The top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder will face the eighth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET at Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. For this game, SportsLine's consensus has Oklahoma City as his 1.5-point favorite to win, and the over/under gives him 209.5 points (up-to-date odds for each game this week can be found on his NBA odds page Please see).
Before you make your Thunder vs. Pelicans pick, you should see what the SportsLine projection model says.
The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every NBA game 10,000 times and has returned well over $10,000 on $100 players on top-rated NBA picks over the past five seasons. This model enters Week 2 of the 2024 NBA Playoffs with a hot 90-58 record on all top-rated NBA picks this season, returning over $2,800. Anyone who follows is getting great benefits.
The model knows that Thunder point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a big hit for the Pelicans in the first two games of the series. In Game 1, he recorded 28 points, 6 rebounds, and 4 assists. On Wednesday, he had 33 points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals. Gilgeous-Alexander started all 75 games during the regular season, averaging 30.1 points, 6.2 assists, 5.5 rebounds, and 2 steals in 34 minutes per game.
The model also knows that New Orleans shooting guard CJ McCollum played well against the Thunder this season. In three regular season games, he averaged 21.3 points, 7.7 rebounds, and 4.3 assists in 37.7 minutes. He scored 20 points in the Game 1 loss and added six assists and three boards. He had 15 points, five rebounds and four assists in Wednesday's loss. He recorded two double-doubles during the regular season.
The model simulated the Thunder vs. Pelicans game 10,000 times and the results are in. You can see that the model is leaning toward total points. It is said that one side of the spread will hit more than 50% of the time.
Who will win Thunder vs. Pelicans?and which side of the spread hits in more than 50% of the simulations.? … Join SportsLine now to see which side of the spread you should be on with our top-rated NBA picks from our 90-58 model.
