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Jalen Brunson is going to have his hands full with a stout Thunder defense Friday night at Madison Square Garden.
Oklahoma City boasts the top defense in the NBA, holding opposing teams to just 103.5 points per game with a league-best 103.4 defensive net rating.
They’re doing it on the back of a stable of dominant perimeter defenders, which include Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Lu Dort, Jalen Williams and Cason Wallace.
That group is absolutely shutting opposing guards down.
The Thunder are holding guards to just 32.9 percent from three and 42.9 overall, which are both the best in basketball.
TeamSpreadMoneylineTotalKnicks+4 (-112)+154o225.5 (-108)Thunder-4 (-108)-185u225.5 (-112)Odds via DraftKings
Take Wednesday night’s battle with the Cleveland Cavaliers, for example.
Despite a 129-122 loss, the Thunder held star scorer Donovan Mitchell to just 11 points on 3-of-16 from the field in one of the worst shooting nights of his career.
Point guard Darius Garland didn’t fare much better, 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 a combined 70 minutes against OKC.
In fact, it was just a week ago that Brunson struggled against OKC’s bevy of three-and-D wings, scoring 22 points on 39.1 percent from the field on 23 attempts, including zero makes on five tries from deep.
Scoring 22 is actually impressive, considering what they’ve done to other backcourt scorers of late.
I doubt it’s going to get any better on Friday.
Betting on the NBA?
Brunson has been in a bit of a shooting funk of late as well, making less than 40 percent of his attempts from the field in four of his last five games since his 55-point outburst against the Wizards on Dec. 28.
Fade the Knicks star in this potential NBA Finals preview.
The play: Jalen Brunson Under 24.5 points (-115, DraftKings)
Why Trust New York Post Betting
Dylan Svoboda is a versatile writer and analyst across many sports. He’s particularly knowledgeable about the big three — MLB, the NFL and the NBA.
