In 2015-16, the Golden State Warriors, fresh off of a championship, got off to a 24-0 start en route to breaking the all-time regular season wins record at 73-9. 10 years later, the Oklahoma City Thunder, fresh off of a championship, are on pace to finish 78-4 after opening the season 20-1 despite All-NBA and All-Defense honoree Jalen Williams playing only two games.
Oklahoma City will seek its 13th straight win when it travels to face the Warriors at Chase Center at 11 p.m. ET. Golden State will be without Stephen Curry for the second straight game as he deals with a quad contusion, as well as Al Horford. The Thunder will be without Alex Caruso, Luguentz Dort, and Isaiah Hartenstein.
Oklahoma City is an 11.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook (-600 on the Moneyline), and the point total is set to 223.5. The Warriors are +440 on the Moneyline. Below, I’ll break down tonight’s matchup and offer my prediction.
Oklahoma City Thunder at Golden State Warriors preview, prediction
In the one game that the Thunder lost, they blew a 22-point second-quarter lead behind some incredibly hot shooting on the Portland Trail Blazers’ part and some uncharacteristically poor shooting, but now, their win streak extends for nearly a month. Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has been even more dominant this season, averaging 32.5 points per game on 55-41-89 shooting splits despite very rarely playing in the fourth quarter, and Chet Holmgren has made some offensive strides while playing his typically elite defense. Oklahoma City has also enjoyed a breakout season from Ajay Mitchell, who played just 84 minutes in the 2025 playoffs but is averaging 15.2 points and 1.6 steals per game as the Thunder’s sixth man.
Golden State, meanwhile, has had a more up-and-down season. The Warriors haven’t looked like the team that went 23-7 after acquiring Butler from the Miami Heat, but they haven’t been bad either, sitting eighth in the Western Conference at 11-10 so far, including a solid 5-5 against teams .500 or better. Curry has been the headliner, averaging 27.9 points per game on 4.7 made threes per night, but Golden State has also enjoyed solid seasons from Butler (20.2 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game) and Green (8.0-6.1-5.8), as well as surprising contributions from second-round rookie Will Richard. Jonathan Kuminga, the cause of plenty of angst during the offseason, has looked good in flashes.
Thunder at Warriors pick, best bet
The Warriors will need to lean heavily into their defense without Curry, who’s turned the equivalent of the league’s third-worst offense when he’s off the floor to the equivalent of the fourth-best when he’s on it. So far this season, they’ve done just that, posting a defense worse than only Oklahoma City’s with Curry on the bench and the equivalent of the eighth-worst with him on the floor. By raw on-off plus/minus, Curry isn’t the absolute worst absence Golden State could have: Butler, Green, Quentin Post, Gary Payton II, and Moses Moody have all had better on-off splits, though that’s in part because Curry has appeared in some lineups as the lone starter and offensive engine.
Still, even if it’s assumed that the Warriors can maintain a 109.6 defensive rating in a larger sample size without their star player, the gap between that and the Thunder’s league-leading 103.6 is as large as the gap between that and the 19th-ranked Philadelphia 76ers. The chasm between Oklahoma City’s league-best defense and the second-best would be by far the largest in NBA history, nearly thrice as big as the record-setting mark that belongs to…the 2024-25 Thunder. Oklahoma City has also given up the second-fewest assists while forcing the most turnovers and coughing the ball up the second-fewest times. Plus, it leads the league in opponent points in the paint, opponent second chance points, and points off of turnovers while ranking second in opponent fast-break points and opponent points off of turnovers. Perfection may not exist in basketball, but this Thunder defense is pretty close.
Oklahoma City is pretty much untouchable in the paint, allowing the fourth-fewest attempts at the rim and the lowest conversion rate, as well as the second-lowest accuracy from the non-restricted paint, and while Hartenstein’s absence won’t help with that, Holmgren has had a larger impact on the Thunder’s defense than he has. All Hartenstein’s absence means is that Jaylin Williams will get more playing team, and he’s actually had a higher defensive box plus/minus than Holmgren. What’s even more scary is the fact that Oklahoma City has somehow gotten unlucky this season on defense, as opponents have shot the ninth-highest percentage on uncontested threes. Golden State has been elite at generating such shots but might struggle to do so tonight without Curry’s gravity.
The Warriors have been gettable in the paint this season, allowing the eighth-highest field goal percentage on shots at the rim and merely a league-average mark on floater-range tries, and while the Thunder don’t get downhill at super high volume, they’ve made layups and floater-range shots at the seventh-highest rate. Plus, Golden State is due for some defensive regression, given that opponents have only made their uncontested threes at the third-lowest rate against the Warriors. Add that to Golden State’s propensity to turn the ball over, the fact that it has allowed the eighth-most rebounds per game, and its lackluster ability to draw fouls, and the pathway to a lopsided result becomes extremely clear. Gilgeous-Alexander will sit his 12th fourth quarter of the season.
