Over\/Under<\/strong>: 195.5<\/p>\nCan the Oklahoma City Thunder replicate in the playoffs what they have done in the regular season?<\/p>\n
They have all the ingredients for the cake to rise — one of the top scorers in the league (Kevin Durant) who no one has figure out how to cover; the most underrated player in the league (point guard Russell Westbrook), and enough depth to play up tempo for 48 minutes.<\/p>\n
Tonight’s game at Dallas will be a decent test. The Western Conference playoff race is a big scramble, and OKC is smack dab in the middle of the conversation. If momentum means anything, the Thunder will steal the No. 5 seed and get the Mavericks, Suns or Utah in the first round.<\/p>\n
OKC has had one huge advantage over many other teams in the second half of the season because the Thunder flat-out battle on every possession. That was never more evident than earlier this week when they outlasted and wore down the Celtics in Boston.![\"Online](\"http:\/\/affiliates.commissionaccount.com\/processing\/impressions.asp?btag=a_3953b_41\")
<\/p>\n
But the Thunder will find that once the real bullets start flying in the middle of the month, every team will be playing hard. Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett will no longer be pacing themselves. Shaq O’Neal may even hustle a little.<\/p>\n
The smart money is on the Thunder to give their first-round opponent a lot of grief in the first round but fade away in 6 or 7 games. But if they can get by one of the Western heavies and advance to Round 2, they will then officially become\u00a0the team no one wants to face.<\/em><\/p>\nBetting Trends<\/strong>:<\/p>\nThe total has gone OVER in 5 of Oklahoma City’s last 6 games on the road
\nThe total has gone UNDER in 5 of Dallas’s last 6 games
\nThe total has gone UNDER in 4 of Dallas’s last 5 games at home
\nOklahoma City is 7-1 ATS in its last 8 games when playing Dallas
\nOklahoma City is 4-1 SU in its last 5 games
\nOklahoma City is 4-1 ATS in its last 5 games
\nDallas is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games when playing at home against Oklahoma City
\nDallas is 17-3 SU in its last 20 games when playing Oklahoma City<\/p>\n
BEST BET:<\/em><\/strong> Easily the best game on the board tonight, and just watching Durant and Dirk Nowitzki go at it is worth a few hours of your time. Normally the Mavericks would be the pick here at -3.5, but the Thunder play hard for 48 minutes and blowout losses are rare, even on the road. Neither team played last night and both should be able to dig in defensively. Three other games between these teams have trended under, and at 195.5 that\u2019s the play tonight. Keep an eye on the Russell Westbrook-Jason Kidd battle at the point. Last year Kidd faded badly in the first round of the playoffs, a major reason for Dallas\u2019s loss to Denver in the first round. He might start pacing himself in the final stages of this season to reserve energy.<\/em><\/p>\nGet Your Free $10 Bet Today at Sportsbook.com<\/h4>\n
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\nLawrence Paul is a regular contributor to the Cappers Picks Blog, and is a free-lance gambling and travel expert from Massachusetts.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our experts weigh in with this week\u2019s best Saturday night hoops NBA picks for gambling on all the action…tonight on the hardwood we get the OKC Thunder vs. Dallas Mavericks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[4045,5595,20992,20991,9273,27247,27248,9921,13294,27253,27254,27249,27250,27251,27252],"class_list":["post-20872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-free-nba-picks","tag-free-nba-predictions","tag-nba-parlay-betting","tag-nba-parlay-picks","tag-nba-selections","tag-oklahoma-city-dallas-picks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder-vs-dallas-mavericks","tag-online-nba-predictions","tag-saturday-nba-picks","tag-thunder-mavericks-odds","tag-thunder-mavericks-picks","tag-thunder-vs-mavericks","tag-thunder-vs-mavericks-lines","tag-thunder-vs-mavericks-odds","tag-thunder-vs-mavericks-predictions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20872"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107123,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20872\/revisions\/107123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}