NBA Free Premium Play 12/25: Oklahoma City Thunder @ New York Knicks

Oklahoma City  at New York

NBA - 803 Oklahoma City Thunder @ 804 New York Knicks Play #1 The Knicks are coming from a “nice” win last game @ORL in a pretty favorable matchup for them. ORL defensive scheme is focused to protect the rim while their lack of athleticism on the wings don’t allow them to be a good perimeter defensive team: they are ranked #21 defending Pick n Roll ball handler plays & 26 spot up plays. So, what happened was that the Knicks almost didn’t try to score down low against the Magic, they scored just 26 points in the paint! At the same time, 62% of their shots were from +16 feet where ORL defense struggles. Obviously, the Knicks were able to be efficient on the offense end. However, note that despite scoring 103 points, NYK had just 19 assists in 39 FGM for a subpar 48.7% assist/rate% and just 3 fast break points – no transition game or whatsoever! This might work against a bad P&R & Spot up defensive team like ORL....However against an OKC defense that in those 2 areas is ranked #4 & #3 in the league, this simply won’t work! The supreme athleticism of OKC isn’t comparable vs. ORL and so the Knicks offense without a good ball movement and lack of transition game, will be in trouble in the half court vs. OKC defense. Despite the return of Tyson Chandler, NYK defense is still bad, especially w/ their team help defense concept. Their 1*1 defense down low is actually pretty decent but when it comes to rotate and make the right defensive decisions, they are a mess. A decent aggressive guard will torch them off the dribble and you can consider Russell Westbrook as one of those “decent” guards. OKC was playing their best basketball of the season when they went @SAS and beat them with some ease (I had OKC+3 in that game) but, then in a b2b home game they completely relaxed and overlooked the Raptors, and ended up losing the game for their first home loss of the season. The loss was so bizarre especially considering that OKC was leading the game by double digits points in the 4th quarter! They finished the 4th quarter shooting 5-25 from the field – a comical 20% FG mark! Raymond Felton is OUT for today, so the Knicks have only Beno Udrih to play as natural PG. Obviously HC Mike Woodson will have to find some solutions for this position but regardless who plays the position, Russell Westbrook will just destroy the Knicks today. OKC superior bench play, superior talent and superior “motivation” will be just too much for the Knicks today. The Knicks have already on their backs some blowout losses against “lowly” teams like the Celtics or the Cavaliers, now they will face a OKC fired up team, good luck with that! Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 803 Oklahoma City Thunder (-9) @ -115 / 1.87 on Betonline