Taking the Thunder +8 in the biggest NBA regular season game this season...

Folks:

This will be my "farewell pick" of sorts for my blog as I start writing NBA previews over at GMS -- Get More Sports (www.GetMoreSports.com) on a daily basis after the NBA All-Star break...My previews will include handicapping analysis, picks and some fantasy analysis, too...

Oklahoma City Thunder +8 (-105), laying $125 to win $119.05
Oklahoma City Thunder Pick (+305), laying $25 to win $76.25 -- This is the biggest game of the entire regular season in the NBA as you can see by the coverage on ESPN the last 24 hours... Nationally televised game on ABC...You can throw the trends out the window for the most part tonight... Sure, the Warriors demolished the Thunder twice at Golden State, winning 122-96 on November 3rd (OKC on the back-end of a back-to-back there, though) and winning 121-100 on January 18th... But this one is at Oklahoma City... The energy from the Thunder fans will figuratively blow the rook off the Chesapeake Energy Arena...

And Golden State is on the back-end of a back-to-back this time...And they had double-revenge on their minds last night and delivered some payback to the Grizzlies with a 122-107 win at Memphis last night...Their starters played late into that game and Draymond Green became the first player in NBA history to notch a triple-double despite scoring just 4 points, as he had 12 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals to go along with 5 blocks...He played with a ton of energy last night and the Warriors as a whole showed a lot of energy and focus last night...

I always look for the motivational spots when handicapping the NBA or any sport...There is clearly one team here who has all of the motivation to win this game...The Thunder have a triple-revenge spot here as they lost to Golden State in the Western Conference Finals last year and they have already lost to the Warriors twice this season, getting throttled in both games...This Thunder team will want to win one for their Home crowd in Kevin Durant's return to Oklahoma City...

Durant had his two highest-scoring games of the season vs. OKC with 39 in the first game and 40 in the second meeting...But coming back to "boos" of his former home crowd could potentially be a little unnerving in front of what will be a very emotional crowd in his first game back...

The Warriors are 8-2 straight-up on the back-end of back-to-backs this season, but just 3-7 ATS in those same 10 spots...The Warriors have been dealing with inflated lines all season long and tonight is no exception...

For me, the points are a bonus, an insurance policy, more or less, if they happen not to win this game...I think the Thunder can with this game outright and could possibly cover 8 points themselves... So I am betting the moneyline, too, along with happily taking the 8 points...

GL...