Thursday is a light night in the NBA but ends with a heavyweight tilt between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets.
The pregame narrative: I have plays on two of the league’s top MVP contenders — Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander — as well as a Russell Westbrook prop as part of a +360 SGP.
Check out my Thunder vs. Nuggets same-game parlay predictions for Oct. 24.
Thunder vs. Nuggets predictions
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Parlay: Jokic over 11.5 rebounds + Westbrook over 16.5 points/rebounds/assists + Gilegous-Alexander under 1.5 threes (+360)
Jokic over 11.5 rebounds (-152): Oklahoma City was among the worst rebounding teams in the NBA last season. And its big offseason acquisition to help in the interior, Isaiah Hartenstein, is facing a month-long absence.
That means the Thunder’s best rebounder on the court tonight will be Chet Holmgren, who has height but not size and will be no physical match down low for Jokic.
Jokic is a top-five rebounder in the NBA, averaging 12.4 boards last season and getting to this number in 45 of 79 contests.
In a game featuring the Western Conference’s top two teams from a season ago, Jokic’s rebounding could certainly tip the scales in the Nuggets’ favour.
Look for the big man to eat in a plus rebounding matchup that he didn’t take advantage of last season (he averaged 10.0 boards in three games versus the Thunder).
SGP legs
Westbrook over 16.5 pts/reb/ast (-162): Making his Nuggets debut tonight, Westbrook will kick off his 2024-25 season against his longtime former team.
The veteran guard should see healthy minutes in a sixth-man-type role and be able to inject the Nuggets’ second unit with a scoring punch. He should also contribute in other areas.
Westbrook has averaged a combination of 9.0-plus rebounds/assists in every season of his career and scored in double figures in all of them, too.
His lowest PRA average came last year when he averaged 20.6 per game.
That’s comfortably above this number, helping alleviate concerns about a matchup with last season’s No. 4 team in defensive rating.
For what it’s worth, Westbrook averaged 19.6 PRA over as many minutes per game in his final three preseason contests. He should see at least 20 minutes tonight.
Gilgeous-Alexander under 1.5 threes (-155): The Thunder star may very well lead this game in scoring but don’t expect much of that damage to come from deep.
Gilgeous-Alexander is a midrange star who gets to the line at an elite rate. But his back-to-back seasons averaging north of 30.0 points were not propped up by his 3-point shooting.
He averaged under four 3-point attempts in each of the last two seasons and has never converted more than 2.0 made threes per game in any season.
Denver was a top-five team in opponent 3-point percentage last season and the year before.
The Canadian star played 85 games last season, including the playoffs, and topped this line just 33 times.
Picks made at 1:51 p.m. on 10/24/24.
Chris joined NorthStar Gaming from Covers.com where he was a publishing editor and wrote betting content. Before that, he was the sports editor at VICE Canada, worked for theScore and covered the Blue Jays for MLB.com. In addition to filling out the lineup card each day for the editorial team, Chris writes frequently himself, primarily on the NBA and MLB.