Thunder a win away from conference finals

A few years ago the Oklahoma City Thunder were a relocated team in a new town surrounded by uncertainty. Now, though, the Thunder are one win away from a date with the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals of the NBA playoffs.

Friday night OKC, up three games to two in its conference semifinal series with the Memphis Grizzlies after a blowout victory in Game 5 on Wednesday night, goes for the kill when the teams meet for their Game 6 in Memphis (9 pm Eastern, ESPN).

Oklahoma City had relinquished home-court advantage in this series when it lost Game 1 at home 114-101. The Thunder then pulled back to even with a 111-102 victory in Game 2, but then fell back behind by blowing a 16-point second-half lead and losing Game 3 in Memphis in overtime 101-93.

OKC then avoided falling down 3-1 by overcoming a couple of game-lengthening 3-pointers by the Grizzlies and winning Game 4 on Monday night 133-123 in triple-overtime.

Wednesday night there was no need or opportunity for late-game heroics on either side. The Thunder led by 11 at the half, pushed that lead to 19 after three quarters, and breezed to a 99-72 victory. In fact, both Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook did not even play in that final stanza.

So OKC got the cover as six-point favorites at oddsmaker.ag on Wednesday night, and the game played way UNDER its total of 197, as Memphis shot just 36% from the floor and didn't hit the 50-point mark until just two minutes remained in the third quarter.

So far in this series the Thunder are shooting 45% from the field, holding the Grizzlies to just 40% FG shooting, and are outrebounding Memphis by a 47-45 per-game average.

But the Grizzlies have won five of the nine games these two teams have played this season, after taking the regular-season series three games to one. And Memphis is still 5-4 vs. the oddsmaker.ag pointspreads against OKC this season.

Also, seven of the nine games these two teams have played this season have gone OVER the totals. And three of those nine games have gone into overtime.

When this series started oddsmaker.ag was listing Oklahoma City, the four seed in the West, as a -320 favorite to win, with eighth-seeded Memphis getting +250 as the underdogs.

If the Grizzlies win at home Friday night Game 7 of this series will be played Sunday back in Oklahoma City (3:30 Eastern, ABC).