2024 NBA bets, lines and stats for Sunday - ESPN

We've reached the point in the NBA season where the separation between the playoffs-bound and the lottery-bound teams just keeps getting larger and larger. That difference tends to be reflected in the spreads for each game, with games between two playoffs squads having small margins but those between a playoffs and a lottery squad sport double-digit spreads.

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Of Sunday's six games, four are between two competitive (read: relatively healthy) playoffs squads, and all have spreads of less than five points. The only game between a playoffs-bound and a lottery-bound squad has a spread of 12.5 points, with the road team as the favorite. As always, in this space we'll continue to explore trends like this and dig deeper into Sunday's matchups to identify some good candidates to outperform expectation.

Oklahoma City Thunder +3.5 points over Milwaukee Bucks (-115). The Thunder remain the most often overlooked of the major contenders. They currently have the best record in the Western Conference, and the second-best scoring differential (+7.8) of any team in the NBA, trailing only the Celtics.

The Bucks, on the other hand, are perhaps the most volatile of the major contenders with up-and-down defensive efforts that keep them from consistently strong play. According to the BPI game predictor, the Thunder should be favored to win the game outright 51.5% of the time, so them getting points is enough to make them the pick here.

Zion Williamson over 25.5 points (-120). Williamson is coming off his lowest-scoring game of the season, a four-point effort on 2-of-7 shooting in a 23-point win over the Heat. He