Jalen Brunson will be doing everything he can to protect the Thunder's defense on Friday night at Madison Square Garden.
Oklahoma City boasts one of the best defenses in the NBA, holding opponents to just 103.5 points per game with the league's best defensive net rating of 103.4.
They're doing it with strong perimeter defenders including Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lou Dort, Jaylen Williams and Kayson Wallace.
That group has completely blocked off the other guard.
The Thunder are holding guards to just 32.9% from three and 42.9% overall, both of which are the best in basketball.
| team | spread | money line | total |
|---|---|---|---|
| knicks | +4 (-112) | +154 | o225.5 (-108) |
| thunder | -4 (-108) | -185 | u225.5 (-112) |
Take Wednesday night's game against the Cleveland Cavaliers, for example.
Despite losing 129-122, the Thunder had one of the worst shooting nights of his career, holding star scorer Donovan Mitchell to just 11 points on 3-of-16 shooting from the field.
Point guard Darius Garland didn't have a great game, scoring 18 points on 15 shots.
Earlier this week, Celtics guards Derrick White and Jrue Holiday combined for just 13 points on 26.3 percent shooting in 70 minutes against OKC.
In fact, it was just a week ago when Brunson struggled against OKC's three-and-D wing pack, scoring 22 points on 39.1 percent from the field on 23 attempts, including zero makes on five tries from deep. It was.
Considering what they've done against other backcourt scorers recently, 22 points is really impressive.
I don't think the weather will be good on Friday.
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Brunson has also been in a shooting funk lately, shooting less than 40 percent from the field in four of his last five games since scoring 55 points against the Wizards on Dec. 28.
Fade out the Knicks star in this potential NBA Finals preview.
Play: Jalen Brunson under 24.5 points (-115, DraftKings)
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Dylan Svoboda is a versatile writer and analyst in various sports fields. He is especially knowledgeable about the Big 3, MLB, NFL, and NBA.
