- Oklahoma City Thunder (30-13, 1st in the West) @ San Antonio Spurs (8-35, 15th in the West)
- When: Wednesday, 24 January 2024 at 8:30pm CST
- Where: Frost Bank Center, San Antonio, TX
- Offensive Rating – SAS: 109.3 (28th) / OKC: 119.6 (6th)
- Defensive Rating – SAS: 118.2 (25th) / OKC: 111.6 (5th)
- Net Rating – SAS: -8.8 (26th) / OKC: 8.0 (3rd)
The Set-Up
Now comes the hard part. It’s easy to be the hunter. It’s the position most teams in the league are. But when you are at the top, you become the hunted. And that’s an entirely different set of circumstances. In a perfect world, every team would be receiving another team’s best shot in every game. But we know motivation can be a hell of a weapon. Just look at last night’s game. The Thunder needed a last second game winner (and some controversy) to come away with a 2-point victory against a team OKC had beat the previous two times they’ve played by a combined 105 points. Now when teams look at OKC, they’ll see a metaphorical crown to snatch.
This is the second of four meetings this season between these two teams. The Thunder won the first game convincingly, 123-87, in Oklahoma City, in mid-November.
Betting Info
- Line: OKC -7.5
- O/U: 242.5
Injury Report
OKC
- Olivier Sarr (hip) – Day to Day
SAS
- Charles Bassey (knee) – OUT
- Sidy Cissoko (ankle) – OUT
- Tre Jones (ankle) – Questionable
Three Big Things
- Mental focus – There were times in the game against the Trailblazers where the Thunder weren’t necessarily playing like themselves. Going for steals which then set the back line defenders up for failure. Taking inefficient shots. Turning the ball over. It was classic “we’re better than this team and we know we can coast and still win”. And they did. It felt very 2015-2019’ish, when the Thunder would consistently play down to their opponents and need a monster comeback to win the game.
- The Chet vs. Wemby match-up we’ve been waiting for – The previous match-up between these two was a bit disappointing. Not necessarily disappointing because of the individual players. But disappointing because they hardly ever matched up against each other throughout the evening. San Antonio usually deploys Zach Collins to tackle the opposing center, while the Thunder look for match ups that keep Chet closest to the rim. Luckily for us, the Spurs have recently been using starting line-ups that feature only Wembanyama as the center.
- Pace Race – These two teams love to push the ball up the floor. They are top-7 in the league in both pace and fast-break points. Should make for a fun game for the national TV audience.