OKC’s staggering Thunder in Sacramento tonight to take on the still psychotic Kings. Kings enter at 24-33 and firmly in command of the No. 10 seed in the West. Kings at 4-6 in their last ten and pretty much look like the same old Kings, but this team has given OKC fits this season so once again it’s not like the Thunder can just walk out there and claim a victory by showing up.
OKC comes off a great performance minus the final thirteen seconds of regulation against the Warriors on Saturday night. The Thunder played beautifully for almost 48 minutes before Kevin Durant’s costly turnover deprived the Thunder of a marquee quality win. Instead, OKC enters at 1-4 since the All-Star break and looking to get some positives heading into the stretch drive.
The Thunder begin the first of a four game road swing tonight which goes Sacramento, Clippers, Warriors, and Milwaukee.
Hard to believe but a Clippers team which has been without Blake Griffin for a substantial time is only two down in the loss column entering tonight.
Since the Foye trade, rookie Cameron Payne has pretty much sat the bench and it appears Donovan is going to go with a combination of Durant and Foye as the second unit point guards of sorts. I thought this was very smart against the Warriors because it deprived Shawn Livingston of just posting Payne down low like he did in the first Thunder-Warriors game.
Vegas has OKC as a 9 point road favorite with Rajon Rondo listed as questionable.
Very simple for OKC, they have to shake-off the nightmare ending against the Warriors and suck it up winning the next two against the Kings and Clippers.
3-1 should be the realistic goal for OKC on this four game road swing.
Andre Roberson a little slow on the closeout on Curry, not sure why Roberson was passive on the close out–but still a great shot by Steph Curry.