The Raptors end their Western Conference road trip, narrowly escaping a continent-wide polar vortex snowstorm.
Win or lose in Oklahoma City, Toronto has guaranteed a winning record on this ‘West Coast Swing’.
It was a great test for this young squad that has played over a month without a traditional centre.
These stretches are typically a litmus test of how their season has played out.
Over the past three years, Toronto has gone 11-22 on road trips of five games or more.
Even though a pencilled loss against the defending champs is expected, there should be more optimism about their future prospects as they return home.
They are firmly in the Top 6 of the East, sitting 3.5 games out of the play-in.
Perhaps Toronto can snag one more win as an underdog, but in anticipation of a tough wrap on the road, here are three bets worth exploring.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander over 32.5 points (-122)
SGA is simply matchup-proof.
He plays such a critical role in their offence that there’s really no way around his impact.
Shai is in the middle of a historic streak, scoring 20 or more points in 116 consecutive games.
He sits 10 behind Wilt Chamberlain for the all-time record.
In this specific matchup, SGA’s line feels underpriced given the injury situation for OKC.
Jalen Williams, Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso and Isaiah Hartenstein are all out for this one, leaving the Thunder devoid of playmakers.
Since Williams went down three games ago, SGA has averaged 39 points on 67 percent shooting.
Sometimes SGA is a risky bet given his tendency to sit fourth quarters.
OKC is so undermanned, it seems unlikely he only plays the first three.
As a bonus, Toronto owns the third-highest foul rate in the NBA.
For all the “foul merchant” haters who read this, SGA could take advantage of a defence that tends to be overly aggressive.
Chet Holmgren over 9.5 rebounds (-114)
Sticking to the subject of injuries, Holmgren’s been forced to step up with Hartenstein absent since December 29th.
Over this stretch, the DPOY front-runner is playing a season-high 30.2 minutes a night and averaging 9.9 rebounds which would be a career-high.
Even though Holmgren does not profile as a dominant rebounding force, the 7-footer has such a size advantage against the Raptors who will have either Collin Murray-Boyles or Sandro Mamukelashvili filling in at centre.
As we saw two nights ago against Portland, Donovan Clingan had one of his best rebounding games of the year, snatching 16 off the glass.
Toronto has faced two other traditional bigs this month – Ivica Zubac and Deandre Ayton.
They finished with 14 and 13 boards respectively.
Scottie Barnes under 17.5 points (-122)
Writing about another DPOY candidate, Barnes could find his hands full on defence at the expense of his offence.
This Thunder squad owns the league’s best defensive rating once again and is a class above all other 29 teams this season.
They are very intentional about protecting the rim and actively collapse while foregoing shots from deep.
Three-point shooting is the Achilles’ heel of this defence as they allow the fourth-most makes per game.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t match up well with Scottie’s strengths.
He’s down to 2.5 three-point attempts a game in January and has only hit three treys all month.
He’s shooting 11.1 percent over this period.
His offence primarily comes in the paint or on the fastbreak; 73.1 percent of his buckets are classified under one of those two.
OKC is the No. 1 defence in both of those categories, a major conflict with Scottie’s offensive game.
As a final note on taking Scottie’s under, I feel the oddsmakers aren’t factoring in RJ Barrett’s impact on his scoring.
Barnes has scored 20 or more points in six of his last eight games, but they’ve all come with Barrett absent.
If you zoom out and look at Scottie’s scoring over the six-game stretch that Barrett was healthy around New Years, his scoring dropped off by 4.3 a night compared to this recent stretch.
I think his numbers are slightly inflated and due for a correction against the league’s top defence.