{"id":20776,"date":"2012-01-02T14:27:17","date_gmt":"2012-01-02T19:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=20776"},"modified":"2012-01-02T14:27:17","modified_gmt":"2012-01-02T19:27:17","slug":"pro-basketball-picks-oklahoma-city-thunder-vs-dallas-mavericks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-basketball-picks-oklahoma-city-thunder-vs-dallas-mavericks-20776\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Basketball Picks: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Dallas Mavericks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Dallas Mavericks
\nMonday, 1\/2\/12, 8:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBATV
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -1
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 199.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 196.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Mavericks-Blazers<\/a>
The Dallas Mavericks are playing the second game of a back-to-back situation Monday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oklahoma City comes in with a perfect 5-0 record after picking up a 107-97 win over the Phoenix Suns as 11.5-point home favorites.\u00a0 The Thunder are 2-3 ATS on the year and the \u2018over\u2019 is 3-2 in their first five games.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ve got to start the new year with a win,\u201d stated Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook about this particular contest.\u00a0 \u201cHopefully, we can keep this going.\u201d\u00a0 Fast-break points is a major advantage for this team against almost every opponent, outscoring the Suns by a 21-5 margin in that category on Dec. 31.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 9-5 ATS as a road favorite of three points or less.<\/p>\n

The Thunder have started the season with a perfect mark through five games due to a defense that\u2019s held opponents to under 45 percent shooting in every game.\u00a0 Kevin Durant is also a major reason for the team\u2019s success, starting the season with four 30-point games, but scored just 12 on Saturday.\u00a0 It\u2019s important to note that he played just 26 minutes in that particular contest.<\/p>\n

Dallas has certainly suffered a hangover after winning the NBA championship a year ago, dropping to 1-4 on the year with a 99-82 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves as 2.5-point road favorites last night.\u00a0 \u201cWe got a lot of new pieces and we\u2019re trying to do this on the run,\u201d stated Mavericks point guard Jason Kidd.\u00a0 The squad will try to avoid its worst start since opening the 1998-99 campaign with a 1-8 record.\u00a0 Dallas is a dismal 10-22 ATS in January the last two-plus seasons.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks are still led offensively by star forward Dirk Nowitzki, who is averaging 21.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Dallas will meet with Oklahoma City for the fourth time in a span of 16 days, playing two preseason games and also dropping a 104-102 decision as five-point road underdogs on Dec. 29.\u00a0 The Mavericks are 6-5 against the Thunder since the franchise moved to Oklahoma City, but have lost four of the last six regular season meetings.\u00a0 Nowitzki did manage to net a season-best 29 points in the first meeting this year, while the rest of the starters combined to tally just 34 points.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Mavericks due to the underdog covering the last five meetings, while the Thunder are 2-5 ATS versus Western Conference foes.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Dallas Mavericks Monday, 1\/2\/12, 8:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBATV Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -1 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 199.5 Current Total:\u00a0 196.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Oklahoma City comes in with a perfect 5-0 record after picking up a 107-97 win over the Phoenix Suns as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[19,20,1193,18,399],"class_list":["post-20776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20776","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=20776"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20778,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20776\/revisions\/20778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}