{"id":523436,"date":"2026-01-07T22:04:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/523436\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T22:04:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:04:17","slug":"jazz-vs-thunder-odds-nba-picks-best-bets-predictions-wednesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/523436\/","title":{"rendered":"Jazz vs. Thunder odds: NBA picks, best bets, predictions Wednesday"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\tNew York Post may be compensated and\/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our links. Featured pricing is subject to change.<\/p>\n<p>Almost all professional sports bettors will agree that the best type of team to back is a focused favorite.<\/p>\n<p>We sure seem to have that scenario on Wednesday, when the Oklahoma City Thunder host the Utah Jazz as 17.5-point favorites with a total of 240.5 points <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/betting\/fanduel-sign-up-offer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">at FanDuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>OKC is coming off an embarrassing 27-point home loss to the Charlotte Hornets.<\/p>\n<p>The Thunder were outscored by 17 points in the first quarter and never rebounded to suffer their worst loss this season and their second straight overall.<\/p>\n<p>Oklahoma City started 24-1, and many believed they would break the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/betting\/nba-betting-sites\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> record of 73 wins set by the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors. However, they have since lost six of their past 12 games.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, that coincided with All-Star forward Jalen Williams saying his team could beat the all-time great teams.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps that is a coincidence, but we have also seen many teams <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/01\/07\/betting\/nba-sixth-man-of-the-year-odds-prediction-ajay-mitchell-is-the-dark-horse-in-the-race\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">throughout sports fall victim to praise<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"38118338\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/utah-jazz-guard-ace-bailey-117894394.jpg\" alt=\"Utah Jazz guard Ace Bailey (19) dribbles the ball as Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham (2) defends.\" class=\"wp-image-38118338\"  \/>Ace Bailey and the Jazz visit the Thunder on Wednesday. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n<p>I firmly believe we will see the best version of OKC against Utah.<\/p>\n<p>The defending champs are a competitive group and they just got trucked on their home court. They will respond appropriately off back-to-back losses.<\/p>\n<p>But obviously this is a big point spread and I prefer to avoid what is expected to be garbage time in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n<p>Betting on the NBA? <\/p>\n<p>Thus, I will isolate the first half because I do think OKC will demonstrate more effort under the circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>I have an 87-75-2 ATS record in this Post sports section, and my next play is the Thunder in the first half. The spread should be around 10.5 points.<\/p>\n<p>The Play: Thunder -9.5 1H (-122, <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/betting\/fanduel-sign-up-offer\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FanDuel<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Why Trust New York Post Betting<\/p>\n<p>Doug Kezirian is a New York Post contributor who has over two decades of experience in the betting space, including spending 11 years at ESPN as a host, columnist and betting analyst. He\u2019s also the rare personality who has documented success \u2013 14th place in 2023 Circa Million and Las Vegas SuperContest ($37K), two top-10 finishes in 2022 William Hill College Football Challenge ($58K) and also grabbed headlines with a $297K win on the 2021 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Post may be compensated and\/or receive an affiliate commission if you click or buy through our&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3783],"tags":[7,212,6,214,310,475,179,3966,3965,66,215,216,312,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-523436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oklahoma-city-thunder","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-betting","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-nba-betting","12":"tag-oklahoma","13":"tag-oklahoma-city","14":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","15":"tag-oklahomacity","16":"tag-oklahomacitythunder","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-sports-betting","19":"tag-sports-picks","20":"tag-thunder","21":"tag-utah-jazz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115856085499879855","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}