The Oklahoma City Thunder are just one game away from making the NBA Finals once again. As they travel southward to the Frost Bank Center tonight, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs will be standing in their way as the home team looks to extend its season for one more day. Will Shai Gilgeous-Alexander be able to power the visitors to a win, or will this series be going to seven games instead?

Here’s a Thunder vs. Spurs prediction and pick for Game 6 of the NBA Playoffs action on DraftKings Sportsbook.

Thunder vs. Spurs prediction, preview

Game 5 of this series was an interesting one. The Thunder, while at home, were without an All-Star talent in Jalen Williams and another capable scorer in Ajay Mitchell. Despite missing the pair of key contributors and the Spurs finally having a clean injury report themselves, Oklahoma City played it close in the early stages, took a lead and never truly looked back. That matchup ended in a 127-114 victory for the reigning champs, even despite yet another ugly shooting night from Shai Gilgeous-Alexander as he scored 32 points on a 7-for-19 line with 16 made free throws. Notably, it was Alex Caruso who exploded for 22 points with four made threes, while Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstein each notched double-doubles after a quiet first few games of the series.

San Antonio does still have an edge in this season series at 6-4 against OKC dating back to the start of the campaign. However, it’s tough to feel quite as confident about the young upstarts now that Oklahoma City has control of the series, even at Frost Bank Center.

Williams, who’s been in and out of the lineup this postseason with a hamstring injury, is once again listed as questionable to play tonight. He averaged 17.1 points. 4.6 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game during the regular season and brought similar averages across his four postseason games thus far, so a potential return would provide a huge boost. Mitchell, who has played backup to Williams while averaging 18.4 PPG in seven games without him during this playoff run, is out again tonight.

After being held to a season-low 82 points in Game 4, the Thunder bounced back with 127 last time out. They’re now up to 113.8 PPG in this series and 111.5 PPG across the 10 total matchups against San Antonio dating back to the start of the campaign. Moreover, they’ve scored at least 122 in three of these five playoff games as well. Meanwhile, the Spurs are posting 112.0 PPG in this series and are at 113.2 PPG in the overall split, though they’ve gone over 114 just once in these last five outings.

San Antonio does still maintain an edge in rebounding against Oklahoma City with 47.6 boards a game to also winning the rebounding battle at 48.3 boards a game to 44.1, a trend which has continued in the postseason by a similar margin. However, the Spurs are shooting 42.5% overall and just 31.8% over the last five games compared to a 43.3% FG% and 36.4% 3P% for the Thunder. That perimeter shooting has made a difference when it matters for the latter.

Thunder vs. Spurs pick, best bet

On DraftKings Sportsbook, the Spurs are a -3.5 favorite with -155 odds on the Moneyline. The Thunder hold +130 odds of an outright win with the game total set at 219.5 points.

Betting splits show 53% of straight wagers on San Antonio and 62% on the Spurs to cover the -3.5 spread.

This has been a back-and-forth series, which makes it quite tough to pick an outright winner. On one hand, the Spurs have put up an excellent fight overall against the reigning champs and do have the advantage of playing at home tonight. However, it may not be that much of an advantage after all given that they’re averaging just 112.5 PPG with slightly worse shooting splits at their own arena compared to 118.3 PPG on the road (though the latter mark may be slightly inflated by some overtime periods allowing for greater scoring). Simultaneously, they’re simply less experienced than their opponent come playoff time, especially in a win-or-go-home situation such as this one. That matters in this pressure cooker of an environment.

Rather than picking a Moneyline or spread wager as the best bet tonight, I’d rather target the over on 219.5 points instead. This over has cashed in four of the five games of this series thus far, with the lone exception coming when Oklahoma City scored their season-low 82 points in regulation. The combined totals so far have read 241, 185, 231, 235 and 237 points, most of which have comfortably cleared tonight’s line. Dating back to the beginning of the regular season, the over on 219.5 has hit in seven of the 10 total matchups between these teams as well. In the five meetings prior to the playoffs, the totals came out to 220, 240, 219, 217 and 222.

All together, those 10 combined game totals average out to 224.7 PPG. Narrowing it down to just the postseason sample yields an even better mark of 225.8 PPG as well. What do we see here? The over is a very compelling pick this evening in Game 6.

Best Bet: Over 219.5 points (-108)