We’ve now had three nights for the NBA Playoffs with two games each night. It has been a similar story in almost all of the nights. Monday, we saw the Knicks blow out the 76ers, and the Timberwolves barely beat the Spurs. Tuesday, the Pistons won a closer game over the Cavs, while the Thunder killed the Lakers. Last night, the Knicks barely escaped over the 76ers, and the Spurs blew out the Timberwolves. Will we have a repeat of a close game and blowout on the Thursday slate?
If there is going to be a blowout, it will be the Los Angeles Lakers getting smoked again. In Game 1, the Lakers hung with the Thunder for the first half of the game. It looked like it was going to be rather competitive, considering Los Angeles went into the locker room down just eight at halftime. The problem was that all of the scoring for the Lakers came in the first half. They had just 37 of their 90 points in the second half. Collectively, the team shot 41% from the floor, 33% from deep and 77% from the charity stripe.
In this game, they need to alter their strategy a bit. I suppose the easy thing is to say Austin Reaves needs to be better. He played 36 minutes and scored just eight points on 3-for-16 shooting. Part of that is the Thunder’s defensive prowess, but a lot of that is also him being rusty from missing time. He also probably is not healed all the way. It would also help if they got some contributions from their bench. The team combined for just 15 bench points. Jared McCain of the Thunder had 12 points by himself.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are on a march to the championship. To be honest, if they lose more than three games in this postseason, I’d be shocked. They would need a substantial injury to happen for them to lose. How good are they? They’ve won all five games in the playoffs, and they don’t even have their second-best player. Sure, the Lakers are missing their best player, but they’ve only played one game. The biggest question surrounding the Thunder isn’t if they will win, it is if anyone will even give them a scare.
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Game 1 wasn’t even the best work from the Thunder. Sure, their defense was strong in holding the Lakers to 90 points, but the offense wasn’t that crisp. They still scored 108 points. They also had a long rest between games, though, so I think we’ll see their offense improve in this one. They swept the Suns on April 27. The Lakers had to play on April 29 and May 1.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored just 18 points in Game 1, which is the first time since Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals last season that he failed to reach 20 points. He scored 40 in the next game. The books expect him to be on a rampage again with a 29.5 total tonight. I think he goes over the total. I expect the Lakers to be more aggressive and better on offense. This would be a sprinkle play for me, though.
My official play is to take the over 210.5 for the game. There really isn’t a ton of Los Angeles offense to speak of, but if they can get to 100 points, or even 95, I think the Thunder will take over from there. I’d expect Gilgeous-Alexander to have a better game, and that correlates with the total going over. Give me over 210.5.
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