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The Oklahoma City Thunder are not worried about this first-round series. Nor should they be. Frankly, the Phoenix Suns might not be worried, either. They can see the writing on the wall.
My Suns vs. Thunder predictions and NBA picks expect at least one piece of Phoenix’s rotation to go down swinging, hopefully more figuratively than literally, in Game 2 on Wednesday, April 22.
Here comes desperation. Not from the Oklahoma City Thunder, of course, but from the Phoenix Suns.
Losing Game 1 by 35 should make the Suns’ plight rather clear. A similar beatdown in Game 2 would create an absolutely deflated atmosphere in Phoenix for Game 3 on Saturday.
No one will embody that desperation more openly than Dillon Brooks. He has never been known for concealing his emotions.
Brooks already chucked plenty in Game 1, partly out of necessity. Phoenix knows it is out-gunned. It needs its backcourt of Brooks, Devin Booker, and Jalen Green to get hot and stay out, and even then, the Suns may not have enough.
Thus, Brooks went 6-for-22 from the field for 18 points. As inefficient as that may be, it is simply what Phoenix needs.
Counting Game 1, Brooks has cleared this modest prop in three of his last five games, averaging 18.2 points. Perhaps more pertinently, he has taken 14.8 shots per game. That latter number should stay elevated in this series, for better or for worse, thus elevating Brooks’s scoring output.
Oklahoma City knows the only way it loses this series is if Booker goes thermo-nuclear for four games. Getting the ball out of his hands should always be the Thunder’s priority, creating logic to back Brooks while fading Booker.
And if Oklahoma City can dictate those terms, it will stifle Phoenix’s offense to such an extent that this game cannot come near its total.
Why should Shai Gilgeous-Alexander play extended minutes when Oklahoma City is likely to be up by two dozen points early in the third quarter? The Thunder led by 21 at halftime in Game 1 and by 31 after the third quarter, part of why the presumptive MVP played only 29 minutes and scored only 25 points.
Sure, his postseason free-throw shooting could push his points tallies higher. Gilgeous-Alexander took 18 field goals in Game 1 and 17 free throws. Judge that as you should. But even with that foul-baiting, SGA still came more than a bucket short of this prop, simply because he did not need to pour it on.
Oklahoma City has gone 4-1 against the spread at home in the first round across the last three postseasons. Find more NBA betting trends for Suns vs. Thunder.
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