The moment could be too big for the young stars of Oklahoma City.
Heading back home for Game 7, the Thunder are 7.5-point favorites, according to bet365, but we’ve certainly seen causes for concern in the betting favorites.
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Nuggets vs. Thunder Game 7 betting preview
Oklahoma City is shooting just 32.6 percent from 3-point range this series, the worst of any remaining playoff team.
That’s quite inconsistent with what we saw in the regular season, when they had the sixth-best 3-point percentage in the NBA (37.4 percent).
The Thunder are also being out-rebounded 50-46.5 per game, with, of course, Nikola Jokic leading the way by averaging 29.8 points and 14.7 rebounds per game.
You’d think that free-agent acquisition Isaiah Hartenstein would pose a reasonable competition for Jokic, but that hasn’t been the case.
Jokic is shooting 57.1 percent from the field on 49 field goal attempts when Hartenstein is the primary defender.
Betting on the NBA?
The Jokic puzzle is nearly unsolvable, but the Thunder may have found an interesting new wrinkle to attack the MVP center.
Alex Caruso guarded Jokic for much of the final fourth quarter stretch, and while it sounds impossible to have the 6-foot-5 Caruso guard the 6-foot-11 Jokic, the results speak for themselves.
Jokic is shooting just 28.6 percent when guarded by Caruso (seven attempts), and he also turned the ball over twice.
Oklahoma City should continue to mix and match to slow down Jokic, and while Caruso isn’t the stopper, his ability to pickpocket his matchups has been a nice boost for the Thunder.
Caruso has eight steals in this series through six games, along with three blocks.
His steals prop is set at 1.5 (+135, Bet365), and his steals + blocks projection is also set at 1.5 with strong juice to the Over (-170).
Let’s go Over each of these, as I suspect Caruso gets plenty of run in a Game 7 as the only champion on the roster who has been here before.
As for the game, my model has the Nuggets as getting some value.
As we predicted in Game 6, they won the first quarter rather easily.
Don’t bet on the Nuggets to win this one outright, but a bet on them to win the first quarter is again a worthwhile endeavor, considering they were 51-31 in the first 12 minutes in the regular season and have won three first quarters in this series.
PICK: Caruso Over 1.5 steals (+135, Bet365) | Nuggets to win the first quarter (+165)
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Why Trust New York Post Betting
Erich Richter is a brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt but he has a black belt in MMA betting. During the football season he’s showcased massive profits at The Post in the player prop market the last two seasons. While constantly betting long shots, his return on investment is 30.15 percent since 2022.
