basketball | Wednesday, March 1, 2023 12:20 PM (Revised at: Wednesday, March 1, 2023 12:21 PM)

Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Best Bet: Lakers Make Final Playoff Push

Aleksa Drobnjak

Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Best Bet: Wednesday, March 1st

The Lakers with their superstars have finally shown some signs of life after recent trades. They managed to win 3 consecutive games (although losing the last one to the 1st-seed Grizzlies) and are coming to Oklahoma City to continue their quest. The young OKC team has started falling off due to fatigue and injuries and lack of experience in this part of the season so they’ve fallen out of the playoff conversations.

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Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Preview
Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Best Bet

Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Preview

Thu, Mar 1st. 03:00 am (UK time)

OKC had their shot at the playoffs, but eventually, they have shown all the weaknesses that we expected to see before the end of the season. They are in a series of bad results and they are playing against the favoured Lakers team that is a roll after their trades.

The Thunder will be missing their main star S. Gilgeous-Alexander for tonight as well, but besides SGA, A. Pokusevski is suffering from a leg injury whilst C. Holgren is out due to a foot injury. Tonight’s moneyline is prone to change since Lakers’ D. Russell is still listed as “questionable” and we expect him to play, shifting the line even more in the Lakers’ favour.

The Lakers have been wandering for seasons and their duo has not been able to produce stable results. It seems that after the recent trades, they finally have a quality supporting cast and they’re ready for big things. They are currently sitting on a 29-33 record, barely trying to get to the playoffs through the play-in. Their offence has been good, they are averaging almost 117 points per game, whilst their defence (especially without A. Davis) has been horrific, allowing their opponents 117.5 points on average.

Tonight they need to buckle up and try to win without Leron James, which will give more space to their newly acquired players to show their skills. Time has shown that this can be a good thing after a major trade.

The Lakers will likely be missing L. James who is doubtful for tonight’s game, whilst D. Russell is listed as ‘questionable’ as mentioned above.

Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Best Bet

The Lakers are two wins out of the play-in spots. We believe they will try to make the playoff push and given their form in recent games, they should be able to get the win tonight. They don’t have time to lose and they need to start winning now, they will be playing against a Thunder team that suffered a loss last night to the Sacramento Kings.