NBA - 803 Oklahoma City Thunder @ 804 Los Angeles Clippers
Projected Line: 200 points
The Clippers played back to back games at Indiana and Cleveland on Thursday and Friday, so this is a tough spot for them at they will play at home today on an early 12:30 PM local time game! They will now play the Thunder for the third time this season. In the first game, Oklahoma City won at home on overtime, while in the second game at LA, the Thunder won again, but Chris Paul didn't play, so this game doesn't mean a lot for today's contest. The Clippers's spot isn't great for today, but with them playing at home and with the great depth that they have, the spot isn't that terrible neither.
Looking at the matchups, the Clippers have a good edge on offense that has to go with Oklahoma City's turnovers. The Thunder are only #27 in the league in turnover rate with 16.1% and they committed 19 turnovers on their last game at Denver that resulted in 19 points for the Nuggets. The Clippers are even more aggressive on the ball handler than Denver with Chris Paul and Eric Bledsoe, so the Thunder's turnovers are likely to result in easy transition points for the LA team today. But on the rest of matchup, the Clippers's offense are likely to struggle. Oklahoma City is a top defensive team on pick and rolls, DeAndre Jordan will be defended by Kendrick Perkins, while Serge Ibaka will defend Blake Griffin.
On the other hand, the same happens with the Clippers's defense being a tough matchup for the Thunder's offense. The Clippers are #1 in the league in pick and roll ball handler defense with just 0.70 PPP allowed and #4 on pick and roll roll man defense. Chauncey Billups's defensive problems won't get exposed today, as he will defend Thabo Sefolosha, Russell Westbrook will be defended by Chris Paul, who is a smart defender, while Kevin Durant can be a problem, but Matt Barnes will play big minutes today in order to give Durant a tough offensive matchup as well.
This is a poor spot for both teams, who won't be comfortable in playing such an early game. This should also be a very physical game in almost a Playoff preview on National TV. The pace of the first two games between these two teams this season wasn't fast and I'm sure the Clippers will try to slow down the pace of this game with Chris Paul. Eventually, the story will be different when the Clippers's second unit enters the court, but while their starters are on the court, the pace of this contest will be relatively slow. Therefore, I believe the totals line for this contest is overrated and so, I'll be taking the Under in here.
Pick: 3 units (Single Dime Play) on 803/804 Under 205 @ -110 / 1.91 on Betonline
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