In the first round of the NBA Playoffs home teams went 28-15. In the second round, that record is 12-10, much closer to .500. While the home team has won every game in the New York-Indiana series, the other three series in the second round have seen the road time win most of the time.
That probably doesn’t mean much more than there are a lot of evenly matched teams this round. The Dallas-Oklahoma City series has featured a number of close games and a back-and-forth flow where no team holds onto momentum for very long.
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However, Dallas has the advantage heading into Game 6. The Mavericks lead the series 3-2 after winning in Oklahoma City on Wednesday.
Here’s a look at the storylines, odds and staff picks for Saturday’s Game 6 in Dallas.
All odds from BetMGM. Find the best deals on StubHub for tickets.
No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 5 Dallas Mavericks
How to watch: 8 p.m. ET on ABC
Series odds: Mavericks -375, Thunder +300
Mavericks lead series 3-2
It looked like the Mavericks might have blown their advantage by giving away Game 4 at home. Dallas led most of that game, including a 14-point lead in the third quarter, but let the Thunder back in it and lost. Dallas did not give the Thunder a reprieve again in Game 5 and are on the verge of advancing.
Now, it looks like Dallas should have won four in a row and is in prime position to advance to the conference finals for the second time in three years.
The most surprising thing about this series is probably that Kyrie Irving is averaging just 14.4 points per game (he averaged 25.6 points in the regular season and 26.5 points in the first round) and Dallas is up 3-2. Before this series, the prevailing thinking was that Dallas needed both Luka Dončić and Irving to have big nights at the same time to beat the best teams. Turns out, Dallas can beat the top seed in the Western Conference with Irving scoring well below his usual rate.
Dallas’ supporting cast has stepped up in a big way. P.J. Washington is averaging 19.4 points per game. It hardly seems believable that Washington is outscoring Irving for the entire series. Derrick Jones Jr. scored 17 points in Game 4 and added 19 in Game 5. Dereck Lively II had a double-double (11 points, 10 rebounds) in Game 5.
Meanwhile, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is looking around at his teammates, waiting for someone to step up to help him out. Gilgeous-Alexander’s lowest point total of this series is 29 points. Again, that’s the lowest point total. He’s shooting nearly 50 percent from the field and 46.7 percent from 3-point range. Even with that, OKC is on the brink of elimination.
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Dončić could be looking at that production relative to the series score and thinking “Been there.”
Thunder coach Mark Daigneault inserted Lu Dort into the starting lineup for the struggling Josh Giddey in Game 5. Giddey had his best game of the series with 11 points on 5-for-8 shooting while Dort shot 4-for-11 and had the worst plus/minus on the team. That’s how it’s going for the Thunder this series. The supporting cast isn’t doing it while Dallas’ is.
Dallas is favored to finish this series off at home, but the odds are close.
Expert picks for Thunder at Mavericks
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(Photo of Kyrie Irving and P.J. Washington: Joshua Gateley / Getty Images)
