The Thunder have played 66 games this season with over 212.5 points scored, while the Suns have had 64 games exceeding that total. The two teams average a combined 231.5 points per game, which is 19.0 points more than the game's total of 212.5.
The Thunder are outscoring opponents by 11.2 points per game with a +791 scoring differential overall. They put up 118.7 points per game, ranking fifth in the NBA.
Sandfort, a 6-foot-7 forward who played his college ball at Iowa, has played in 21 games this season with the Oklahoma City Blue, the Thunder's G-League affiliate. He has averaged 11.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists as a rookie.
Mitchell's 28.8 points per game average is 2.3 points more than Sunday's over/under. He has grabbed 4.4 rebounds per game, 0.9 more than his prop bet for Sunday's game (3.5). Mitchell's year-long assist average - 5.9 per game - is 0.4 higher than Sunday's assist prop bet value (5.5). Mitchell's 3.6 made three-pointers per game is 0.1 more than his over/under in Sunday's game (3.5).
The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will open the post-break portion of the schedule without injured stars Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jalen Williams. Gilgeous-Alexander (abdominal strain) will be re-evaluated in approximately one week and Williams (right hamstring strain) in approximately two weeks, the team announced Thursday. Key reserve guard Ajay Mitchell, who sprained his left ankle over the All-Star break while rehabbing from an abdominal strain, will also be re-evaluated in approximately one week.
"You want me to compare us to them? That's a championship team right there. We're not," James told reporters. "We can't sustain energy and effort for 48 minutes, and they can. That's why they won a championship."
Monday delivered one of the strangest nights of the NBA season, highlighted by historic upsets and a major trade ripple. Entering the day, 14-point underdogs were 1-26 this season. On Monday, they went 2-0, as the Charlotte Hornets (+15.5) stunned the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Denver Nuggets (+14.5) upset the Philadelphia 76ers. It marked just the fourth day in the last 35 seasons in which multiple 14-point underdogs won.
Brandon Miller scored 28 points and the Charlotte Hornets stunned the NBA-leading Oklahoma City Thunder 124-97 on Monday night. Kon Knueppel added 23 points for the Hornets, who had lost three of four before handing Oklahoma City its worst loss of the season. It was a season-low point total for the Thunder and the only time they have failed to score 100 points.
Minutes after the Oklahoma City Thunder's second loss of the season, some of the defending champions' veterans loudly and playfully chided injured rookie Thomas Sorber for failing to have towels in their lockers on time. They laughed while declaring that this failure to properly execute a rookie duty would result in Sorber having to "spin" when the team returned home, referring to a Wheel of Fortune-style device at the team's practice facility that is used to assign an additional chore.
It's difficult to ring any type of alarm for a team that became only the third in history to open the regular season 23-1. The Thunder's league-best 104.1 defensive rating is more than six points per 100 possessions better than the Rockets' (110.7) in the second slot. That gap is equivalent to the canyon between second and 23rd. So there's nothing to complain about on the defensive end.
