Thunder @ Lakers tips and picks: Oklahoma on a roll as underdogs on the road
- George Dempsey
- 15 January 2024
The Los Angeles Lakers (20-21) and the Oklahoma City Thunder (27-11) conclude a busy Martin Luther King Day in the NBA on Monday night (0330 am GMT).
As is customary on Martin Luther King Day, a full slate of NBA games is taking place. Unlike your regular midweek games, these get underway early.
MLK Day is a public holiday in the United States. The Philadelphia 76ers and Houston Rockets tip off nearly 12 hours of basketball at 1 pm EST/6 pm GMT.
The day concludes with the game that we’re focusing on: the LA Lakers hosting the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena.
The biggest factor to consider is Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s questionable status at the time of writing. The Thunder could do with him suiting up.
Anthony Davis and LeBron James have been given their customary questionable tag, but both are likely to play having had Sunday off.
The Thunder are ticking along nicely at 27-11 this season and they’re 8-2 through their last 10 contests, going 7-3ATS.
On the other hand, the Lakers now boast a losing record this season at 20-21 having lost seven of their previous 10, going 3-7ATS.
The sides split a pair of meetings earlier this season with the Thunder winning 133-110 in Oklahoma in November, before LA won 129-120 on December 23rd.
The second game holds a lot of relevance in deciphering this one because that was also in Oklahoma. Few teams win there, and that was only a couple of weeks ago.
For those reasons, this will be fresh in the memory and the Thunder will be looking to return the favour by winning on the Lakers home court.
A couple of trends to note at Lakers are 1-8ATS against a winning road team, 1-8ATS as a favourite and on a 7-18ATS run against winning teams.
Meanwhile, the Thunder are on an 11-4ATS run, 15-5ATS as a favourite and 43-19ATS on the back of a win by 10+ points.
Oklahoma is also a solid 30-12ATS as a road underdog of 0.5 to 4.5 points.
The Lakers have the quality to turn this around, but they’re fragile right now. The momentum is with OKC and LA may struggle to slow down Chet Holmgren and SGA if he plays.
