NBA Playoff Picks 4/22 – Suns @ Thunder

The first-round of the Western Conference Playoffs continues tonight with the No. 8 seed Phoenix Suns (45-37 in the regular season) visiting the defending NBA Champion and top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder (64-18) at Paycom Center on ESPN. The Thunder took a 1-0 lead after throttling Phoenix 119-84 in Game One on Sunday afternoon.

The franchises are matching up in the postseason for the first time since 1997 when the second-seeded Seattle Supersonics — where the Thunder franchise resided before moving to Oklahoma City in July 2008 — outlasted the seventh-seeded Phoenix Suns 3-2 in a best-of-five, first-round series.

Phoenix is a 17.5-point favorite and 215.5.

The series opener was close (12-12) for a brief moment early on until a flagrant-one foul on Phoenix’s volatile forward Dillon Brooks — for hitting Chet Holmgren in the face — ignited a 12-2 Oklahoma City run. The Thunder built a 24-14 lead and went on to rout the Suns. Oklahoma City led 35-20 after one quarter and 65-44 at the half before coasting to a 35-point victory.

All-Star guard Devin Booker poured in a team-high 23 points (8-17 FG, 2-5 3Pt, 5-7 FT) and grabbed six rebounds for Phoenix in the loss. Dillon Brooks added 18 points (6-22 FG, 3-10 3Pt, 3-3 FT), 7 rebounds and 2 assists, while Jalen Green registered 17 points (6-16 FG, 2-7 3Pt, 3-4 FT), 5 rebounds, 1 steal and 1 block for the Suns. Phoenix shot a paltry 35% from the floor in defeat.

Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored a game-high 25 points (5-18 FG, 0-4 3Pt, 15-17 FT) and added 7 assists, 4 rebounds and 2 blocks across 29 minutes for Oklahoma City in the win. Gilgeous-Alexander sat out the entire fourth quarter. Jalen Williams tallied 22 points (9-15 FG, 2-5 3Pt, 2-2 FT), 7 rebounds, 6 assists, a steal and a block in 29 minutes in the win. All 14 Thunder players saw time on the floor against the Suns.

Prior to this season in July, the Phoenix Suns broke up their ill-fated Big Three after two underwhelming seasons — 49-33 in 2023-24 and 36-46 in 2024-25 — by trading Kevin Durant to the Houston Rockets and buying out Bradley Beal. Phoenix received a trade package from Houston that featured talented, 23-year-old shooting guard Jalen Green and rugged forward Dillon Brooks in exchange for Durant.

Phoenix entered the season with modest expectations as they would have superstar mainstay Devin Booker surrounded by what looked to be a lesser supporting cast. To make matters worse, trade acquisition Jalen Green strained his right hamstring in training camp and started the year on the injured list.

Unfortunately, Green’s hamstring injury lingered for most of the year and limited him to playing in just 32 regular season games. Phoenix’s injury misfortune did not end with Green. Devin Booker (18 games missed), Dillon Brooks (26 gms), Grayson Allen (31 gms) and starting center Mark Williams (22 gms) were all out for significant amounts of time with injuries.

Dillon Brooks (career-high 20.2 ppg, 3.6 rebs, 1 stl, 2.3 threes), Jalen Green (17.8 ppg, 1.1 stls, 2.2 threes) and Grayson Allen (career-high 16.5 ppg, 1.4 stls, 3.1 threes) were Phoenix’s top scorers behind Devin Booker, and none of them played in more than 56 games.

Despite the roster turnover and barrage of injuries to key players, the Phoenix Suns were still a very competitive team this season. They were 10+ games over .500 for most of the year, improving to a season-best 12 games over .500 (39-27) on March 12. A three-week swoon in March where the Suns lost 8 of 11 dropped them to 42-35 on April 2 and they plummeted into the Play-In Tournament, instead of the playoffs.

Superstar Devin Booker’s continued excellence in his 11th season kept the Suns afloat for most of the season. The 29-year-old, five-time All-Star averaged team-highs of 26.1 points and 6 assists per game on 45.6 percent shooting from the floor. Guard Collin Gillespie emerged as an unsung star for the Suns, averaging career-highs in points (12.7), assists (4.6), rebounds (4.2), steals (1.2) and threes (2.9) per game across 80 contests alongside and filling in for Phoenix’s top players.

It’s highly unlikely that Phoenix gets past the mighty Oklahoma City Thunder in this series, but they’ve had a very good season when you consider their plethora of injuries. The Suns ended up winning 9 more games than they did last year when they had big-name stars in Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal.

Beginning in the summer of 2019 with the trade acquisition of then-21-year-old, second-year guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander from the Los Angeles Clippers, the Oklahoma City Thunder made a series of astute moves that culminated with the franchise’s second NBA title (1979 Seattle Supersonics) and first since moving to Oklahoma City in July 2008.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s expeditious rise to superstardom by his fourth year (2022-23) with the Thunder was the catalyst for the team capturing the NBA title last year. The 2024-25 NBA Champion Thunder won a franchise-record 68 games and became the youngest team (average age of 25.6 years) to win an NBA title since the Portland Trail Blazers in 1977.

Fresh off of winning the NBA title and returning the majority of the team, the Oklahoma City Thunder entered this season as the overwhelming favorite (+250) to win the 2025-26 title and repeat as NBA champions. Cleveland and Denver were tied at a distant second with plus-750 odds to win the title.

The Thunder justified those preseason odds by getting off to a blistering 24-1 start to the season. The 24-1 start matched the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors — who finished with the best regular season record in NBA history at 73-9. It was believed that Oklahoma City could surpass Golden State’s 73 wins by several games due to how easy the victories were — 18 of their 24 wins were by double digits and 9 of the wins were by 20 or more points.

A 16-12 stretch after the extraordinary 24-1 start — due to injuries for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Isaiah Hartenstein, Ajay Mitchell and Jalen Williams — dashed any hopes of Oklahoma City matching or exceeding the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors or surpassing the historic 70-win mark, but they still finished with the NBA’s best record for a second year in a row at 64-18. Their 64 wins tied the second-best mark in franchise-history (1995-96 Seattle Supersonics). Oklahoma City is looking to become the first NBA team to repeat as champions since the Golden State Warriors in 2017 and 2018.

Once Oklahoma City had the majority of the team intact in late-February, they essentially ended the season like they started it by going 21-1 over the final six weeks. The dropped the final two games of the year due to resting their starters, but enter the postseason looking as dominant as they did at the beginning of the year when they started 24-1 and were steamrolling over everyone.

Reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander amassed another astonishing season this year averaging 31.1 points (2nd in the NBA), 6.6 assists, 4.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.7 threes per game on a career-high 55.3 percent shooting from the floor in 68 games. The 27-year-old, Kentucky product averaged over 30 points per game for a fourth straight season this year. He is the runaway favorite (-5000) to win the 2025-26 NBA MVP Award. When Gilgeous-Alexander wins the award, he’d become the first back-to-back MVP winner since Nikola Jokic in 2021 and 2022.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander took home more hardware yesterday when he was named the 2025-26 NBA Clutch Player of the Year. Gilgeous-Alexander led the NBA with 175 total clutch points, which are points scored when the score differential is within 5 points and the game is in the final 5 minutes of the fourth quarter or in overtime.

Even though 17.5 points is a tremendous amount to lay for a favorite in any sport, Oklahoma City has shown themselves to be leaps and bounds better than Phoenix and the majority of teams in the NBA. They won 25 games by 20 or more points this year. I think the Thunder toy with the Suns for a second straight game tonight. Lay the Points and take the Thunder!