The reeling Jazz will look to get back on track tonight as they welcome Northwest Division rival Oklahoma City to Salt Lake City. The two squads are scheduled to tip things off at 10:30pm ET at the EnergySolutions Arena; the game will be carried live on ESPN. The latest NBA Odds have the Thunder listed as a -1 against the spread home favorite and the Over/Under set at 202 points.
The Thunder suffered through three rare occurrences last night: a loss, a road loss, and a loss to the Sacramento Kings. Going into last night’s game, Oklahoma City had won 20 of its 25 games, 11 of its 14 road outings, and nine of its last 10 meetings with the Kings. None of those things saved the Thunder from falling at the Power Balance Pavilion, though, as Sacramento topped Kevin Durant and company 106-101.
Durant and Russell Westbrook both played well in defeat, scoring 27 and 33 points respectively, but they got little help offensively aside from a 17 point effort off the bench from James Harden. Defensively the Thunder, which tuned the ball over 23 times, held the Kings to 40.4 percent field goal shooting and blocked 17 shots, but Sacramento got off 99 shots to OKC’s 77.
The Thunder have suffered back-to-back losses just one time this season, so odds are in favor of a bounce back performance tonight; however, the Jazz are typically a tough out at the EnergySolutions Arena. Utah is not playing with a great deal of confidence right now, though, having lost four of its last five games and three of its last seven at home.
Utah, which has lost six of its last eight against the Thunder, comes into tonight’s game off of back-to-back road losses to the Knicks and Pacers. The Jazz fell to New York 88-99 on Monday and they succumbed to Indiana 99-104 on Tuesday. Utah is now 13-11 and six games back of Oklahoma City in the Northwest standings as a result of those setbacks.
NBA Picks Betting Trend: The Thunder are 8-2 both straight up and against the spread in their last 10 games as a road favorite with a spread between 0 and 3.5 points. The Over is 8-2 in those same 10 games.
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Oklahoma City Thunder vs Utah Jazz 2012 NBA Picks: Provided by Bovada.lv
Oklahoma City Thunder -1 (-110), Over 202 (-115)
Utah Jazz +1 (-110), Under 202 (-105)
