Houston Rockets vs. Oklahoma City Thunder – 8/29/20 NBA Pick, Odds, and Prediction

The Oklahoma City Thunder and Houston Rockets meet Saturday in game five of NBA playoff action at the The Field House.

The Houston Rockets need a bounce back performance here to take a key 3-2 series lead. The Houston Rockets are averaging 113.8 points on 44.1 percent shooting and allowing 110.5 points on 45.5 percent shooting. James Harden is averaging 32 points and 8.8 assists while Eric Gordon is averaging 19.3 points and three rebounds. Jeff Green is the third double-digit scorer and Danuel House Jr. is grabbing 6.5 rebounds. The Houston Rockets are shooting 35.6 percent from beyond the arc and 82.9 percent from the free thitem line. The Houston Rockets are allowing 35 percent shooting from deep and are grabbing 40.8 rebounds per game.

The Oklahoma City Thunder look for a third straight victory to take a 3-2 series lead. The Oklahoma City Thunder are averaging 110.5 points on 45.5 percent shooting and allowing 113.8 points on 44.1 percent shooting. Chris Paul is averaging 21.5 points and seven rebounds while Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 20.3 points and 3.8 assists. Dennis Schroder is the third double-digit scorer and Danilo Gallinari is grabbing 4.5 rebounds. The Oklahoma City Thunder are shooting 35 percent from beyond the arc and 78.3 percent from the free thitem line. The Oklahoma City Thunder are allowing 35.6 percent shooting from deep and are grabbing 48.5 rebounds per game.

The Rockets are 4-9 ATS in their last 13 games as a favorite and 2-7 ATS in their last 9 games following a ATS loss. The Thunder are 25-10 ATS in their last 35 games as an underdog and 0-4 ATS in their last 4 games following a ATS win. The under is 7-3 in Rockets last 10 overall. The over is 5-2 in Thunder last 7 overall. The Rockets are 0-4 ATS in the last 4 meetings in Oklahoma City and 2-6 ATS in the last 8 meetings.

Give credit to the Oklahoma City Thunder for finding a way to get back in this series and playing hard, but now we’re at the business end of this series and it’s where experience and guys who have been here done the usually shine. The Houston Rockets also get a major boost with the return of Russell Westbrook, which not only takes pressure off Harden to do everything, but it’s another player who can collapse the defense and create even more open looks from the outside. When the Rockets shoot their average percentages from the outside, OKC is going to have a hard time keeping up offensively. We’ve seen it a lot when these teams meet.

I’ll lay the reasonable chalk with the Rockets.