{"id":21970,"date":"2012-03-05T04:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T09:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=21970"},"modified":"2012-03-04T20:08:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-05T01:08:15","slug":"nba-predictions-dallas-mavericks-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-predictions-dallas-mavericks-vs-oklahoma-city-thunder-21970\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Predictions: Dallas Mavericks vs. Oklahoma City Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder
\nMonday, 3\/5\/12, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBATV
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -7
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -7
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 195
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 195.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Kevin Durant is among the league's top scorers again<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dallas snapped a four-game losing streak in picking up a 102-96 win over the Utah Jazz as 7.5-point home favorites on Saturday.\u00a0 The Mavericks have failed to cover their last five games and have gone \u201cover\u201d the total in consecutive contests.\u00a0 All-Star forward Dirk Nowitzki has been coming on of late, scoring a season-high 40 points last time out.\u00a0 \u201cI had a good rhythm,\u201d commented Nowitzki.\u00a0 \u201cI just wanted to be aggressive and my teammates kept feeding me.\u201d\u00a0 He is averaging a team-high 19.7 points and also grabbing 6.9 rebounds per game.\u00a0 Dallas is 7-3 ATS as an underdog and the \u201cunder\u201d is 6-4 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks are 8-9 on the road this season, including a 5-7 mark versus Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 Dallas has won 24 of the last 33 regular-season meetings with Oklahoma\u2019s franchise, but has dropped three of the last four.\u00a0 The team has ended up on the losing end in two of three meetings this year, but has managed to cover both games as an underdog.\u00a0 Nowitzki is certainly the player to watch, averaging team highs in points, rebounds and minutes versus the Thunder.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City had its seven-game win streak snapped in dropping a 97-90 contest to the Atlanta Hawks as six-point road favorites.\u00a0 The Thunder still manage to turn the ball over at a high rate, averaging a league-worst 16.5 turnovers per game.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to fix it,\u201d commented Thunder head coach Scott Brooks.\u00a0 There\u2019s no question that the team has the opportunity to bounce back in this spot, losing back-to-back games just once during the 2011-12 campaign.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is 9-7 ATS at home this year.<\/p>\n

The Thunder are a dominating 15-1 at home this season, including a sparkling 11-1 versus Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 Oklahoma City will look to All-Star forward Kevin Durant on the offensive end, averaging 28.2 points per game overall, while stepping it up a bit in three meetings with the Mavericks (28.7).\u00a0 He was recently named the Western Conference Player of the Month for February, tallying seven games in scoring 30-plus points.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Thunder due to their 9-4 ATS mark as a home favorite of 5.0 to 10.5 points, while the Mavericks are 0-4 ATS versus Western Conference teams.<\/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":"

Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder Monday, 3\/5\/12, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 NBATV Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -7 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Oklahoma City -7 Opening Total:\u00a0 195 Current Total:\u00a0 195.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Dallas snapped a four-game losing streak in picking up a 102-96 win over the Utah Jazz as 7.5-point home favorites […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":5488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[19,20,1193,18,399,3693],"class_list":["post-21970","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","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21970","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=21970"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21972,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21970\/revisions\/21972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}