0-2 Saturday, 96-92-2 overall.
Spurs (+5) @ Thunder (221.5)
Pick: Spurs +5
I continue to feel that the market has gone too far on the Oklahoma City Thunder. While we lost on Denver on Friday night against the Thunder, I’m taking another chance at fading Oklahoma City. They’ve been one of the better stories of the NBA this year, but can they really continue to overachieve this much the rest of the way? The Thunder are on pace for 50 wins. Their season win total back in October was 32.
We’ve discussed a few teams how we expect the Spurs to at least play hard down the stretch and value the eight seed out West. You’d have to go back 23 years to the 1996-97 to when the Spurs last missed the playoffs. That was the infamous Tim Duncan tank season in which Gregg Popovich took over on the bench after 18 games. We all know what’s happened since. San Antonio is three back in the loss column on Memphis for the last spot and while the Grizzlies or Trail Blazers ultimately may be the team that secures the final berth, I wouldn’t expect many nights off from the Spurs in the final seven weeks of the season. And oh, by the way, the Spurs just won outright in Oklahoma City as an eight-point underdog. They followed it up with a win in Salt Lake City against the Jazz as a seven-point pup. We may not even need the five points this afternoon, but we’ll gladly take them.