In the Western Conference Semifinals, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks will compete for a spot in the Western Conference Finals. Keep reading for previews and predictions for this series. Also, be sure to check out our NBA Playoff His Betting Guide, which serves as your hub for all postseason His betting content.
Mavericks vs. Thunder Series Preview
Despite a great season in which Oklahoma City finished with the top seed in the Western Conference and the third-best ATS record in the league (49-36-1), the love is still lost between the Thunder and the betting market. Apparently not.
One shop opens this series at -110 round trip, and as of Saturday morning, the price is -115 in Oklahoma City's favor on DraftKings. There were market moves that pushed this price to -125 on other books, but it's clear that the betting market has a lot of respect for Dallas.
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To be fair, it's easy to see why. The Mavericks finished the regular season with a record of 16-4 SU and ATS. Including the series win against the Clippers, they are 20-6 ATS in their last 26 games played. It was a great performance for Dallas, and it was clearly an improvement after being acquired at the trade deadline. But let's not forget how good Oklahoma City is.
On the floor, one of the main focuses will be the paint and how the Mavericks protect it.
Dallas had an impressive win against Los Angeles. The Clippers attempted just 31.9% at the rim and shot just 50.0%. He averaged just 42.0 points per game in the paint. These numbers led the league in opponent shooting at the rim (62.3%) and ranked eighth in both opponent shooting at the rim (29.9%) and opponent scoring in the paint (47.1%) after the trade deadline. This is an extension of the improvement of the inside defense. Los Angeles isn't a team that gets to the rim on a regular basis, so it was easy for such a strong inside defense to protect them. That's not the case in Oklahoma City.
Thunder attacks mercilessly. During the regular season, he led the league in drives per game (62.1). They shot 67.8 percent at the rim, 47.6 percent from short-to-mid range (4 feet to 14 feet), and were seventh in points in the paint per game (52.5 percent). Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a mismatch hunter who gets inside the paint with ease. He made 68% of his attempts from inside 14 feet this season and shot 60.5% from the field.
These teams met twice after the trade deadline, but Dallas started in only one of those games with a frontcourt expected to be on the floor in this series. In that game, Oklahoma City shot 26-of-36 (72.2%) from inside 14 feet and drew nine shooting fouls. There's no question the Mavericks will have to be better than that to win this series.
Dallas' offensive approach, on the other hand, will be interesting. Luka Doncic is methodical in his play. The Mavericks will run screens until Doncic gets the mismatch he wants, then he'll get to work. Los Angeles had several targets for Doncic, including Ivica Zubac and James Harden. Not so much for the Thunder.
Gilgeous-Alexander is a very solid defender. Lou Dort is likely to take over Doncic as his lead, and Jaylen Williams is also an above-average defender. Josh Giddy and Chet Holmgren (who was heavily targeted by Kyrie Irving in the penultimate regular season game against the Thunder) are likely targets.
But we saw Mark Daigneault throw a zone defense against the Mavericks in the regular season to hide such mismatches. It will get even more interesting if Oklahoma City plays zone defense regularly in this series.
Dallas' new starting lineup is very effective, but their shooting ability may be weak. Derrick Jones Jr. shot 38.5 percent from deep in the series against Los Angeles, but was a 34.3 percent shooter in the regular season. PJ Washington shot just 31.4% as a Maverick, but is a 35.4% shooter for his career. Doncic and Irving are good shooters, but playing with the other three non-shooting threats could be a problem if they face a ton of zone defenses in this series.
In fact, the Clippers routinely threw double teams when Doncic played without Irving, which led to some success. That's also what makes this series interesting. When Doncic and Irving played together against Los Angeles, these lineups were +20.6 per 100 possessions. Dallas' net rating was -17.6 when Doncic played without Irving, but -45.6 when Irving played without Doncic.
Ultimately, this should be a very tight series. There's not much difference between these two teams, but I feel like Oklahoma City deserves a little more respect here. Considering the series opening price and DraftKings' Game 1 opening line of -2.5, Dallas appears to be the slightly better team.
Up until this point in the postseason, home teams have outscored their opponents by 5.5 points per 100 possessions in non-garbage time. As mentioned above, playing at home is important, and the Thunder have their home court in this series. These he means that even if the two teams are even, the odds of winning this series are slightly higher than the current market indicates.
That leads me to focus on the Thunder here, and there's some consensus in the market. There were some high-end shops in this series at -125, and a shop that opened at -110 round trip moved in Oklahoma City's favor.
Lean: Thunder win the series (-115)
