Ricky Dimon
The Oklahoma City Thunder will begin their NBA playoffs campaign as the favorites to win the title when they host the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 1 of a first-round series on Sunday afternoon. OKC rolled to the #1 seed in the Western Conference with a 68-14 record, a ridiculous 16 games or more ahead of everyone else in the West. Memphis earned the eighth and final seed by beating Dallas in the play-in tournament finale on Friday night.
Here is my Same Game Parlay for the action, which tips off at 1:00 pm ET on ABC. Also be sure to check out all of our NBA predictions.
Grizzlies +13.5 (-110)
Under 228.5 (-110)
Scotty Pippen Jr. Over 1.5 3-pointers made (+135)
Parlay odds: +675
Part of the value in a Same Game Parlay, of course, is that all of its components can be correlated if you so choose. That is some of the plan here, as Grizzlies guard Scotty Pippen Jr. draining a couple of 3s would obviously work well with a cover by the visitors. At the same time, plays that aren’t correlated drive up the overall payout of the parlay. That is the case with also backing the under. But even if Pippen delivers, there is no reason why the under can’t cash. Let’s break down all of the SGP legs.
Grizzlies +13.5 (-110)
I’m simply not giving the points with such a massive spread when the favorites have not played in more than a week. Memphis, on the other hand, has remained sharp with a pair of play-in tournament appearances. Ja Morant and company lost a close one against Golden State and then took care of Dallas with relative ease in a win-or-go-home situation. That was on Friday, so the Grizzlies will be playing on normal rest (1 day) in this series opener. Oklahoma City is well rested, of course, but it could also be rusty. It is true that OKC swept the regular-season series 4-0 in dominant fashion, but at the same time none of those games really mattered. The playoffs are whole different beast, and the pressure is on OKC right from the start as a heavily favored team that has never produced playoff success. I can’t see the visitors winning outright, but I can see them keeping it somewhat close.
Under 228.5 (-110)
I love playing Memphis ATS and the Under together, because I can’t see the underdogs covering if the Over hits. If the Grizzlies cover, it’s almost certainly going to be a low-scoring affair. After all, the Grizz simply aren’t going to score a lot of points. The Thunder are the #1 scoring defense in the Western Conference (#3 overall), #1 in 3-pointers allowed and #1 in points in the paint allowed. If Memphis is going to be competitive, it will have to play stout defense of its own. In the 2 most recent head-to-head meetings (both played in March), a total of 223 and 229 points were scored.
Scotty Pippen Jr. Over 1.5 3-pointers made (+135)
As mentioned above, Memphis probably won’t have an easy time of things on offense. So let’s do anything crazy and back someone to score 30 or 40 points. Asking someone to put 6 points on the board with a couple of long-distance dials is far more reasonable. And Pippen can do it. The Vanderbilt product has scored in double-figures in 13 of his last 15 contests and has drained multiple 3-pointers in 12 of his last 17 appearances and in 5 of his last 7. That includes a 3-for-5 effort from downtown during Friday’s 120-106 beatdown of the Mavericks. In his past 2 outings against Oklahoma City, Pippen has gone 3-for-5 and 2-for-3 from the land of plenty.
