(557) Dallas Mavericks at (558) Oklahoma City Thunder
5% Oklahoma City Thunder -3.5 (-110)
The Thunder come in off a sweep of the Pelicans, and well rested. The Mavericks finished off the Clippers in 6 without Leonard in the line up for 3 games for LA, and limited it the others. With a healthy Leonard I don't think we are even talking about Dallas tonight. Nonetheless here we are GM 1 in Oklahoma City where the Thunder are a stellar 35-8 on their home court. Dallas has been a good road team at 27-17. The teams met 4 times during the regular season with Oklahoma City winning 3, albeit the last win was the last day of the regular season when Dallas didn't play their regulars. The Thunder come into this series perfectly healthy while the Mavericks do have a few players banged up. Kiebler is out, and Hardaway Jr. and Doncic have been battling ankle and knee issues. The Thunder have the monkey off their back with their sweep of the Pelicans so they come into this series very confident. The big difference in this series is going to be the defense. Oklahoma City has the 3rd best FG% defense in the league and are 11th in points allowed. Meanwhile Dallas is both 20th in the league in the those same two categories. Dallas is also not very good at defending the 3PT shot as they are 18th in the league. This could be problematic for the Mavericks they go up against the #1 3Pt shooting team in the Thunder. With the home crowd behind them tonight, and their outstanding home court I like Oklahoma City to take game 1 of this Western Conference Semi Final match up. Lay the short price with OKC.