The Oklahoma City Thunder travel to the Vivint Arena to do battle with the Utah Jazz on Wednesday night.
The Oklahoma City Thunder will be hoping to improve on last season’s performance where they won just 22 games. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is set for another big season, while Luguentz Dort and Aleksej Pokusevski will continue to improve with experience, but I’m excited about the Australian Josh Giddey who looked fantastic in preseason games. I don’t expect the Thunder to improve much on last season’ record, but this season is all about player development.
Meanwhile, the Utah Jazz will be looking to make a deep playoff run after getting eliminated in the Western Conference Semifinals last season. Continuity is a real strength for the Jazz and they will look to build on that with almost an identical roster, except for the additions of Rudy Gay, Eric Paschall and Hassan Whiteside to bolster their depth.
Looking at the betting trends, the Thunder are 0-4 ATS in their last four road games and 8-21 ATS in their last 29 games as an underdog. The Jazz are 4-1 ATS in their last five home games and 3-9 ATS in their last 12 games playing on three or more days rest.
Head to head, the under is 17-5 in the last 22 meetings in Utah, the Thunder are 6-1 ATS in the last seven meetings overall and the Thunder are 6-0 ATS in the last six meetings in Utah.
The Thunder were terrible for most of last season and I’m not expecting much of an improvement from them, but there is plenty of reason to be excited about the Australian Josh Giddey who wowed in preseason. The Jazz have returned with almost the same roster, except for some nice additions in Gay, Paschall and Whiteside to bolster their depth, so I’m expecting them to really dominate the regular season, starting with an easy win and cover at home in this one.