• Oklahoma City Thunder (35-15, 1st in the West) @ Utah Jazz (25-26, 10th in the West)
• When: Tuesday, 06 February 2024 at 8:00pm CST
• Where: Delta Center, Salt Lake City, UT
• Offensive Rating – UTA: 115.6 (16th) / OKC: 119.3 (5th)
• Defensive Rating – UTA: 117.9 (25th) / OKC: 111.2 (4th)
• Net Rating – UTA: -2.3 (23rd) / OKC: 8.1 (2nd)

The Set-Up

The top-4 teams in the Western Conference are separated by half a game. HALF A GAME! A rough night at the office and a team could tumble from 1st to 4th pretty quickly. The Thunder have gone from hardly playing any games of consequence over the last three seasons to playing a game of consequence almost nightly. The Thunder and Timberwolves have seemingly been tit for tat for the better part of the new year. The Clippers are the hottest team in the league right now and the Nuggets likely haven’t even started playing their best brand of basketball yet.

With all that said, I’ve been very impressed by Oklahoma City’s poise and maturity throughout the season. The start the season as the “hunters” and still have the same hunger and focus once they became the “hunted”, takes a perspective way beyond the age of most of the players of the roster. Once they win the games, though, you see this team’s age in their post-game interviews. Here’s to continuing to win while young.

This is the third meeting of the season between these two division rivals. The Thunder have won the previous two, 134-120 in December and 134-129 in January. Their fourth and final meeting of the season is on March 20th.

Betting Info

• Line: OKC -3.5
• O/U: 240.5

Injury Report

OKC

• Davis Bertans (knee) – Questionable
• Ousmane Dieng (hip) – Questionable
• Isaiah Joe (chest) – OUT
• Vasilije Micic (ankle) – Questionable
• Cason Wallace (shoulder) – Questionable
• Lindy Waters III (ankle) – Questionable
• Jalen Williams (ankle) – Questionable
• Jaylin Williams (Achilles) – Questionable

UTA

• Ochai Agbaji (illness) – Questionable

Three Big Things

1. Trade Deadline Shenanigans – The game before the trade deadline and the game after the trade deadline always have the possibilities of being weird, roster-wise. The Thunder haven’t had an injury report that looked like that all season long. And now, the game before the trade deadline, half the roster is on the injury report. It may mean something. It may mean nothing. But it’s always shenanigans.
2. Turn them over – The Utah Jazz are the most turnover-prone team in the league. They don’t have any real “floor-general” type players. All their point guards are undersized combo guards that aren’t great at playmaking. This plays immensely into what the Thunder do best defensively and what they like to do offensively (transition).
3. Rebounding – Conversely, where the Jazz are great, the Thunder struggle. If the Thunder can’t turn the Jazz over and this turns into a half-court affair, the Thunder will need all-hands on deck in the rebounding department. Between Walker Kessler, John Collins, and Lauri Markkanen, the Jazz boast three guys that average 7.4 rebounds or more per game. The Thunder have only one in Chet Holmgren (7.5 rebounds per game).