basketball | Četvrtak, Februar 23, 2023 10:42 AM

Utah Jazz vs Oklahoma City Thunder Best Bet: Back Underdogs On The Road

Sam Cox

Utah Jazz vs Oklahoma City Thunder: Thursday, February 23rd

The 28-29 Oklahoma City Thunder are slight underdogs against the 29-31 Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City on Thursday night. On the surface, that line makes sense, with the Thunder going 11-17 on the road and Utah owning an impressive 18-12 record on their homecourt.

Utah has further embraced a rebuild with its trade deadline moves, however, and has gone 2-5 over its last seven. Oklahoma City has very real Play-In ambitions, plus entered the All-Star break with four wins from its last six after blowing out the Houston Rockets.

Collin Sexton is expected to sit this one out for the home team. Oklahoma City have their core players available outside of Aleksej Pokusevski and Chet Holmgren, with the latter not set to make his NBA debut until 2023-24.

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Utah Jazz vs Oklahoma City Thunder Preview
Utah Jazz vs Oklahoma City Thunder Best Bet

Utah Jazz vs Oklahoma City Thunder Preview

Fri, Feb 24. 02:00 (UK time)

All four regular season contests between these teams are squeezed in between now and the end of the season. Three will take place before March 6th. While both are firmly in the hunt for a postseason berth, motivation from the franchises as a whole is limited.

Utah might be cautious with minutes for their key players, potentially preferring to develop talents like Ochai Agbaji. The Thunder show no signs of taking their foot off the gas, powered by the All-NBA showings of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.

Oklahoma City is top 12 in offence and defence. Only four teams have a better net rating in February. Utah relies heavily on three-point shooting with one of the league’s worst defences. They are 25th in net rating this month.

With the youngest roster in the league and athleticism galore, the Thunder love to get out in transition. Utah is 29th in opponent transition frequency and 27th in points per transition play. They have a size advantage with Walker Kessler, Lauri Markkanen and Kelly Olynyk, which should help them on the boards, but they do not have the defensive personnel to live with this ever-improving Thunder offence.

Jalen Williams has come on leaps and bounds as a secondary scorer throughout the campaign.

Utah Jazz vs Oklahoma City Thunder Best Bet

Just three teams have won more often than OKC as a road underdog. They are a stellar 16-6 against teams below .500, and won on the road against the Blazers and Lakers prior to the All-Star break.

After Utah flipped Malik Beasley, Mike Conley and Jarred Vanderbilt at the trade deadline, the Thunder are clearly the stronger of these two teams. Despite their poor record on the road, Oklahoma City are worth backing at 2.10 on the moneyline. Look for Gilgeous-Alexander to have a big game, and the switchable Thunder defence to slow down Utah’s three-point barrage.