In a battle of opposites, the defensively-led Dallas Mavericks will journey north on Friday night to take on the Portland Trail Blazers’ strong offensive club led by the play on the outside. These two teams have already met a couple times this season, splitting their results so each will look to take a leg up in the season series on Friday.
At 10:30 p.m. ET, tune into ESPN for live television coverage of this NBA basketball game on Friday, February 3, 2017, at the Moda Center.
We'll have NBA odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NBA Friday schedule.
Odds Analysis
The Mavericks are 18-30 overall, but are 7-3 in their last 10 games as the Dallas offense is starting to mesh a bit better in support of a rather strong defense.
Along with their recent success straight up, the Mavs have been producing well ATS for a pretty long time now, going 8-2 ATS in their last 10 games and 13-7 ATS in their last 20 games.
On the home bench, Portland just had a three game winning streak snapped as they currently sit on the outside by a half game, looking into the playoff picture. The Blazers are 3-1 ATS in their last four games, but are just 3-5 ATS in their last eight.
On the season, the Trail Blazers are 21-28 ATS and while they’re better at covering the spread at home, they’re still a game under-.500 there at 11-12.
Last Meeting
This will be the third meeting this season between these two franchises with the road team winning each of the first two games.
The most recent contest came a little over a month ago as the Blazers once again hosted the Mavs, falling by a point, 96-95.
In the game, Portland outshot Dallas from the floor and beat them in both fast break points and points in the paint. That, however, didn’t matter as the Mavericks got out to a massive first half lead and were able to just barely hold on.
The main difference in the game was Dallas’ ability to shoot from the free-throw line, sinking 82.6-percent of its shots. Also, in total, the Mavs were able to create more opportunities from themselves getting off 11 more shots from the floor.
Now, in the first matchup between these teams, things went a bit different. Portland once again had a better shooting percentage from the floor and won on the fast break points, but in that game Damian Lillard went off, shooting 12-for-18—including going 5-for-6 from the outside—for 42 total points.
Player to Watch
Right before our eyes we’ve seen the growth and maturity of the other Curry brother: Seth.
Seth Curry doesn’t have the pedigree out of college that his brother—or his dad—had. Instead, he’s had to grind his whole career. After not even getting drafted and bouncing around the NBA and D-League, the now starting guard for the Mavs has had a big part in Dallas’s recent run of success over the last 10 games.
It’s easy to look at Dallas’s record and count them out, particularly on the road against a good offensive club like Portland. The Mavericks are the worst team in the NBA on offense, scoring just 97.1 PPG and while the Blazers’ defense is poor, they’re offense should be good enough to allow them to win what could turn into a higher scoring game.
Of course, now the Mavericks have averaged 106.4 PPG in their last five games, winning four of them.
Curry’s played a significant part of that. He’s averaging 11.3 PPG this season, easily the highest of his career, but he’s averaging 16.6 over his last eight games. He posted a double-double with 24 points and 10 rebounds as recently as Sunday against a strong defensive Spurs team in San Antonio.
If Curry can continue his hot hand, that gives the Mavs a nice counter to the Lillard and C.J. McCollum tandem for the Blazers.
Free NBA ATS Picks
So, we have an offensive powerhouse led by Lillard and McCollum against a defensive-first Mavericks team that’s been sparked by Curry’s recent play, but are still led by the aging Dirk Nowitzki.
Andrew Bogut may also be back to help deepen this team inside the paint where they’ve got an advantage over Portland.
In the end, the Blazers are the home team and have the better record, but this is a different Mavs team than the one we saw earlier in the year. Their offense is putting it together on the fly against some pretty good defensive teams at that. Besides, we’ve already seen Dallas beat the Blazers at the Moda Center this year.
This could be a close game and the Blazers are just 2-8 in games decided by five points or fewer since December 7.
NBA Odds: Mavericks 106, Trail Blazers 101
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