Streak Stoppers

The Thunder head into Oakland tonight with one goal in mind: to prevent the Warriors from achieving "streak" status much like the Heat did to OKC three days ago. In addition, now is a good time to make another run at a streak of our own as our next four games (including tonight's) are against teams with losing records: Warriors, Clippers, Nets, and Grizzlies.

The Thunder are 5-5 over their past ten games, and that's quite the feat for a team with an 8-34 record. With the weak schedule and the team starting to get hot, OKC may finally be able to shed the banner of NBA's worst record. All that starts tonight against the Warriors. Tonight's game is going to require that the Thunder do something that they've only done once in the past four games: break (and probably) demolish the 100 point barrier. The last time the Warriors scored less than 100 points was December 26 against the Celtics when they scored 99 so it still would have taken triple digits to beat them.

Both teams are very similar statistically. Both are averaging 45% from the field on the season. They both hit about 36% of their three pointers. 76% of free throws are made. And 42.6 rebounds are grabbed by each team per game. The big difference between the two teams has been shots per game: the Warriors average 5 additional shots from the field, 8 additional attempts from beyond the arc, as well as 5 additional free throws. This results in the Warriors averaging 107 points per game while the Thunder average 95.

Unfortunately, the Thunder are unlikely to control the tempo and will have to play the Warriors' style of game. Fortunately, while the two teams average an equal number of rebounds per game, OKC tends to out-rebound their opponents while Golden State averages losing the rebounding war by 5. This should play into the Thunder's favor and should hopefully allow them to make up for a deficit created by the additional 3's hit by the Warriors.

No preview would be complete without mentioning that the two teams have already met twice this year with both of those contests occurring in Oklahoma City.  The Warriors won the first 112-102 while the Thunder took the second 107-100.  Looks for tonight's game to fall in the same range with the Thunder winning 113-108.