cousins and other big men that they encounter.<\/p>\n

Thabo Sefolosha & James Harden vs.\u00a0 Tyreke Evans<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, the Thunder counter a high scoring King with an excellent defender in Sefolosha.\u00a0 Harden is more a scorer, but his defense is at least average.\u00a0 Evans is going to try to take Thabo to the hoop, but will probably find it difficult to do so.\u00a0 His jumper has not been reliable and he is shooting just 41% from the field, down 4% from last season.\u00a0 He’s still getting the same number of shots; he’s just not making them.\u00a0 Sefolosha won’t offer much on offense because that isn’t his job, while Harden will hit a few threes here and there, but is pretty one dimensional at this point in his career.<\/p>\n

The Kings have little to play for other than giving their Sacramento fans a few last looks at a Kings’ victory.\u00a0 The Thunder know they have little hope of moving up in the seedings but have to look at this game as a chance to fine tune things for the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder AT Sacramento Kings April 11, 2011 at 10:05 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 OKC -5.5 Current Line: OKC -5.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 208 Current Total:\u00a0 208.5 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 OKC -235 \/ SAC +195 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 OKC -240 \/ SAC +200 Many Kings fans may show up for tonight’s game with tears of nostalgia — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[1912,1193,399,3298,582,53],"class_list":["post-14817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-demarcus-cousins","tag-kevin-durant","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-tyreke-evans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14817","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=14817"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14833,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14817\/revisions\/14833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}