The Trail Blazers just finished beating down the Washington Wizards 108-98 on MLK Day thanks to fantastic rebounding performances from Mason Plumlee and Noah Vonleh. The Hawks matched that performance later in the day by easily handling the Orlando Magic 98-81.
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TRAVEL
Both teams will have the night off prior to this one as both travel to Portland from the East Coast. Portland is glad to be back home after finishing up three road games in four days on an East Coast jaunt against the least of the East where they went 2-1 with wins against Washington and Brooklyn but were crushed in the sandwich game by the 76ers.
The travel is far more foreboding for the Hawks as their trip to Portland is the first of a West Coast swing that will see them play four games in six days. By the end of the trip they will have played eight games in a 13 day span and will have some tired legs as a result.
KEY MATCHUP
When these two teams met up a month ago, Portland was missing its superstar Damian Lillard due to a heel injury. To make matters worse for the Trail Blazers, they also decided to sit their other starting guard, C.J. McCollum, and ended up playing reserve Tim Frazier for all but 25 seconds.
Against the reserves the Hawks guards feasted, and none more than Denis Schroeder. Schroeder hit 70 percent of his shots from the floor and led the Hawks in scoring with 18 in what turned out to be an easy Atlanta victory, 106-97. This time around, Portland will have Lillard and McCollum at their disposal to shut down the Hawks guards.
That duo combined for 41 of the Trail Blazers' 108 in the win against the Wizards on Monday and Portland's offense runs through them.
Atlanta will look to take advantage of Portland's youth and inexperience in the frontcourt.
Portland's Mason Plumlee and Noah Vonleh have been better than expected but are still young and the other starter up front for the Trail Blazers is journeyman Al-Farouq Aminu. In contrast to that, the Hawks have one of the better and more experienced frontcourt combinations in the league in Paul Millsap and Al Horford. Both bigs have Player Efficiency Ratings north of 20 per the most recent Hollinger Stats and combine for 33.9 PPG and 15.6 RPG.
They dominated Orlando on Monday and if they can do the same on Wednesday night, the Blazers are in trouble.
LIVE BETTING SCENARIO
Since the last time these two met, Portland was without its starting backcourt, so it's hard to put too much stock in the Hawks win as a blueprint for how this one will play out.
Portland has been hot with Lillard back in going 4-1 SU and ATS including upset wins over the Wizards and the Thunder. The under has been better of late as well with three of their last four going under the number.
Atlanta has held its last two opponents under 90 points en route to easy under cashes, but the best indication for who to back on a total would be to look at the shooting of Kyle Korver early on. The Hawks would love to get Korver going and if he is able to sink his shots, their offense is able to open up and run a lot smoother. If he starts out cold though, the Hawks will look to slow the game down and repeatedly go inside to Millsap and Horford.
The numbers play this out; over the Hawks' last five the formula has been simple. If Korver scores double digits the game goes over, but if he can't find his rhythm and is held to under 10 the game falls short of the total.
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