Betting Odds: Golden State Warriors-Oklahoma City Thunder
- Spread: Thunder -1.5
- Over/Under: 230
- Time: 8:30 p.m. ET
- TV Channel: ABC
The Warriors eked a two-point win in Houston on Wednesday night without Kevin Durant (ankle), who is again out for Saturday night's matchup in Oklahoma City.
Can Steph Curry and Co. pull off another road win without KD? Our experts discuss.
Betting Trends to Know
This is the 11th time the Warriors and Thunder have met since Kevin Durant left OKC. Golden State is 7-3 straight up and 6-4 against the spread in the previous 10, including 3-1 SU and ATS in Oklahoma. — John Ewing
The Warriors have a tendency to play to their competition. Under Steve Kerr, they're 62-41-1 (60.2%) ATS in the regular season when facing an opponent that has won 60% or more of their games compared to 130-151-5 (46.3%) ATS in all other games. — Ewing
Since the beginning of last season, the Warriors are 61-87-1 (41.2%) ATS in the regular season, making them the league's least profitable team ATS over that span. When the Warriors win their previous game, that cover percentage drops from 41.2% to 40.2% (41-61-1 ATS). — Evan Abrams
The Warriors have always struggled to cover because they're almost always listed as a large favorite. When they play over on Saturdays or Sundays, they struggle even more to cover, potentially due to higher lines and more public action.
Since 2015, the Warriors are 32-55 (36.8%) ATS when playing on either a Saturday or Sunday in the regular season, but 15-6 ATS in the playoffs.
Of those 87 games played on the weekend, the Warriors are an astounding 16-35 (31.4%) against the spread on the road, losing bettors 19.7 units, the worst mark in the league. The closest team to Golden State is the Grizzlies, who are 17-26-2 ATS, losing bettors just 9.5 units. —Abrams
Mears: How I'm Betting Tonight's Game
The Warriors have been all over the place lately, losing some questionable games over the past couple of weeks but then taking care of business in Houston without Kevin Durant, winning outright as a road dog.
Over the past month, they are just 5-6 overall and rank 18th with a -1.7 point differential. They’re 14th in offense over that span and 23rd defensively. They have wins against the Rockets and Nuggets, but also losses to the Suns, Magic and Heat.
The Warriors remain a pretty weird team.
It honestly seems like this is just a matter of flipping the switch for them.
When they’re engaged, they can beat anyone obviously. And those recent wins over Houston and Denver were impressive. Despite sitting 14th in offense over the past month, they’re still third in effective field goal percentage, which I think highlights the flip-switching nature of this team.
The shooting and talent is always there, but over the past month they’ve ranked 25th in both turnover rate and free throw rate. They're not elite in those areas anyway — on the season they’re 13th and 17th, respectively — but they certainly aren’t bottom-five bad. And those are the two categories that are seemingly most impacted by lethargy: Being careless with the ball and settling for jump shots instead of attacking.
These two teams have split this season, with the Warriors winning on opening night and the Thunder blowing them out in mid-November. In both games the Dubs struggled to score, especially in the latter when they posted just 90.7 points per 100 possessions — the fourth percentile of games this season.
That said… it was without Stephen Curry, which makes that game essentially meaningless in terms of being representative. The same is true about the first game, too, as Russell Westbrook didn’t suit up in that one. And it looks like we won't get both teams at full strength today either, as Durant (ankle) is out.
Durant is no doubt incredibly important to this team, as I talked about at length before Wednesday's game against the Rockets. They’ve taken his identity, which means more mid-rangers and isolation sets, as opposed to the more movement, optimized offenses of the Curry-led Warriors of old.
It’s hard to sustain that play long-term without Durant actually playing.
On the year, Durant's on/off court stats are notable. The Warriors have been 15.8 points per 100 possessions better with him on vs. off, which is in the 98th-percentile of all players. Most of that is on offense (13.8 points/100).
That will be tested more against a great Thunder defense than it was against a mediocre Rockets one.
Further, the public remains believing in the Warriors, which is why they’re historically so bad ATS. It’s possible that would’ve changed for this game if they had lost to Houston without KD, but alas here we are. The Warriors are getting 62% of the bets.
That said, the Thunder are getting the majority of the money and as a result have moved from -1 at open to -1.5 as of writing (see live odds here). That indicates sharp money, although it’s still early, so we’ll see what happens.
All said, I’ll trust the long-term data this year on 1) the Dubs without Durant and 2) the Dubs ATS in general. I think there’s some value at OKC as a small favorite.
Editor’s note: The opinions on this game are from the individual writers and are based on their research, analysis and perspective. They are independent of, and may not always match with, the algorithm-driven Best Bets from Sports Insights.
