Projected Line: Oklahoma City by 3 points
Houston has won the last two games of this series, including a huge win on the last game at Oklahoma City. However, I don't expect them to be able to replicate what they did to win the last game of this series. Oklahoma City's stagnant offense has been the norm since Russell Westbrook got injured, but the truth is that the "hero ball" has been the norm more in Houston than in Oklahoma City. The Rockets had just 15 assists on Game 5, a series low! According to mysynergy numbers, the Rockets had a volume of 31% on isolation plays, an absurdly high number that are similar to what the Knicks generally do. The good news is that Houston were on fire on the hero ball with 11-24 FG for a high 1.10 PPP on the last game of this series. They were impressively good on this area, as they had 0.39, 0.65, 0.56 and 0.86 PPP on isolations on the first four games of this series! All the role players of the Rockets played well, but Carlos Delfino won't play tonight, while Jeremy Lin will come off the bench. Houston has been playing well with Patrick Beverley, but with Jeremy Lin coming back, the team chemistry might get affected by the changes that this return will cause.
Even though the Rockets shot well, they got completely outrebounded by grabbing just 46% of the rebounds, while committing 15 turnovers, with the Thunder committing just 9 turnovers. I believe that Houston will continue tonight with the same gameplan, but it's very unlikely that they will have the same incredible efficiency on the isolation plays. On the other side, I believe Oklahoma City will play better and especially take better decisions than they took on the previous game. Their decision of doing a hack-a-Asik happened when the Thunder had a huge momentum in the game and they were just down by 4 points and this was a terrible decision, as even though Asik isn't a good FT shooter, he isn't as bad as Dwight Howard or DeAndre Jordan for example. Asik is shooting 56% FT this season and he shot well with 13-18 FT on the last game. Kevin Durant played huge minutes, but he kept being efficient, while Reggie Jackson is also pretty comfortable at the starting PG position. Their problem on Game 5 was that Kevin Martin shot 1-10 FG, while Nick Collison played just 7 minutes. I believe this is where the Thunder will adjust tonight, with Martin playing better and if the Thunder really want to keep playing small ball, Collison will have to play more due to his good footspeed.
The Thunder's offense has been playing well, even with Westbrook's absence, something that says a lot about Houston's defensive demerit. Of course Oklahoma City have been struggling to defend the Rockets's offense, but the way Houston used to win the last game via isolations won't be able to replicate tonight and so, I expect the Thunder to win tonight's game.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 549 Oklahoma City Thunder (+1,5) @ -110 / 1.91 on Bookmaker
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