Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Los Angeles Lakers (10:30 pm ET, TNT)
The Oklahoma City Thunder will try to even their second-round NBA Playoff series when they face the Los Angeles Lakers for Game 2 at the Staples Center Tuesday night (10:30 pm ET, TNT). The Thunder have an away record of 23-18 and the Lakers at home have a 34-7 record.
The Lakers struggled for their NBA betting backers at home going 16-23-2 ATS and the Thunder was a solid squad to back as a visitor going 26-15 ATS.
Kevin Durant will face an uphill task when he leads Oklahoma City against the NBA’s defending champion Lakers. The Thunders are eight seeded in the Western Conference Playoffs but displayed poor performances down the stretch. They didn’t do well against Lakers, going 1-3 and lost 12 of the past 13 series matchups. Even though Scott Brooks, Head coach has a talented and enthusiastic roster but it is quite unlikely that the Lakers will have any problems with that. Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, James Harden and veteran Nenad Krstic along with Durant are doing their part quite well.
For a third straight year, Jerry Buss, the legendary Lakers owner, will definitely defend their championship as the No.1 seed. With Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal, Lakers have always had iconic figures backing the team. Addition of Ron Artest to the Lakers line up will boost the team’s performance. As always with Lakers, Kobe Bryant has to step up and lead the team from the front. He will be the one who can produce deep into the playoffs.
The Lakers clearly have the edge over Thunders but you never know. The question is whether Lakers will hold on without being too circumspect or complacent.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.