The best team in the Western Conference will visit the conference’s recent kingmakers on Wednesday night as the Oklahoma City Thunder head west to see the Golden State Warriors.
After an offseason spent being anointed as the next top team in waiting, Oklahoma City has proven just that. It has rolled through the regular season so far and sits comfortably atop the league’s most competitive conference.
It has not been so smooth for Golden State, which is one of many teams in a crowd fighting for positions in the play-in tournament at the coming season’s end. It gets tougher for the Warriors here, too, as they’ll welcome the Thunder into Chase Center on the second night of a back-to-back.
With a Western Conference clash on the slate this Wednesday in the Bay Area, check out our Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Golden State Warriors predictions, including our NBA expert picks, with tip set for January 29 at 10:00 p.m. ET.
Matchup Thunder vs Warriors Overview
Teams: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Golden State Warriors
Date: Wednesday, January 29
Time: 10:00 p.m. ET
Venue: Chase Center
Win Probabilities
The prediction tip for the winner in the game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Golden State Warriors is the Golden State Warriors.
Projected Final Score for Thunder vs Warriors NBA Game
Our predicted final score for this NBA matchup is Golden State Warriors 102-115 Oklahoma City Thunder.
Expert Prediction Thunder vs Warriors: Who Wins?
These two old Western Conference rivals met twice early in the season. The Golden State Warriors won the first meeting in Oklahoma City, but the Oklahoma City Thunder went to the Bay and won a game back.
At that time, less than 20 games into the 2024-25 regular season, the Thunder and Warriors were jostling atop the Western Conference with OKC 14-4 and the Dubs 12-6. Since then, however, they’ve gone in vastly different directions.
Both teams have played 27 games since they last met, and the Thunder are 23-4 in that timeframe—vaulting to the top of the Western Conference by a comfortable margin in the meantime. Golden State, meanwhile, has gone just 10-17 and sunk out of the playoff picture altogether.
Though the Warriors’ outlook is bleak, the Thunder lost to the Dallas Mavericks a week ago. This team is missing key pieces, underperforming this year, and playing on the second night of a back-to-back. Golden State’s ability to duplicate that impressive win makes for an intriguing matchup.
Why the Oklahoma City Thunder Can Cover
The Oklahoma City Thunder’s route to covering in this spot against the Golden State Warriors is clear. They are the best and most complete basketball team, and they need to maintain their current performance to comfortably hold off Golden State.
On a team-wide level, there is a wide margin between the two. Even over the last 10 games, in which the Warriors have clung to .500 basketball, and the Thunder have dropped a couple of games they shouldn’t have, the level of play is considerably different.
Oklahoma City is fourth in offensive rating in that 10-game sample size, while Golden State is 23rd. The Thunder are second in defensive rating, and the Warriors are a lowly 28th. The Thunder outscored opponents by nearly 13 points per 100 possessions (12.9 net rating), while the Dubs were outscored per 100 possessions by 7.4 points—a margin considerably worse than that of true tanking teams like the Portland Trail Blazers and Toronto Raptors.
The Warriors are further hindered by the lack of players to counter Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and slow down the Thunder’s leading scorer. The presumptive MVP can overwhelm even the most skilled defenders, and with Gary Payton II and Andrew Wiggins far from their peak this year, this will be challenging.
With a team as dominant as the Thunder, the covering is less about what they can do and more about what they must avoid. Simply avoiding a lull will be enough, and against these Warriors and Steph Curry, they should rise to the occasion as needed.
Why the Golden State Warriors Can Cover
In such a considerable mismatch, the Golden State Warriors’ best way to cover against the Oklahoma City Thunder is to try and swing the math in their favor. They can do that by slowing down the game and taking a high volume of three pointers.
The Warriors already play at one of the league’s slowest paces, averaging 96.55 possessions per 48 minutes. Conversely, the Thunder are among the league’s most fast-paced teams, with 100.95 possessions per 48 minutes over their last 10 games. Slowing Oklahoma City down and forcing it to play at the Warriors’ pace would close the margin between these two.
At that point, a positive variance from Golden State’s shooting from deep would enable it to hang around. Though the Warriors’ offense has been woefully inefficient in recent weeks, with a bottom-10 mark in offensive rating, true shooting percentage, and effective field goal percentage over their last ten games, they’ve remained a good three-point shooting team.
Under the guidance of Steph Curry, Golden State is achieving the fifth-highest percentage of shots from deep in the league, at 45.9%, and ranking in the top 10 at 36.6%. Continuing to shoot a high rate of shots from three will be dependable against this Thunder team, as no team in the NBA concedes a higher percentage of shots from distance—with Thunder opponents taking 45.1% of their shots from distance.
It’s no coincidence that the last two quality wins the Warriors have had against the Minnesota Timberwolves and Memphis Grizzlies saw them hit 50% or better from deep. Similarly, hot shooting against the Thunder would give the Warriors a good chance of covering.
How to Make Thunder vs. Warriors Picks
Ready to make picks on the Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Golden State Warriors matchup on Wednesday, January 29? Make sure to head over to Sportzino, where you can find every NBA game on the slate this weekend and so much more!
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