Having watched Kevin Durant depart the team and win a world title with the Golden State Warriors, the Oklahoma City Thunder felt they had to make a move in order to put forth a plausible challenge for the Western Conference championship. So they went out and acquired Paul George and Carmelo Anthony. There is no doubt that those guys know how to put the ball in the net, but as VietBet customers know, when you bring together a number of star players who are very conscious of their numbers (don’t forget we have triple-double king Russell Westbrook in the OKC fold too), you always have to worry about chemistry.
The Utah Jazz seem to have that kind of chemistry, even though they have had first-year player Donovan Mitchell come in and dominate things from an offensive standpoint. The Jazz has been a very good defensive team under Quin Snyder, so we will see whether they can continue their momentum and slow down what Billy Donovan’s Thunder has to offer.
These teams finished the regular season with identical 48-34 records, but the Thunder won the tie-breaker and thus has the home court advantage in the best-of-seven series. Utah ranked second in the NBA in Defensive Rating, while the Thunder was a top ten team in both Offensive AND Defensive Rating.
2018 NBA Playoff Betting Lines – Thunder / Jazz:
And the NBA odds on that, according to the people at VietBet, favor OKC:
Oklahoma City Thunder -135
Utah Jazz +115
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2018 NBA Playoff Betting Lines: CJ’s Take on OKC:
As often happens with these “Big Three” combos, there is a “Big One” and a couple of other guys. Westbrook averaged a triple-double for the second consecutive season, and his Usage figure (i.e., how much he dominates the ball) was the second-highest in the league. So even though we saw George averaging 21.9 points a game, you can still put the Thunder attack off-balance if you can prevent him from taking shots from the places he wants to fire from. George was the best three-point marksman OKC had (40%), but Westbrook is just below 30% from downtown.
Of course, that is not necessarily his game, so it is up to someone like Rudy Gobert to be a great line of defense against people who look to drive the lane. The guys who do the dirty work are the ones you may want to look out for with the Thunder, and nobody gets dirtier than Steven Adams, who averages almost 14 points, and perhaps most importantly, five offensive rebounds per contest, which was second best in the league.
The presence of Anthony might be somewhat troubling, because he has never been someone associated with post-season success, and another thing he has not been associated with is defense. This might not be so much of a concern, except that this team’s most proven defensive stopper, Andre Roberson, is out with a knee injury. Roberson was someone who could usually be counted on to hassle the other team’s top scoring threat at either the “2” or “3” positions, but maybe George, who has been an All-Defensive Team selection, or Corey Brewer can pick up some of the slack. And OKC has often suffered from Roberson’s lack of offensive ability.
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