Almost all professional sports bettors will agree that the best type of team to back is a focused favorite.
We sure seem to have that scenario on Wednesday, when the Oklahoma City Thunder host the Utah Jazz as 17.5-point favorites with a total of 240.5 points at FanDuel.
OKC is coming off an embarrassing 27-point home loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
The Thunder were outscored by 17 points in the first quarter and never rebounded to suffer their worst loss this season and their second straight overall.
Oklahoma City started 24-1, and many believed they would break the NBA record of 73 wins set by the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors. However, they have since lost six of their past 12 games.
In fact, that coincided with All-Star forward Jalen Williams saying his team could beat the all-time great teams.
Perhaps that is a coincidence, but we have also seen many teams throughout sports fall victim to praise.
I firmly believe we will see the best version of OKC against Utah.
The defending champs are a competitive group and they just got trucked on their home court. They will respond appropriately off back-to-back losses.
But obviously this is a big point spread and I prefer to avoid what is expected to be garbage time in the fourth quarter.
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Thus, I will isolate the first half because I do think OKC will demonstrate more effort under the circumstances.
I have an 87-75-2 ATS record in this Post sports section, and my next play is the Thunder in the first half. The spread should be around 10.5 points.
The Play: Thunder -9.5 1H (-122, FanDuel)
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Doug Kezirian is a New York Post contributor who has over two decades of experience in the betting space, including spending 11 years at ESPN as a host, columnist and betting analyst. He’s also the rare personality who has documented success – 14th place in 2023 Circa Million and Las Vegas SuperContest ($37K), two top-10 finishes in 2022 William Hill College Football Challenge ($58K) and also grabbed headlines with a $297K win on the 2021 NFL Draft.
