NBA Playoff Picks -- Game 4: Rolling Thunder Now Can Draw Even

  • In Charles Jay
  • Sun, Apr 21st, 2019 2:32:23 pm
  • By Charles Jay - Exclusive to OSGA


The Oklahoma City Thunder got their act together in Game 3, and now they will attempt to sweep both home games against the Portland Trail Blazers.


The Oklahoma City Thunder knew that if they could find their collective shooting eye again, they could take one big step toward making their Western Conference playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers competitive again. Well, they did that, and got some stops when they needed to, and now they have a chance to make this a 2-2 series when these teams get together on Sunday night (9:30 PM ET) at the Chesapeake Energy Arena.

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Russell Westbrook was very frustrated after Game 2, when he hit just five of 20 shots. And so he resolved himself to get some redemption. He did, with 33 points, out-dueling Damian Lillard of Portland, who had 32. It was a heated and rough game all the way around, but did it get OKC back to where it should be?

The Blazers had an effective field goal percentage (eFG%) of just .478 in the process of losing all four regular season games to the Thunder, but now that's about what OKC's eFG% is against them. We've already seen what happens when the Thunder went cold? How about Portland? They are a team that has tended to be more reliant on offense than defense.

In the reduced juice basketball odds at BetAnySports, upon which our NBA playoff picks will be made, the Thunder lays points at home:

Oklahoma City Thunder -5.5 (-102)
Portland Trail Blazers +5.5 (-108)

Over 222.5 points -105
Under 222.5 points -105

In Game 3, OKC took 29 three-pointers and made more than half of them. They had the opportunity to go to the free throw line 39 times, and they had a very good night there, as Paul George made 14 of 17 and Westbrook was seven for eight. This has been unusual for Westbrook, who had been at 80% or better from the stripe before he went actively seeking triple-doubles (don't know if there's a coincidence there, but he was just 65.6% this year). The point is, for a team that could not seem to buy a triple in the first two games, this was rather out of the ordinary as well.

Portland coach Terry Stotts knows that Mo Harkless improves the overall level of defense for the Blazers, so you can expect to continue seeing him log more playoff minutes, on average, than he did in the regular season.

Something to keep an eye on here - the shooting percentage of George, who was just 3-for-16 overall and two of seven from the arc. And you can continue pondering whether there is some effect of that shoulder injury on his ability to nail shots from the field. Maybe yes, maybe no. But can the Thunder count on major contributions from Jerami Grant and Dennis Schroder again?

And Enes Kanter has been something of a wild card. Remember, he is the guy essentially replacing Jusuf Nurkic at center for Portland, and he is not a big-time defender. But he's had two pretty good offensive games, including 19 points in Game 3.

The pace these teams is 98.8, which isn't blistering. With Westbrook getting hot and the Thunder nailing a lot of threes and "frees," the total points between these two still didn't go sky-high. We're going UNDER in Game 4.


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