NBA - 727 Houston Rockets @ 728 Oklahoma City Thunder
Projected Lines: 216 points | Oklahoma City by 15 points
Houston's gameplan on Game 1 completely failed and so, it has been reported that the Rockets will change the system by playing smaller on Game 2. The best way of exposing the Thunder's defense is to use frontcourt players who are good mid/long-range shooters. Players like Lebron James or Carmelo Anthony at the PF position can push Serge Ibaka and Kendrick Perkins to the outside, where they struggled, as seen for example in last year's finals. The problem is that Houston has Greg Smith at the PF position, who is a old school PF player and so, they struggled in Game 1. Serge Ibaka easily controlled him and the Thunder's defense had a nice performance. In fact, Smith played just 17 minutes in Game 1, with the Rockets getting outscored by 34 points during that span!!! Besides that, Houston doesn't have an expanded playbook, it's just a bunch of pick and rolls with no diversity. Oklahoma City's pick and roll ball handler defense is an elite unit, especially against a player like James Harden that they know so well.
On offense, the Thunder have Russell Westbrook crushing Jeremy Lin and Chandler Parsons gets too tired defending Kevin Durant to shoot well on offense. Besides that, Greg Smith is also a poor defender and the rookie Motiejunas is even worse! The solution for Houston is to play with a smaller lineup, but they will struggle even more on defense with that. Coach Kevin McHale said the following after Game 1:
"It wasn't any of their actions that hurt us. They had 21 points off of our turnovers and then offensively we got stagnant. We didn't get much pass-pass combination and we didn't have a whole lot of flow tonight offensively."
The Rockets will still want to attack off the dribble if Serge Ibaka, Nick Collison or Kendrick Perkins switch on screens and defend James Harden, Jeremy Lin or Chandler Parsons on the perimeter. They said the change must be what they do off the dribble. So, I have no doubt that Greg Smith will barely play on the remaining games of this series. Houston will then play with an even smaller than usual lineup and even though they will be a bit better on offense, their defense is going to be absolutely crushed by Oklahoma City. Therefore, I expect another blowout win for the Thunder tonight, on a super high scoring contest and so, I'll be taking both Oklahoma City and the Over in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 727/728 Over 213 @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 728 Oklahoma City Thunder (-11,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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