The stacking percentages Forecast, the best I make for the NBA, has OKC winning with 124 points to Utah's 117 or 118 points.
The non-predictive public gauge has OKC winning 122-117.
I make a range of Forecasts and none of them give OKC the outright win and all are close to the 3 to 6 point OKC victory.
Most forecasts are also consistent with stacking Percentages forecast and gauge when it comes to the TOTAL and predicting an UNDER against the TOTAL with a half point discrepency.
The BMR model has OKC winning 123-121, and is close to the TOTAL.
Lines can be wrong but there is a lot of evidence here to explain the current line.
Despite the Forecasts and what they represent my sources tell me that Utah is getting more action on this game on both spread and the moneyline in what is a higher volume game relative the rest of the NBA board. That report of action and volume is still being corroborated and I have confidence in the relative volume report, but am still gaining that confidence in the side report so the report is subject to change.
The public may be on Utah, but this is my answer to why the line is what it is.
But at this point, there have been some injury reports and the game is circled.
I expect the TOTAL to drop off of the 245 and 244.5 and go a little lower.
I have evidence of earlier sharper trades made in the market, mostly out of New Jersey in an RLM style on OKC, consistent with the Forecast and with public being on Utah. These were sharper buyers at -3, earlier.
I do not carry an opinion on the movement of the spread with the injury news, yet. I am still gathering information.