560 OKC -6

Betting NBA is all about situations.  Much different than the NFL where for the most part each team plays exactly one game per week and almost always on a Sunday.  In the NBA the schedule is always different. One team is playing their 3^rd game in 4 nights after traveling across the country while there opponent may have had 3 consecutive days off and haven’t had to leave their home city.  Playing back to back games is very challenging and puts teams at a huge disadvantage.  I use to play college basketball myself and understand how game planning changes when you have a week to prepare vs only hours when you play a 2^nd game in as many days.  From my personal experience most coaches are just going to focus on the immediate game in front of them and then worry about the next as it comes.  This means a team that has a couple days off will practice and game plan more in depth against a certain opponent. An example would be to actually have a day or two of practice against a scout team and really begin to dig deep into all the oppositions’ plays and tendencies.  From what out of bounds plays they like to run in certain situations to specific personnel traits.  Example, player A is only shooting 28% from 3 point land so we can give him that shot, or player B goes left 90% of the time when he catches the ball at the top of the key so let’s always try to force him to his less comfortable hand. 

In short, the Blazers are playing in their 2^nd game of a back to back here against probably the 2^nd best team in the West (Warriors).  They actually played a very similar scenario less than 3 weeks ago, 2^nd game of a back to back on the road and lost at OKC 123-114.  In fact this is the 5^th situation this season the Blazers are playing a back to back with both games being on the road and they are 1-4 ATS losing the last 4 consecutively.  Last night’s loss was pretty brutal for Portland as they were ahead 14 going heading into the 4^th quarter against a much inferior team of the Mavericks and ended up losing by 1.  That is one of those games that can really hurt the morale of a team and can be very difficult to bounce back from. To make matters worse they have no days off to prepare and play on the road against one of the hottest teams in the league.  OKC is 9-2 ATS there last 11 overall scoring at least 117 points in each of those contests!  That means that Portland is most likely going to have to put up 110 points minimum to have a chance to cover tonight’s spread.  OKC even had one day more to rest and game plan as well as playing at home where they are tough to beat this year, and almost impossible as of late.  Of course Portland is capable with Lillard and McCollum to get hot at any time but I don’t think they will be able to match the energy or skill of the Thunder in this game.