After facing the best team in the Eastern Conference in a thrilling 129-122 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Wednesday night, the road won’t get much easier for the Oklahoma City Thunder. Oklahoma City will travel to Madison Square Garden tonight to take on the 25-13 New York Knicks at 7:30 p.m. ET. Here are the betting splits and most popular player prop bets at DraftKings Sportsbook for the possible NBA Finals preview.
The Thunder are in better form than the Knicks, having won 15 of its last 16, while New York has lost three of its last four. At DraftKings Sportsbook, Oklahoma City is a four-point favorite, with the point total set to 225.5.
Betting Splits
Overall, the public is confident that the Thunder will ultimately win, with 67% of all bets being placed on Oklahoma City. Some of the public’s confidence comes from the fact that Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, who missed New York’s loss on Monday with a knee injury before dropping 27 points and 13 rebounds in its win on Wednesday, is officially listed as questionable for tonight’s contest. However, more big-money bets have been placed on the Knicks, as they’ve attracted nearly half of the handle despite accounting for only 33% of the bets.
The discrepancy in the handle is even greater against the spread. 61% of bets have been placed on the Thunder to win by multiple possessions, but a whopping 65% of the handle has been placed on New York to cover. This season, Oklahoma City has been slightly better against the spread than the Knicks, winning 64.9% of the time against the spread, as compared to New York’s 51.3%.
The public is expecting a high-scoring game, with 76% of all bets and 91% of the handle being placed on the game going over 225.5 points. Bettors expect that the Knicks, who have the league’s third-best offensive rating, and the Thunder, who have its eighth-best offensive rating, will be going tit-for-tat all game. Although the over only has a 16-20-1 record in Oklahoma City games — thanks to the Thunder’s stifling defense — its battle with the Cavaliers did go over. The over has hit in 20 of New York’s 38 games.
Most Popular Player Props
Here are the top five most-bet player props for Saturday’s game:
- Karl-Anthony Towns 25+ Points (+130)
- Isaiah Hartenstein U12.5 Points (-125)
- Josh Hart U5.5 Assists (-115)
- Josh Hart Triple-Double (+1200)
- Mikal Bridges 4+ Three-Pointers Made (+275)
The public is betting big on Big Bodega.
The two most popular bets both relate in some way to Towns, who’s had a tremendous first season with the Knicks, averaging 25.3 points per game while ranking a career-best 10th in the league in defensive win shares. Towns has scored at least 25 points in five of his last six games, but the one exception came in New York’s January 3 loss to the Thunder, in which was held to just 17 points. He did, however, hold Hartenstein — a former Knicks center — to just four points, one of four games in which Hartenstein did not reach double-digit points.
The public is also backing New York shooting guard Josh Hart, who leads the league in rebounds per game among guards with 9.1 per game despite being just six-foot-four. He has recorded double-digit rebounds in eight of his last nine games and recorded two triple-doubles across that stretch, his third and fourth of the season. However, some bettors are less bullish on his ability to dish out double-digit assists, given that Oklahoma City allows the fourth-fewest assists per game to opponents.
Besides fading Hartenstein, the public isn’t betting much on Thunder players, perhaps since Oklahoma City is so deep that it’s difficult to predict the pecking order beyond Shai Gilgeous-Alexander on any given night. The second-most popular Thunder bet (Gilgeous-Alexander 25+ Points, for -600 odds) is only the 11th-most popular prop bet placed on the game overall. Gilgeous-Alexander has scored at least 25 points in all but five of his games this season, including a 33-point performance against the Knicks in the teams’ previous matchup.
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All odds provided by DraftKings Sportsbook and all odds subject to change.
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