CLICK GRAB OUR BEST Expert NBA Picks for 2013 HOOPS GAMBLING season!<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\nThat\u2019s the problem facing the visiting Memphis Grizzlies, who tonight must deal again with Kevin Durant\u2019s Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC rallied late in Game 1 and now look to take a 2-0 edge in their Western Conference playoff series.<\/p>\n
The Grizzlies basically had a pillow on the Thunder\u2019s face late in Game 1, but the final two points of Durant\u2019s 35-point game were the margin of victory. It didn\u2019t help that Memphis thought it might be a good idea to turn over the ball twice in the final 18 seconds, but that falls into the if and buts\/berries and nut category.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a game that I think that we all think we should\u2019ve won,\u201d Memphis forward Quincy Pondexter said. \u201cWe were right there in it and they really did a great job of executing down the stretch.\u201d
\nThat the Grizz didn\u2019t win the game now makes Game 2 all that more important as Memphis faces the uncomfortable reality that a loss tonight would mean that it would have to find a way to take four of five against an OKC team that didn\u2019t go 1-4 in any 5-game stretch during the entire regular season. [ad-6571516]<\/p>\n
Still, Memphis can be encouraged that it was able to hang with the Thunder until the final stages of Game 1. Marc Gasol (20 and 10) was solid, as was Zach Randolph (18 and 10). The Grizzlies held the Thunder to 41 percent shooting from the field, no small feat in any game played at OKC. And Memphis flat outplayed the Thunder through three periods in building a 9-point lead.
\nBut OKC also has to be feeling pretty good today. The Thunder played less than their best and still won, and Memphis\u2019s expected edge on the boards never materialized. In fact, OKC actually had a slight rebounding advantage.<\/p>\n
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Oddsmakers have been taking over players for rides on Thunder games for the past three weeks. OKC games went under in the final three games of the regular season, and during the playoffs the over is 1-6 as bettors consistently forget that defenses tighten up in the post-season.<\/p>\n
Also, Memphis\u2019s only shot in this series is to win ugly, and the chances of a full-throttle game involving the Grizzlies is next to nil. Liking yet another under play in this one. Side bettors could do worse than an OKC play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memphis Grizzlies (0-1) at Oklahoma City Thunder (1-0) It\u2019s been said so many times that it no longer needs repeating, but we\u2019ll do it anyway:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":27658,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62088","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=62088"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62207,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62088\/revisions\/62207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}