Sonics Playing Well
The Seattle SuperSonics haven’t won consecutive home games in nine months. That could change with the Milwaukee Bucks coming to town.
Coming off their second home win of the season, the Sonics look to beat the struggling Bucks at KeyArena for an eighth straight time on Friday night.
Oddsmakers from Bodog have made Golden State -10 point spread favorites (NBA Odds) for today’s game, the over/under has been set at 208.5 total points (Matchup). Our public betting information shows that 86% of bets for this game have been placed on Golden State -10 (View NBA Bet Percentages).
Seattle (4-15) defeated the Los Angeles Clippers 95-88 on Wednesday for its second win – both at home – in three games after starting 2-14. The Sonics snapped an 11-game home losing streak dating to last season with a 95-93 win over Indiana last Friday.
The Sonics are concluding a five-game homestand against Milwaukee (8-9), which has lost five of six and hasn’t won in Seattle since a 101-99 victory on Jan. 29, 2000. The Bucks have lost 15 of their last 16 road games versus the Sonics.
Seattle has not won two in a row at home since winning five straight from Feb. 14-March 4. The Sonics, though, are coming off their best home outing of the season.
Nick Collison had season highs with 18 points and 17 rebounds off the bench Wednesday in his first game since missing the previous three with a broken nose.
"Getting Nick back was enormous. This was his best game all year," Seattle coach P.J. Carlesimo said. "He was fresh, but he did everything."
Collison, a fourth-year forward who has career averages of 7.7 points and 6.2 rebounds, had 13 points and 16 rebounds in Seattle’s 99-72 home win over Milwaukee on Jan. 19 in the teams’ most recent meeting.
Rookie Kevin Durant also had 18 points Wednesday, dropping his team-leading average to 19.5 per game. Damien Wilkins and Wally Szczerbiak each added 17 for Seattle, which hit a season-best 54.5 percent (6-of-11) from 3-point range.
"We got out running and good things happened for us in the second half, and we were able to take control of the game on both ends," Wilkins said.
The Sonics limited the Clippers to 34.6 percent from the field, improving to 3-1 when holding the opposition below 40 percent.
Seattle is allowing 106.6 points per game to rank second-to-last in the NBA behind Golden State (107.1), but yielded its fewest points of the season Wednesday.
Milwaukee gave up a season-high point total in a 120-90 loss at Golden State on Wednesday.
The Bucks will try to bounce back as they continue their stretch of five games in seven days on their western road swing. They opened the trip with an 87-78 win over the Clippers on Tuesday for their only victory in their last six games.
Milwaukee is 2-7 on the road, failing to score more than 90 points in seven of those games.
On Wednesday, the Bucks matched their lowest-scoring quarter of the season with 11 points in the second.
"It was frustrating how we played," said Michael Redd, who has scored 49 points in two games on the trip. "We played terrible."
Redd has averaged 24.4 points in his last seven contests versus Seattle.
Milwaukee went 3-for-13 from 3-point range Wednesday and continues to struggle from beyond the arc, shooting 24.4 percent in the last six games after shooting 36.2 percent during its 7-4 start to the season.
By: Marc Young – theSpread.com – Email Us
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