Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Minnesota Timberwolves Picks, Predictions, Odds

Michael Crosson Sports Betting Expert

4 minute read

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The NBA Play-In Tournament concludes on Friday night with the final playoff spot in the West on the line between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves. Coverage begins from the Target Center in Minneapolis at 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER vs. MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES BETTING PREDICTION

In the first round of the Play-In Tournament, Oklahoma City made pretty easy work out of New Orleans as a 5.5-point underdog, as the Thunder racked up 39 points on 60% from the field in the third quarter of Wednesday night’s contest, and never looked back on the way to a surprisingly comfortable 123-118 road victory over the Pelicans.

Minnesota will be a much tougher challenge, though. The Timberwolves and Pelicans may have finished with the same record in the regular season, but Minnesota is a team with much higher aspirations, and they came incredibly close to securing the 7th seed in their overtime loss to the Lakers on Tuesday night, a team that many people seem to believe has a legitimate chance of beating Memphis in the opening round of the playoffs.

For a variety of reasons, Rudy Gobert isn’t exactly the most popular player on the planet at the moment, and rightfully so. On a broad scale, is Gobert overrated? Yes, without a doubt; but this is still a guy that leads the Timberwolves in blocks and rebounds by a comfortable margin (11.6 REB, 1.4 BLK), and now, with Karl-Anthony Towns healthy and back in the lineup, they’ll always need significant aid in those two departments.

Out of all the guys’ on the Wolves’ roster averaging over 10 minutes per game, Gobert ranks 8th on the team in +/- at -0.1, which certainly isn’t anything to write home about; but there’s really not much separation within Minnesota’s rotation in the +/- department, and it’s tough to distinguish between how much of Gobert’s subpar ratio stems from him powering through 70 starts while Towns missed over half of the season.

All things considered, though, the Timberwolves still took the Lakers to overtime in the first round of the Play-In Tournament without Gobert in the lineup, which is a pretty impressive feat in my opinion.

It’s a small sample size, but since the return of Towns on March 21st, the Timberwolves have posted the fifth-best winning percentage in the entire league with a record of 6-3, primarily thanks to the fact that they’ve ranked 8th in defensive rating during that span, and now, with Towns back in the lineup, they seem to have just enough star power on offense to get them over the hump in the majority of their matchups.

While on the other hand, Oklahoma City has sprung onto the scene in a big way this year. After finishing Bottom 2 in the West in back-to-back seasons, this young Thunder’ team has strung together an admirable campaign by finishing 10th in the conference with a record of 40-42, while ranking in the top half of the league at both ends of the floor; 13th in offensive rating and 12th in defensive rating respectively.

The Thunder have a very special player steering the ship in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and he very well might be the most gifted player on the floor in this matchup; but as a team, the Thunder don’t really do anything all that special on either side of the script. Quite frankly, they’ve just been healthy enough and played hard enough to breed a level of consistency capable of elevating them to fringe playoff team status, as opposed to other squads choosing to shamelessly tank for draft position down the stretch.

Oklahoma City is mostly a One Man Show plus a handful of solid young rotational pieces that haven’t quite developed into legitimate high-level scoring threats like SGA yet; whereas, Minnesota also has just one elite scorer at its disposal in Towns, but the complementary pieces around him are much stronger, with Anthony Edwards and Mike Conley there to lighten the offensive load, plus Gobert stationed down low to help grab boards and protect the rim. 

The Timberwolves simply strike me as the far more complete squad at the moment, especially given homecourt advantage and a considerable edge at the defensive end of the floor as of late. Lay the points with Minnesota in this one.

Score Prediction: Timberwolves 117, Thunder 108
Best Bet: Timberwolves -5 (-110)

Take MIN!

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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER vs. MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES BETTING ODDS

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER vs. MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES BETTING RESOURCES

Date: Friday, April 14, 2023
Venue: Target Center
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
TV-Time: ESPN, 9:30 p.m. ET
Matchup
Expert Picks

NBA Finals Betting Odds

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER vs. MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES BETTING STATS

Oklahoma City Thunder
SU: 41-42
ATS: 46-35-1
O/U: 46-35-1
PPG: 117.5
OPPG: 116.4

Minnesota Timberwolves
SU: 42-41
ATS: 40-42
O/U: 38-43-1
PPG: 115.8
OPPG: 115.7

Straight Up (SU), Against the Spread (ATS), Over-Under (O/U)
Points Per Game (PPG), Opponents Points Per Game (OPPG)

Updated on 01/07/2025

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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER vs. MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES BETTING TRENDS

• The Timberwolves are 4-1 ATS in their last five games.
• The total has gone UNDER in four of Minnesota's last five games.
• The Thunder are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 games.
• The Thunder are 2-5 ATS in their last seven road games.
• The total has gone UNDER in four of Oklahoma City's last six road games.
• The Thunder are 2-5 ATS in their last seven games against Minnesota.
• The Thunder are 1-7 SU in their last eight games against Minnesota.
• The Timberwolves are 2-7 ATS in their last nine home games.
• The Timberwolves are 2-7 SU in their last nine home games.

Michael Crosson

Michael Crosson began his time at VegasInsider as a freelance NBA writer back in 2019 while he continued to study Psychology and Biology at James Madison University. Following his graduation in 2021, Michael joined the team full-time, and he's been with VI ever since. Michael still writes NBA, NFL, and MLB for VI, as well as gambling industry news. He's also become a crucial part of our editorial production team. More from Michael Crosson