NBA Picks – Suns shine vs. Thunder in high scoring duel

With the basketball regular season drawing to a close, BetOnline Sportsbook makes its NBA picks for the duel between the Phoenix Suns and the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday night.

The ever changing Western Conference playoff standings continue to be jam packed.

Phoenix enters Friday night tied with the Dallas Mavericks for the #3 slot in the West. It is just a half game behind the Denver Nuggets for the #2 seed, but only a half game in front of the Utah Jazz for #5. Not only is it imperative to finish as high as possible in the conference to lock up home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, but avoiding the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round is also a goal for the Suns.

The Thunder are still trying to figure out how they can get away from playing the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs as well. Right now, that would be their fate though, as they’re sitting in the #8 position. However, OKC is also even with the Portland Trail Blazers and San Antonio Spurs and can easily pull into the #6 position with a solid finish to the year.

Phoenix Suns (51-27, 45-32-1 ATS) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (48-30, 46-32 ATS)

Game Date/Time: Friday, April 9th, 8:00 ET
Game Location: Ford Center, Oklahoma City, OK
TV/Radio Broadcast: My45, Fox Sports Oklahoma, Sirius

NBA Basketball Odds:

Phoenix Suns +3
Oklahoma City Thunder -3
Game Total 222.5

Playing on the road hasn’t upset the Suns at all of late. Before losing the final game of a five game East Coast swing to Milwaukee, they had won six straight road games SU. Phoenix also has one of the best road ATS marks in the NBA at 22-17.

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Twenty point scorers seem to find their way onto the stat sheet every single night. C Amare Stoudemire has scored at least 21 in five of his L/6, and in the one battle in which he didn’t score 20, both G Steve Nash (24) and G Jason Richardson (23) got there.

The Suns are fresh off of a huge 112-101 romp of the Spurs which kept them in line to make a move up to the #2 spot in the West.

With just four games left in the regular season, F Kevin Durant has taken over the NBA’s scoring lead at 29.9 points per game. He picked up 33 points and 11 boards in a 98-94 loss two nights ago to the Denver Nuggets, which sealed up the fact that the Thunder will most likely start off the playoffs on the road.

The loss snapped OKC’s string of five straight games in which it had scored at least 109 points. It averaged 119.2 points per game in that run.

NBA Basketball Insider Tip: Friday night has been kind to the Suns this season. They are 16-4-1 ATS in their L/21 battles to kick off a weekend.

It may be hard to pick against the hosts right now, but Phoenix has just had Oklahoma City’s number lately. Save for a 117-113 loss to the Thunder at home on December 23rd, the Suns are unbeaten since 2007 against this franchise, and they have gone 3-1 ATS since the start of 2009.

Phoenix’s running style tends to frustrate the Thunder, and that’s what we expect to see happen once again on Friday night.

Our NBA picks are on the Suns to shine in a high scoring duel.

My NBA Prediction: Phoenix by 6