If you asked me a week ago if The Thunder and Rockets would be playing a game 7 in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs for a shot at the Lakers in the second round…I would have told you absolutely not. Especially after the way OKC looked in the first two games of this series. Give it to the Rockets they were hot at the beginning of this series where OKC really had no answer for the outside shooting capabilities of Harden and Co. and they rained down 47 three pointers in those first 2 games where the Thunder looked lazy and sluggish on what typically is a pretty solid defensively coached team.Â
Â
They will need to keep the defense they have showed last game to have a shot at winning and a big part of that will be Oklahoma City’s diamond in the rough Lou Dort who has been able to somewhat wrangle Harden at least better than any other OKC defender, but Harden is still leading all scorers in this series with 192 points.
Â
Â
Â
Â
These two teams are very familiar with each other with playing multiple times in the regular season and now six games in a playoff series. Just like the Utah/Denver. I expect this game to be a physical slug fest on both sides of the court. This is already evidenced in the Vegas betting lines where the total opened at 221.5 and has jammed all the way down to 217 in an effort to slow the land slide of money being put on the game where at one point was up to 75% on the under, as of the time of this article the under money is making an effort to 50/50 with it being at 57% this total won’t deviate much off where it is at now.
Â
Â
Â
Â
The Thunder are once again the underdog in this series where they have been in 5 of 6 games in this series and again as a five point or better underdog for. The difference this time is that they are a “trendy dog” this an underdog that everyone thinks will win or at least cover the Vegas spread. This perception has put OKC on the money in both the spread and moneyline markets. If I want Thunder to win this game, this is not the kind of movement I want to see out of the betting public and experts. What is the old saying? Everyone always remembers what they saw last.
Â
Â
Â
Â
Â
Now granted Thunder are one of the best closing teams in the league when it comes down to clutch time and I feel a lot more comfortable with Chris Paul steering the ship than I did with Westbrook in control…Prime example last game where he went on one of his wild tangents at the end of the game. Thunder fans have been dealing with these antics for years and it is odd to be on the other side of it for once.
Â
Â
Â
This spread opened at 5 points and with so many people betting on OKC it has moved the line to 5.5. Interestingly enough 66% of bettors are on the Rockets to win the game at around -200 juice and those numbers are about right given the 5 to 5.5 spread.
Â
Â
Â
If I have a play on this game it will be in the totals and not on the sides, because im going to be honest with you guys, I see this game being sharp and falling right into the spreads or possibly even another overtime game with the way things are moving. If this possibly being The Thunder’s last game of the year, I’m going to sit back and enjoy it.Â
Â
There are almost 7,000 betting tickets on this game at the time of this article. I expect it to get close to the 20k mark by tip off. These games always have a little bit different feel to them, even more so this year with everything that is going on.  Best of luck with what ever you decide to do. If I have a play it will be posted at Sports Action.
Â
