Oklahoma City Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 04/07/26

Fresh off their 35-point win over the Utah Jazz, the OKC Thunder are headed to Los Angeles for a date with the all of a sudden injury riddled Lakers. I’ll be the 4th meeting of the season between the two sides, OKC has won all 3 by a combined 81 points. So in theory they should be blowing the Lakers out again, right? There’s still no room for complacency as the number 1 seed still hasn’t been secured, a win her gets the defending champs an inch closer to achieving that goal. This team has won 9 in a row vs West opponents and is 5-1 ATS/SU in 6 meetings with the Lakers.

In their first game since Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves’ injuries the Lakers fell on the road to the lowly Dallas Mavericks. LeBron did his best with 30 points, 15 assists and 9 rebounds, and while he did gets some help from his teammates offensively, there was not much the Lakers could do about Cooper Flagg in that loss. We learned a lot from that loss on Sunday, moving forward LA will depend quite a lot on James to carry the offensive burden. The game in Dallas saw him record 117 touches total – his most in a game since 2021. Is that strategy sustainable moving forward for the 41-year old? I have my reservations about that, especially before a game against the defending champs.

I expect the Lakers to come out with a ton of energy here, the home crowd is their only hope of keeping this game reasonably close. But in the end the Thunder are just way better. Even with Jalen Williams out injured, they should run this team over. They’ve beaten them by more than 17 points twice already this season, the Lakers were in much better shape in both those losses compare to what we’ll get from them on Tuesday. I’m backing the Thunder to cover the big spread.

OKC Thunder vs Los Angeles Lakers Predictions: Thunder -16 is available at time of publishing. Playable at that number.