{"id":78027,"date":"2025-08-18T05:55:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T05:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78027\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T05:55:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T05:55:07","slug":"two-teams-pose-biggest-threat-to-thunder-stephen-a-smith-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78027\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Teams Pose Biggest Threat to Thunder, Stephen A. Smith Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Oklahoma City Thunder stormed through the 2024-25 season with 68 regular season wins before outlasting the Indiana Pacers in seven games to capture their first NBA title.<\/p>\n<p>Now, with the entire core returning, OKC is favored to go back-to-back.<\/p>\n<p>But Two Western Conference rivals stand out as their toughest obstacles, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketballnetwork.net\/tag\/stephen-a-smith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN\u2019s Stephen A. Smith says.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>First is the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI view Dallas as a pre-eminent threat because they\u2019ve always got OKC\u2019s number,\u201d Smith said on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8prG9dRtrkM&amp;t=4906s\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Gil\u2019s Arena podcast<\/a>. \u201cIf you look at them last year, even when Luka was down, they still beat them. Oklahoma City running through everybody except Dallas. They run into Dallas without Luka. Dallas beat them. They run into Dallas with Kyrie, Dallas beats them. For some reason, Dallas has their number. And they know how to play against them. And I think because of that reality, you cannot dismiss the Dallas Mavericks as a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Smith also highlighted the Houston Rockets as another major threat, thanks to the arrival of Kevin Durant.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would not underestimate Houston because of KD. I look at Oklahoma City\u2019s defense \u2013 big time, stellar. They have no answer for KD. And they\u2019re going through these droughts, their scoring droughts, but their defense saves the day. Your defense ain\u2019t saving the day against KD. It\u2019s not happening. If nothing else, that brother is going to eat good for 25. It\u2019s not a problem for him at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Houston finished second in the West last season with a 52-30 record before being bounced by Golden State. But with Durant in the fold, Smith sees the Rockets\u2019 missing piece finally addressed.<\/p>\n<p>Oddsmakers still favor Denver, Cleveland and New York behind OKC, but Smith\u2019s picks are firmly in the mix. Beating the Thunder won\u2019t be easy, yet Dallas and Houston may have the right formula to pull it off.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/basketballforever.com\/2025\/08\/15\/kevin-garnett-beams-over-giannis-antetokounmpo-growth\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Garnett Beams Over Giannis Antetokounmpo\u2019s Growth<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Oklahoma City Thunder stormed through the 2024-25 season with 68 regular season wins before outlasting the Indiana&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-78027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}