NBA Betting – Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder

Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City Thunder (-5, 212 o/u)

The NBA returns from its All-Star break this evening with two great matchups. In the first, the Dallas Mavericks (36-19, 19-10 road) face the Oklahoma City Thunder (28-25, 16-8 home) at Chesapeake Energy Arena (8:00 p.m. Eastern).

The Mavs and Thunder last faced off on December 28, when Dirk Nowitzki’s 30 points led the Mavs to a 112-107 home win.

The Thunder were still without reigning NBA MVP Kevin Durant at that point, though; and they have been a different team since KD and point guard Russell Westbrook have returned from injury. The Thunder have climbed back above .500 and now trail the Phoenix Suns by just half a game in the race for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

This time around, it will be Dallas missing a valuable assets. Point guard Rajon Rondo is out indefinitely with a fractured orbital bone, and center Tyson Chandler is day-to-day with an ankle injury.

The Mavs have held serve without their new star point guard on the floor, winning four of six without Rondo.

Dallas should have its most recent addition, power forward Amare’ Stoudemire, in the lineup. Stoudemire averaged 12.0 points and 6.8 rebounds per game in 36 appearance with New York this season.

The OKC Thunder are currently five-point favorites for tonight’s game, and the over/under is at 212. Oklahoma City is just 2-10 ATS in its last 12 home games against Dallas, despite being a 7-1 SU in the last eight of those.

The trends say take OKC to win, but Dallas (+5) to cover.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)