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The 2020 NBA Playoffs begin on Monday, August 17th after the seeding round wrapped up the regular season with each team playing eight games in the bubble in Orlando. We started with 22 teams and now we’re down to the 16 teams that will compete for the 2020 NBA Championship. The first round of the playoffs kicks off with best-of-7 series in both the Western Conference and Eastern Conference.
The No. 4 seed Oklahoma City Thunder and No. 5 seed Houston Rockets will face each other in a Western Conference first-round series in the NBA bubble. James Harden and Russell Westbrook will take on their former team, the Thunder, who have ex-Rocket Chris Paul. We’ve got plenty of narratives in this series.
The Rockets have the 4th-best odds to win it all on DraftKings Sportsbook at +1100. The Thunder are +7000. Houston is +600 to come out of the West, while the Thunder are +3300.
Russell Westbrook is the biggest question mark heading into this series. Russ was diagnosed with a strained quad and could be held out of Game 1 of this series. Eric Gordon recently returned from an ankle sprain that held him out of most of the seeding round.
Below is a run down of the Rockets-Thunder series and how to watch it.
Rockets vs. Thunder series info
Game 1: Tue, Aug 18 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, 6:30 ET, TNT
Game 2: Thu, Aug 20 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, 3:30 ET, ESPN
Game 3: Sat, Aug 22 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, 6 ET, ESPN
Game 4: Mon, Aug 24 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, 4 ET, TNT
Game 5*: Wed, Aug 26 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, TBD, TBD
Game 6*: Fri, Aug 28 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, TBD, TBD
Game 7*: Sun, Aug 30 Oklahoma City vs. Houston, TBD, TBD