The Thunder are coming into this game down 3-2 in the series and are now facing elimination in this game. The Thunder swept the Pelicans in the 1st round of the playoffs and now have to face some adversity after going up 1-0 in this series in the 1st game, but they are going to get up for this game with their season on the line here. They actually won the last game of this series that was in Dallas to even the series 2-2 and the Mavericks are not a team that has beat up on the Thunder throughout the season either. The Mavericks are actually coming into this game following a pattern in these playoffs as they have won 2 straight games every time they have lost 1. They went down in game 1 against the Clippers last series just to go up 2-1, and then they won that series 4-2 after the Clippers tied it 2-2. The same thing happened in this series as well as the Mavericks lost game 1 on the road, won 2 straight to take a 2-1 lead, and are coming off of a win in their last game which put them up 3-2 in the series, now with a chance to end this series as well in 6 games with their 2nd straight win here. That trend is not going to continue though as this is not a series the Mavericks are winning in 6 games or even getting out of at all as the Thunder are the much better team and they are going to bounce back in this game to force a game 7. The only difference in their last game was a bad 2nd quarter that the Thunder never recovered from as they were even in all 3 of the other quarters, but Daigneault also moved Giddey to the bench in that game to experiment and it did work well so the team is going to be more prepared here now that they have a game under their belt with this new look lineup. The Thunder are going to cover the spread in this game.