The Utah Jazz invade the Paycom Center to battle the Oklahoma City Thunder on Sunday night.
The Utah Jazz have been in red-hot form as they’ve won nine of their last 11 games overall, but they will be hoping to bounce back in this one after getting blown out by the Pelicans in a 124-90 road loss on Friday. Donovan Mitchell led the team in scoring with just 14 points on five of 18 shooting, Hassan Whiteside added 13 points with 12 rebounds off the bench while Rudy Gobert chipped in with 10 points and 11 rebounds. As a team, the Jazz shot a miserable 34 percent from the field and 11 of 41 from the 3-point line as they got off to a terrible start and never looked threatening after getting outscored by 35-17 in the first quarter. Bojan Bogdanovic had a nightmare of a game as he finished with just five points on one of 11 shooting, Rudy Gay scored just one point on zero of five shooting, while Mike Conley scored just two points on one of eight shooting.
Meanwhile, the Oklahoma City Thunder have been in a real slump as they’ve lost nine of their past 12 games overall and they will be hoping for a better showing after getting embarrassed by the Timberwolves in a 138-101 loss on Friday. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the team with 33 points and seven assists on 14 of 21 shooting, Isaiah Roby added 21 points with 10 rebounds while Tre Mann chipped in with 15 points. As a team, the Thunder shot 43 percent from the field and nine of 35 from the 3-point line as they allowed 45 points in the second quarter to trail big going into halftime and things only got worse in the fourth quarter where they managed just 14 points to make it a complete blowout.
Looking at the betting trends, the Jazz are 1-5 ATS in their last six road games, 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games against a team with a losing record and 1-4 ATS in their last five games overall. The Thunder are 0-4-2 ATS in their last six home games, 22-5 ATS in their last 27 Sunday games and 5-1 ATS in their last six games following a loss.
Head to head, the under is 7-2 in the last nine meetings overall, the Jazz are 3-11 ATS in the last 14 meetings overall and the Jazz are 6-16-1 ATS in the last 23 meetings in Oklahoma City.
The Jazz will be shorthanded again as Mike Conley has already been ruled out while the Thunder are still missing a host of players including Josh Giddey, Derrick Favors, Luguentz Dort and Ty Jerome. The line is quite hefty in this one, but it’s just too hard to make an argument for the Thunder who are just so short on talent with almost all their best players sidelined. The Jazz were on fire before they laid an egg against the Pelicans on Friday, so I expect them to come out firing in this one.