The Portland Trail Blazers managed to salvage a win on the final game of a four game road trip, snapping a four game skid prior to returning home on Wednesday to host a Los Angeles Lakers team who the Trail Blazers have found a great deal of success against in their previous two meetings. Both the Blazers and the Lakers have had more than their share of struggles this season overall, yet Portland still finds itself within shouting distance of a playoff berth.
At 10:30 p.m. ET, tune into ESPN for live television coverage of this NBA basketball game on Wednesday, January 25, 2017, at the Moda Center.
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Odds Analysis
The Lakers are just a bad team. They’ve got promise. They’ve got youth thanks to a number of great draft picks brought on by a number of bad years, but they’ve yet to put it together.
Los Angeles finds itself entering the matchup with Portland in a very familiar position: in the mists of another poor spell; this time losing six of its last seven games. During those seven games, the team’s covered the spread just once as well.
Interestingly, that streak started with a terrible loss to this same Portland team. Of course, save for that win against Los Angeles, Portland’s had its own recent struggles.
The Trail Blazers are a reasonably strong offensive team thanks to a duo of offensive-minded guards in Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, but defense has been a major downfall, which helped lead to four straight losses before capturing a 127-123 overtime win in Boston on Saturday night.
Still, the Blazers are 9-11 ATS at home and just 19-27 ATS overall while the Lakers are 9-15 ATS on the road; something has got to give.
Revenge Angle
Neither the Trail Blazers nor the Lakers are good teams. Sure, Portland is just outside of the playoff picture in the Western Conference, but that’s more telling of the drop off after the first seven teams than anything else. Los Angeles is last in the conference and Portland is just four games better right now.
Despite the relatively close record, the Blazers went into the Staples Center a couple weeks ago and destroyed the Lakers 108-87, easily covering the spread by 18.5-points.
The Lakers are used to losing big, but save a 40-points loss to San Antonio on the road two days later, the loss to Portland was the biggest for the Lakers since much earlier in the season.
In that game, the Lakers couldn’t find the basket, shooting just 38.6-percent from the floor and barely over fifty-percent from the free-throw line. The Blazers, meanwhile, didn’t have the same issue. They shot 50.6-percent on field goals as McCollum shot 10-for-18 and led the game with 25 points. Lillard added 20 while the Lakers’ scoring leader as Luol Deng with 14 despite playing a terrible Portland defense.
Just five days before, these teams met in a much closer game with Portland winning at home, but just by nine points that time. In that game, the Los Angeles offense did a bit better, though still only shot 41.9 from the floor. Still, they scored 109 points. Even so, they still didn’t have any answers for Lillard or McCollum on defense with the two combining for 48 points while Evan Turner added 20 more from the guard position.
Injury Report
One of the big differences between the Trail Blazers’ blowout win over the Lakers and the much closer affair a few days earlier was the play of D’Angelo Russell. In the terrible loss he scored nine points while he put up 22 in the closer affair.
The talented, but inconsistent, young guard won’t even be on the court on Wednesday as he’s dealing with a sprain of his right MCL and a calf strain.
With Russell out, it opens up more playing time for a number of players including Brandon Ingram who was the team’s top pick and has started to show flashes. He’s a big part of this team’s future, but in getting the start against Dallas on Sunday, he scored just six points without an assist and with just one rebound in more than 36 minutes of play.
Free NBA ATS Picks
The Blazers are the more dependable team and the talent level is far better despite the minimal gap in records.
While Portland can struggle on the defensive end of the court, you can count on McCollum and Lillard to do their thing on offense to at least keep the game close. Given the Lakers’ inferior offense and defensive woes of their own, there’s little reason to expect anything other than what we saw in the previous two meetings against these two teams.
Look for plenty of inconsistency from the Lakers throughout the game as Julius Randle, Ingram and the gang will occasionally put together good stretches, but in the end, McCollum and Lillard lead the teams in scoring and Portland is triumphant at home in a shootout.
NBA Odds: Trail Blazers 115, Lakers 105
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