What can these two teams do for an encore after Thursday night’s epic 2OT barnburner. The Spurs came out on the winning end with a score of 154-147. Now they move to Oklahoma City for the second part of a home and home. After burning the nets from 3-point land, the Spurs moved to an amazing 40.5% behind the stripe, tops in the league. Thursday night’s win runs San Antonio’s record to 10-3 over its last 13 games, most of them against top teams. This is a very different Spurs team, ranked 11th in the league in scoring at 112.3 PPG. This offense is led by Demar DeRozan, who is averaging 22.2 PPG to go along with a team leading 6.5 APG. The defense has been playing very well, giving up only 97 PPG over the 4 games prior to OK City game.
The Thunder have to be smarting after Thursday night’s game. They spent the biggest part of the game trailing before rallying in the 4th quarter to force the OT. Now, the team gets its chance for revenge. Lost in the game’s excitement was the fact it was Oklahoma City’s third loss in a row with the prior two losses coming at home. The Thunder have two overriding problems, they are collectively horrible from beyond 3-point range (32.6%) and they lack depth. What they do have is two of the best players in the NBA. That would be leading scorer Paul George (26.9 PPG) and all-world PG Russell Westbrook, who leads the league in assists at 10.7 APG to go along with a scoring average 21.3 PPG
Prediction: After Thursday’s game, a lot of question were left unanswered. What was clear is the Thunder have to score a lot of 2-pointers to match up against good 3-point shooting teams like the Spurs. The Thunder were slight road favorites in San Antonio, a team whose depth remains a problem for the Thunder. San Antonio +5 (score – San Antonio 116 -113)
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