As long as they’re not playing the Bulls, the Cleveland Cavaliers are the best team in the NBA—or at least in the Eastern Conference. They’ll matchup against an underperforming Portland Trail Blazers team that despite a loaded backcourt have not been able to find their groove, particularly on defense. Cleveland beat the Blazers and the spread in their last meeting and will look to do so again despite this game being played out on the West Coast.
At 10:30 p.m. ET, tune into ESPN for live television coverage of this NBA basketball game on Wednesday, January 11, 2017, at the Moda Center.
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Odds Analysis
The Cavaliers have only lost eight games all seasons and have beaten the best of the best including Golden State and Houston.
They’ve won 10 of their last 12 games, but haven’t been quite as dominant ATS in the last couple weeks. Cleveland has failed to cover the spread now in four straight games heading into Monday and are just 1-5-1 ATS in their last seven.
The Trail Blazers, meanwhile, have started to show signs of playing better basketball recently. They’re still just 3-3 SU in their last six games, but have covered the spread in five of their last seven.
Key Stats
The Trail Blazers find themselves hanging onto the eighth spot in the Western Conference despite sitting well below-.500 more as a result of a very top heavy conference than anything else.
This team has plenty of talent C.J. McCollum and Damian Lillard are two elite level guards. Lillard leads the team with 26.6 PPG while McCollum is contributing 23.6 PPG. There’s no wonder this team is ranked fifth in the NBA in scoring, but despite that they’re still a below-average squad due to a particularly terrible defense.
Portland ranks No. 28 in the NBA in points allowed per game and is in the bottom third in field goal percentage against. They also come out on the losing end of the rebounding game quite frequently as their best talent plays in the back court and they’re a bit light inside the paint.
While this is all quite telling, perhaps the most telling stat to this matchup is defensive efficiency in which the Trail Blazers are dead last in all of the NBA. That certainly puts Portland at a distinct disadvantage against a very strong Cleveland defense and an offense that’s averaging 110.2 PPG. Kevin Love and LeBron James should dominant inside as they did in the first meeting between these two teams, combining for 71-points.
Player to Watch
Lillard and McCollum are offense superstars on this Portland team, but both have defensive deficiencies which the team’s been unable to make up from in the other positions on the court.
You can count on the duo to have nice games offensively on Wednesday night and, likewise, we can be confident that Kyrie Irving will be able to score plenty with neither Lillard, McCollum nor even Evan Turner offering much of anything defensively. In addition, we’ve already seen Love and James dominant this Portland defense inside the paint.
The one thing that is different now than in November when the Cavs ran up the score in a high scoring 137-125 victory is forward Al-Farouq Aminu. The small forward certainly doesn’t have a height advantage over the Cleveland big men, but he’s arguably Portland’s best overall defender. Aminu has missed much of the early part of the season with injury leading in part to the Blazer’s miserable defensive metrics. When he’s been on the court, this defense has been far closer to average, though is still troublesome.
Given the fact that we can expect both of these two teams to score early and often, particularly given the shoot out the last time they met up, a slightly more efficient defense for the Blazers could be enough to at least keep Cleveland down enough to allow the still very strong Portland offense to keep the Blazers in the game.
Free NBA ATS Picks
Look for plenty of points with the over likely the best bet in this game. Look for the Cavaliers to get the win again. They’re clearly the better team as the Blazers cannot stack up in the front court and cannot provide enough defense on the outside to slow Irving.
The last time these two teams met, the difference was 12-points. This time, the game is in Portland and the Trail Blazers will be at least mildly better defensively with Aminu on the court. Given that, this could be a reasonably close game.
If the odds makers get too bullish on the Cavs, take the Blazers to cover, but if the spread is minimal, back Cleveland.
NBA Odds: Cavaliers 117, Trail Blazers 111
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