The Thunder grew up before America’s eyes in a pivotal Game 5 at home.
Coming back from an eight-point deficit in the fourth quarter, Oklahoma City, which is among the youngest teams in the NBA, showed it has the moxie needed to go deep in the playoffs.
The Thunder are 4.5-point favorites on the road against Nikola Jokic’s group, which won the first three quarters of Game 5.
Now down 3-2 in the series, the Nuggets looked exhausted as Jokic put up a Herculean performance that included 44 points and 15 rebounds on 17-of-25 from the field.
Can Jokic put on his Joker mask one more time and come up Aces for Denver in Game 6?
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The Nuggets simply ran out of players who could make shots in the fourth quarter of Game 5.
Jokic’s group shot 5 of 19 in the fourth quarter last time out, and they would be wise to avoid allowing Michael Porter Jr. to continue missing open jump shots.
Jokic made three of those fourth-quarter shots so, when you really boil it down, he’s simply devoid of shotmaking teammates.
They only made two shots, one of which was a meaningless layup by Jamal Murray with less than 20 seconds remaining.
I expect the Nuggets to come out firing with big energy from their hometown crowd.
That energy may eventually fall on deaf ears if the Thunder continue to get timely 3-point shooting from the likes of Luguentz Dort and Alex Caruso.
For this wager we’re targeting the Nuggets against the spread (ATS) (+1.5, -125) in the first quarter, with these two teams consistently playing at razor-thin margins.
The Nuggets were among the best teams ATS in the first quarter, going 51-31 ATS (30-11 at home) during the regular season, according to Odds Shark.
Oklahoma City was excellent in its own right in the first quarter, going 20-19-1 on the road and 3-2 in this series in that prop.
Role players always play better at home, and this is a spot for them to get going early in front of their raucous crowd.
THE PLAY: Nuggets first quarter ATS +1.5 (-125, BetMGM)
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Erich Richter is a brazilian jiu-jitsu blue belt but he has a black belt in MMA betting. During the football season he’s showcased massive profits at The Post in the player prop market the last two seasons. While constantly betting long shots, his return on investment is 30.15 percent since 2022.