{"id":15026,"date":"2011-04-20T11:57:42","date_gmt":"2011-04-20T16:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=15026"},"modified":"2011-04-20T11:57:42","modified_gmt":"2011-04-20T16:57:42","slug":"game-2-denver-nuggets-at-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/game-2-denver-nuggets-at-oklahoma-city-thunder-15026\/","title":{"rendered":"Game 2: Denver Nuggets At Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets AT Oklahoma City Thunder<\/strong>
\nApril 20, 2011 at 8 PM EST<\/strong>
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 OKC -4.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 OKC -4.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Moneyline: OKC -210, DEN +180<\/strong>
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 OKC -210, DEN +175<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 206.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 205.5<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Westbrook put up 31 last game <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Much as I said in my preview, stopping Durant does nothing to ensure the success of the opposing team.\u00a0 “Option 1A” Russell Westbrook also had a huge game, going for 31 points to go with Durant’s 41.\u00a0 Only one other Thunder player (Eric Maynor, 12 pts) was even in double figures yet the Thunder still scored 107 points.\u00a0 George Karl said after breaking down the tape, Durant and Westbrook shot 18 of 25 on jump shots, and 14 of the 18 came with a hand in the face.<\/p>\n

If Durant and Westbrook continue to be that difficult to guard, I just don’t see a way the Nuggets can win this series.\u00a0 Durant and Westbrook are the second highest scoring tandem behind LeBron James and Dwyane Wade.<\/p>\n

Karl was befuddled at what to do.\u00a0 The Nuggets’ defense did everything asked of it and it still wasn’t enough.\u00a0 \u201cYou want to overreact to that? You want to go off and double-team and give up open jump shots? I\u2019m not there yet,\u201d Karl said.<\/p>\n

The Nuggets got a strong game from Brazilian forward Nen\u00ea, but his 22 points and 8 boards just weren’t enough, despite a strong game from Danilo Gallinari, who shot 6 of 11, including 4 of 6 from three, to score 18 points in 32 minutes of play.\u00a0 No Nugget played more than 34 minutes.<\/p>\n

Kenyon Martin recalled how much better it was when the Nuggets countered Durant with Carmelo Anthony, who Durant could not sleep on defense on.\u00a0 Speaking of ‘Melo, Martin commented, \u201cthat boy beats you up bad when he\u2019s got the ball, so that takes your legs a little bit.\u201d\u00a0 Galinari will make Durant stay honest on defense, but his lack of movement without the ball takes away the chance of tiring out Durant’s legs.\u00a0 Martin, continuing his theory of Durant went on to say, You\u2019ve got to make him guard, you\u2019ve got to make him pass the ball\u2014make him do the things that didn\u2019t get him drafted. Scoring got him drafted. \u2026 They didn\u2019t draft Kevin Durant because he\u2019s an excellent passer or he\u2019s a lockdown defender. I know this for a fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether he was drafted as a defender or scorer matters little at this point.\u00a0 The fact is he is one of the best pure scorers to come through the NBA, ever, and his fluidity is a beautiful thing to watch.\u00a0 He’s the main reason most experts predicted this series to end in no more than 6 games, and some predicted 5.\u00a0 Durant said he’s not really worried about whether or not the Nuggets double team, and that\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve just got to worry about going out there and playing my game, just going out there and playing hard and being aggressive on the offensive end and going from there. If they do double, I know I\u2019ve got faith in my teammates that they\u2019ll come through.”<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

Denver is 16-7 SU in their last 23 games and the total has gone UNDER in 15 of their last 23 games.\u00a0 It has also gone UNDER in 9 of their last 13 on the road and the Nuggets are 1-4 SU in their last 5 games against the Oklahoma City Thunder.\u00a0 Denver is 12-6 SU in their last 18 games against the Thunder and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of the last 6 against Oklahoma City.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 12 of the last 18 games against the Thunder and the total has also gone OVER in 8 of the last 11 road games against the Thunder.\u00a0 Denver is 1-4 SU in their last 5 games on the road in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

The total has gone OVER in 5 of Oklahoma City’s last 6 games and the Thunder are 6-1 SU in their last 7 games.\u00a0 The Thunder are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 at home and the total has gone OVER In 4 of Oklahoma City’s last 5 games at home.\u00a0 The Thunder are 7-1 SU in their last 8 games at home and the Thunder are 6-12 SU in their last 18 against Denver.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 4-1 SU in their last 5 against Denver and the total has gone UNDER in 4 of the last 6 against the Nuggets.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 12 of the last 18 games against Denver and also has gone OVER in 8 of the last 11 home games against the Nuggets.\u00a0 Oklahoma CIty is 4-1 SU in their last 5 home games against Denver.<\/p>\n

Look for the Thunder to come out firing on all cylinders once again.\u00a0 The Nuggets have no one at point guard strong enough and quick enough to match up with Westbrook and almost no team in the league has a solid answer for Durant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Denver Nuggets AT Oklahoma City Thunder April 20, 2011 at 8 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 OKC -4.5 Current Line:\u00a0 OKC -4.5 Opening Moneyline: OKC -210, DEN +180 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 OKC -210, DEN +175 Opening Total: 206.5 Current Total:\u00a0 205.5 Much as I said in my preview, stopping Durant does nothing to ensure the success of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4055,526,1193,3562,399,3298],"class_list":["post-15026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-danilo-galinari","tag-denver-nuggets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nene-hilario","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-russell-westbrook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026","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=15026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15027,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15026\/revisions\/15027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}