Would you fold pocket aces preflop against a table of pros? If not, then you should make this pick.

2016: 2-1

You're at a poker table sitting with only professionals with $100K+ in front of you. The game is pot-limit with $400 and $800 blinds. Someone raises to $2K

You are dealt the best hand in poker: Pocket Aces.

What do you do?

This guy...folded his hand preflop:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nwCOOnA4vk

There are some complex intricacies as to why he folded but the fact remains that he is the only person who has ever intentionally folded pocket aces preflop on live TV, and there likely will never be another. 

He folded out of fear.

We all fear the Warriors if we want to fade them. They can obliterate any team and any spread in the bat of the eyelash.

Having said that, they are not unbeatable as they have lost in key spots this year and one spot is very significant with regard to this game. I will get to that

Their spreads are not unbeatable.

They are 32-23-1 this year. That's 62%. For every 62 covers, they do not cover 38 times. That's not even covering 2 out of 3 games. I know it seems like they cover every game but they do not. The numbers beat this out.

So first let's talk about why this game in this spot is so valuable to us to back the dog.

It all goes back to Capping 101. 90% of you reading this know what I am about to say, but after seeing it in writing, it should become more impactful.

1. This is the 7th game of a 7 game road trip.

With a few extreme exceptions, this is as long a road trip as you will ever see in the NBA. It stretches all the way back to February 10th.

They are 5-1 on this road. Now they get the toughest matchup of all the games at the tail end of this massive road swing against a team with 2 of the 5 best players in the league.

We all say it: this is a star driven league. Only one of the greatest dynasties of all-time deviates from the star formula, and that is the Spurs. But even Leonard is a star. Duncan/Parker (and Manu to a degree) are all-time legends. So there is even an argument against their winning formula allegedly not using stars.

When you have not one but two of the elite players in the league backing your bet at home at the end of the longest of long road trips for the opponent, even if it is the Warriors, you have something VERY powerful.

These are 2 of the top 7 scorers in the league, an enviable 1-2 punch any team but the Warriors and Spurs would salivate to have. This is also a team that averages 110 a game, an average only behind one team...the Warriors.

Yes, I know what the Warriors have and I know what that team is and we all know their record, but on the other side of the ball look at what you get at home, with the other team off a 17 day road trip flying all over the country, and, and this is important, you are still an UNDERDOG. The Warriors are not going to run the table till the end of the season folks. Where can their losses come if not here. And amazingly, Vegas says we don't even have to win with the spread.

Folks again, with few unmentionable extremes, that is as long as it gets to give a team tired legs.

That is the ideal when you are backing the home team here, regardless of who it is.

Has it taken it's toll on the Warriors? It has.

1. They got DESTROYED @ the Blazers by 22 after the AS break.

2. They gave up a massive 12 pt lead with a FORTY SECONDS left to the Clips to lose the cover in what might be the biggest moose of the season to win by only 3 after the Clips missed a half court heave to tie it. That makes the 3.5 we get here more valuable.

3. They battled tooth and nail with the Heat for 3 quarters and only pulled away from that ragged undermanned team in the 4th; a team that has Bosh who's play could have been affected by a bloodclot and a team that has a bench of Stoudamire! Haslem (he's still alive?)! Josh Richardson! and Tyler Johnson. Gerald GREEN is their best bench player.

4. They were trailing in the 3rd quarter to the lowly Magic (a team that was just beaten by a Knicks team that has lost everything under the sun as of late) only to bomb them late.

Don't let the Thunder be the ones with the lead in the 3rd against you. You'll be the one that gets bombed.

Now they get the Thunder and they get them....

But that game was a little quirky.

I think the Pelicans had a little extra in them that night because the previous match-up was the first game after the funeral for Monty Williams wife. He is the current assistant for the Thunder and they played all out, crushing the Pelicans by 26. Then the Thunder had the rematch in New Orleans just 4 games later in an away spot against a guy in Anthony Davis playing off-the-charts basketball.

So you can't fault them for that loss completely.

But I love that loss and I love the fact the Thunder have lost 3 of 4 coming in because it puts them in a bit of 'crisis mode' of 'Who can we beat?'. Well they can put ALL that to bed with a win here against the all-time great defending champs AND we get points.

So those are the very basic Capping 101 essentials to picking a team in this spot but we also have to talk about the spread.

The last game the Warriors closed as -7.5 pt favorites in Golden State.

There is a typical +6/-6 home road adjustment for NBA lines.

This line with a typical adjustment should be GS -1.5 as these two teams are not all that different in comparison to the last match-up.

Are the Thunder struggling losing 3 of 4? Again, losing to the Pelicans in a rematch in that spot and losing to the Cavs and even the Pacers is NOT a crises (but it's good the Thunder likely perceives it as such to play with more motivation).

You should go 2-1/1-2 against those three. They went 0-3.

So now in primetime on a Saturday night, they get a redemption game, a true identity revelation game against an all-time great team.

And we get points.

The Bucks beat the Warriors at the tail end of a 7-game road trip after 3 games in 5 nights that game.

And the Bucks are light years behind the Thunder.

In addition, just like this 7 game road trip, the Warriors struggled with their wins coming in beating the Raptors by 3, 112-109 in a hard fought game, beating the Pacers 131-123 in which the Pacers like the Clips started to come back very late after the Warriors gave up a huge lead, and they escaped with their lives in a double OT thriller over Boston 124-119.

The similarities are uncanny.

Now after all those similarities, the books did not give the Thunder less points than the typical adjustment for the rematch, they gave them TWO more.

Why? Because the public is pounding the Warriors as they always do and the books need insurance. Because we are betting with the books here folks.

Which means at 3.5, we win if it comes down to any game-winning shot. We also win if trailing by 6 and we backdoor a 3. We also win if the Thunder come out and show the world what this game means to them at this moment and wins outright.

Folks, all of the above is the equivalent of getting dealt pocket aces at a table of pros.

You won't always win, but if you fold, you'll never win. You have a golden opportunity right from the start and you can't throw it away.

I'm not folding tonight. These aces are getting played, even against the best of the best.

The pick:

Beautiful writeup, buddy. I was just on here to see if there was any banter about this game and I saw your post. Very well thought out and I would be with you here except for two things:

1) I stopped gambling :)

2) All the criticism by the old-timers and so old-timers this week, (Oscar Robertson being the biggest name, but also others) of the Warriors, and how Curry is not that good and the old teams would thump him and his team, would really really worry me if I was backing the Thunder:

@banging @notorious @Krimp

Appreciate it guys.

Bb, glad to hear you stopped and for me, not so glad! You made a point in the preseason to post that the Warriors will try to make a statement this year because many said beating the Cavs in the Finals was only due to health.... and they answered...with possibly the greatest season of all-time. I'd figure your winning percentage on them would be close to 80% had you been posting regularly and we all could have shared in it!

The 7th game is really the sixth? True. The first was before the All-Star Break. But psychologically that still must feel like it's been forever since a home game (and it has really). But a 6 game road trip is not signficiant lot different when finishing up with a team like this especially in a mini-revenge spot and as stated 'identity crises' game for OKC.

I remember you chastising LC for his Thunder love and how he possibly 'overpraised' them. They are who you say they are. I can't disagree they haven't changed. 

But that is why I brought up the Bucks. There are virtually no positives to the Bucks this season and they took the Warriors out. While they were running on fumes, they had high hopes of snapping the 33 game win streak of the Lakers and the Bucks of all teams stopped that. I'll take the Thunder over the Bucks on the end of a road trip any day. Still we could go back and forth on this point as both are valid.

I heard what Oscar said. Being psychological cappers, it is an issue. But because of the road trip, the third in, the Thunder coming in losing 3 of 4, the Warriors moosing everyone and anyone in that Clips game and now I get that tiny sliver of insurance with a 3.5 pt line, the books making what I see as a significant adjustment towards the Thunder, prime time on Saturday night at home and I don't even have to win...I will take all that to override dopey Oscar screwing with this pick.

All good points, Scal. Thunder have the talent to win this game with effort alone, and they'll be attacking like rabid dogs i'm sure. But it's when the adrenaline wears off that you have to worry. You gotta play 48 minutes of solid basketball against the Dubs to beat them (as Portland did). 

It's amazing how we cap these games, wait for the perfect opportunity and then a guy opens his big mouth (like Big O, or A, as in a-hole in this case) or someone posts something on twitter. I was just watching the 30for30 on the Bills SB losses and saw how the D-line coach for the Bills made fun of the Hogs (the Redskins O-line) before the SB, even making oinking sounds, and how that really fired up the redskins. Sideline footage after the game showed the Redskin's O-linemen calling out the Bills D-line coach and crediting him for getting them to play their best game against his team. The Bills then fired said coach. You can also see how all the talk by Rivers and company fired up the Warriors to have a historic run. If I were still betting, I'd do a four game open teaser for 9.5-10 points (depending on how much juice you are willing to lay, it's like -115 and -130) for about a grand, and wait for the Warriors to go for win #60, #70, #72 and #73 (if all goes according to form) depending on who they are playing of course, and what the circumstance is. Again, good luck tonight. 

That is why the web is so beautiful. And what a motivator that would be.

I will say psychological angles are beautiful but some fail in remarkable fashion. Never in my wildest dreams did I think the Pats would fall to the Giants in not one but TWO Super Bowls and this was after a large portion of the betting public was saying the wrong team was favored in the second super bowl (pats -3.5)!

Still they hit with consistency as well. How much impact O has on this game can't be tangibly measures but it's a nice that you injected it into my cap. I would comfortably say that the extra two points Vegas is gifting me covers that scenario although again, who can say what it's worth.

Good points on Barkley. He could have won so much more. I was watching him at Auburn on the SEC network. What a remarkable butterball of an athlete!

I made a lot of money last year taking +2.5 in game 7 with the Spurs over the Clips, a game that came down to the final shot. It was a game we knew would go down to the wire.

I see a similar scenario here and the Warriors MUST win by 4 for me to lose. That's significant.

@want- The Lionel Hollins lead Nets almost took them out in Golden State. A lot more of what is on the court and how hard they play matters beyond the coach.

@jrv - appreciate it man!

@tales - they proved more than enough that is, the best record of anyone in history through this many games. That's not on their mind tonight.

Already picked okc days ago