The San Antonio Spurs have been dominant at home this season with a 42-1 straight-up and 25-18 against-the-spread record in 43 games at the AT&T Center. The Spurs will try to put the Oklahoma City Thunder in an early hole with their home court advantage this Saturday.
Thunder vs. Spurs, NBA playoff 2016 odds: San Antonio favored at home over OKC for Game 1
The San Antonio Spurs begin their second-round playoff matchup at home against the Oklahoma City Thunder as solid betting favorites.
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San Antonio is a 6.5-point betting favorite in Saturday’s series-opening game at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. This is just the second time in San Antonio’s last nine games that the Spurs aren’t favored by double digits at home.
The Spurs put on a basketball clinic in the first round, sweeping the Memphis Grizzlies with an average margin of victory of 22 points per game. San Antonio was exceptional on both sides of the court but were particularly dominant on defense in allowing the Grizzlies just 81 points per game.
The postseason will get much more difficult for the Spurs moving forward, but the team should be credited for not taking its injury-laden opponent for granted and taking care of business.
The Thunder have been one of the few teams to have success against the Spurs in recent seasons. San Antonio is 10-15 SU and 7-17-1 ATS in its last 25 games against the Thunder per the OddsShark NBA Database.
Oklahoma City dealt with its share of controversy in the first round, including a surprising home loss in Game 2 and a Kevin Durant ejection in Game 4.
But when push came to shove, the Thunder finished up the series in five games and went 3-2 ATS, winning by double digits in all four of their victories and averaging 122.7 points per game over the last three games of the series.
The Thunder are 6-4 SU and 6-3-1 ATS in their last 10 postseason road games, but 0-3 SU and ATS against the Spurs over that stretch.
Saturday’s total is set at 201 points on the NBA betting lines. The UNDER is 3-0 in the last three meetings between the Spurs and Thunder.
San Antonio has one of the deepest teams in the NBA, but Oklahoma City has two of the top five players in the league in Russell Westbrook and Durant. With both of these teams entering this series at full health, the winner of the series will emerge as a legitimate contender to win the NBA championship.
