NBA Betting – Phoenix Suns at Oklahoma City Thunder
Phoenix Suns at Oklahoma City Thunder (-7.5, 213 o/u)
The Oklahoma City Thunder will look to bounce back from a loss to the Mavericks tonight when the host the Phoenix Suns at Chesapeake Energy Arena (8:00 p.m. Eastern).
After climbing back into contention in the Western Conference with a seven-game win-streak, the Thunder have dropped four of their last seven. The reason? Last year’s NBA MVP, Kevin Durant, has been sidelined again. Durant also missed the first month and a half of the year with a foot injury and the Thunder got off to an expectedly slow start.
The good news for the Thunder is that Durant was able to practice yesterday and is expected to play against the Suns tonight.
“He was very lively and active on both ends of the floor,” Thunder head coach Scott Brooks said. “He’s progressing well. We’ll see how he feels tomorrow and go from there.”
“Yeah, on the White team he scored 13 of the 17 points in about five minutes of the scrimmage,” added Durant’s teammate, Kendrick Perkins. “So, yeah, he looked real good.”
Oklahoma City will be facing a Phoenix Suns team that has surprised a lot of pundits lately. Expected to struggle in the tough Western Conference, the Suns have won six of their last seven and are three games over .500, good enough for eighth in the West.
The foundation for Phoenix’s success is its fast-paced offense, which ranks fifth in the league in points per game (105.7). The Suns also average a league-high 18.5 fast-break points per game.
However, the Suns are coming off a 110-106 loss to New Orleans last night, and will be the more tired team heading into today’s game.
With the Suns playing the second of a back-to-back, the Thunder are 7.5-point favorites. (The over/under is at 213.) OKC has won eight of the last ten games in the series, but the Suns have covered the spread in seven of those ten meetings.
(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
