After finishing the 2024-25 regular season with the highest point differential in NBA history and going on to win the NBA title, the Oklahoma City Thunder have officially reached inevitable status. They’ve picked up the 2025-26 season where they left off, as one of the league’s final four undefeated teams.
Oklahoma City will have a chance to move to 6-0 tonight, which would be the best start by any defending champion since the 2016-17 Cleveland Cavaliers also won each of their first six games. After a difficult slate of opponents to open their season, the Thunder get a bit of a respite tonight against the Washington Wizards, who finished with the league’s second-worst record in 2024-25. The game will begin at 8 p.m. ET at Paycom Center.
Oklahoma City is a 15.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-1200 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 231.5. The Wizards are +750 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down this clash and offer a prediction.
Washington Wizards at Oklahoma City Thunder preview, prediction
So far, the Thunder have managed to find success regardless of their available personnel. Oklahoma City’s 5-0 start overshadows just how many injuries it has dealt with: Jalen Williams has yet to make his season debut after undergoing wrist surgery, Chet Holmgren is set to miss his second straight game tonight, sharpshooter Isaiah Joe hasn’t suited up yet because of a knee injury, defensive ace Alex Caruso missed three games with a concussion, and 2024 lottery pick Nikola Topić remains out indefinitely after being diagnosed with testicular cancer. The Thunder haven’t been quite as dominant as they were last season — they rank just sixth in net rating so far — but their performance has been impressive given the circumstances.
Washington entered the season expecting to be uncompetitive, and it’s arguably been better than expected. Though the Wizards are just 1-3, they only lost by 13 to a decent Milwaukee Bucks team, took the undefeated Philadelphia 76ers to overtime, and beat the Dallas Mavericks despite an all-around solid performance by first overall pick Cooper Flagg. Washington has seen plenty of development from its young players: Kyshawn George is averaging an ultra-efficient 20.3 points per game, 2024 second overall pick Alex Sarr is averaging 19.5 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks per game, and 2025 sixth pick Tre Johnson has made nearly 40% of his three-pointers. As soon as veteran CJ McCollum picks up his play, this team might be semi-competitive if it wants to be.
Wizards at Thunder pick, best bet
Of all of Oklahoma City’s injured players, Holmgren is the most important. Though Williams, an All-NBA Third Team and All-Defense Second Team player last season, is arguably more talented, Holmgren is the team’s defensive anchor. Plus-minus numbers can be funky, but the Thunder were 8.0 points per 100 possessions better with Williams off the floor last season and 4.1 points per 100 possessions better with Holmgren on it. While Holmgren’s elite rim protection is his best skill — last season, among the 50 players who played at least 30 games and defended at least five such shots at the rim per game, he held opponents to the lowest field goal percentage — Oklahoma City’s offense has crumbled this season without the spacing he provides. So far, the Thunder’s offense has been 16.0 points per 100 possessions worse in the 123 minutes that he’s been off the court, though Oklahoma City did enough to pull off a 107-101 win over the Sacramento Kings without him.
Sacramento got to the rim plenty — its 28 restricted-area attempts were the eighth-most of any team in their most recent game — but it just couldn’t finish, converting at merely a 50% clip. Meanwhile, with Isaiah Hartenstein seeing an uptick in minutes, the Thunder were dominant at the rim, attempting 42 restricted area tries and converting at a 69.0% clip. Interior defense has been a critical aspect of Oklahoma City’s winning formula in each of the past two seasons; it ranks fourth so far in opponent points in the paint after leading the league in that stat last season and finishing seventh in 2023-24. Hartenstein has actually been the league’s 10th-most stout rim protector so far after finishing sixth in 2023-24. That spells bad news for Washington, which has scored the 10th-fewest points in the paint and recorded the fifth-worst accuracy on restricted area attempts.
The Wizards will need to compete hard on the glass if they want to have a chance. That’s been the Thunder’s only weakness across their dynastic run: they allowed the 11th-most rebounds per game in the 2024-25 regular season, conceded the second-most in the playoffs, and so far, they rank seventh-to-last. So far, that’s been one of Washington’s biggest strengths, as it has pulled down the seventh-most rebounds and posted a league-average rebounding percentage. It’ll need to do a better job taking advantage of those boards, though, since it ranks fourth-to-last in second chance points and Oklahoma City has allowed the ninth-fewest second chance points. They’ll also have to be more disciplined, since they’ve committed the sixth-most fouls and the Thunder have been the league’s third-best free throw shooting team.
Shooting luck normalization should also benefit Oklahoma City. The Thunder have been the league’s second-worst three-point shooting team this season after finishing sixth in that stat in 2024-25, and it can largely be attributed to the fact that their 39.1% accuracy on wide-open threes has dropped to 28.1% this season. Cason Wallace has struggled the most inexplicably: he’s just 21.4% on such tries this season after hitting 40.2% of them in 2024-25. Meanwhile, the Wizards have made 40.0% of their wide-open treys, 4.4 percentage points higher than the mark they posted last season. They’re due for improved accuracy from the free throw line, and Oklahoma City is due for some regression, but threes are worth more than ones, especially since Washington has given up the 10th-most wide-open three-point attempts.
The Thunder aren’t a perfect team without Holmgren — or even with him — but they’re still several legions ahead of the Wizards. Washington has an exciting young core, and with Bilal Coulibaly set to make his season debut tonight, it should get better as the season goes on. Regardless, Oklahoma City should win this one comfortably. The Thunder will win it so comfortably, in fact, that the Wizards will win the fourth quarter against Oklahoma City’s bench mob.
