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The Utah Jazz’s playoff positioning is more or less determined. They’ll be locking horns with the Clippers. All that remains to be decided is which team will hold home court advantage. The Portland Trail Blazers currently hold a two-game lead over the Denver Nuggets for the eighth and final seed in the West. Should they qualify, they’ll get the Dubs. This Tuesday night tilt is incredibly important for both squads.
At 9 p.m. ET, tune into NBA TV for live television coverage of this NBA basketball game on Tuesday, April 4, 2017, at Vivint Smart Home Arena. We'll have NBA odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the NBA Tuesday schedule.
Odds Analysis
The Blazers have flirted with playoff contention all season. They now find themselves on the right side of the cut line after rattling off six straight wins and nine in their last 10 after taking Phoenix down 130-117 on Saturday. More importantly, they covered nine of those 10 games and will invade Salt Lake City one of the hottest road teams going after covering six of their last seven.
The Jazz will enter this tilt off dropping a tough one in San Antonio where they fell 109-103 to come up just short of covering the closing 5.5 point spread. The ATS defeat snapped their three-game cover streak after taking a trio from Washington, Sacramento and New Orleans. Most depressing about the loss was that LaMarcus Aldridge and Patty Mills weren’t in uniform for the Spurs.
Scheduling Situation
Every game counts for Portland moving forward with only six remaining on the regular season docket and it trying to fend off Denver. Unfortunately, Terry Stotts’ squad will be at a major disadvantage heading into this one with the game being the third to be played over a four-day stretch. They’ll be in Minnesota on Monday night and will then have to hop on a plane to face a Utah team that will have had 24 hours rest to turn the page on the tough loss to San Antonio. The Blazers have gone 8-6 straight up and against the spread unrested to date outscoring the opposition by nearly 2.0 points per game.
Season Rivalry
These teams have split their pair of meetings this season with the Blazers scoring the 113-104 win and cover as 6 point favorites in their season opener back on October 25. Utah evened the score in a big way in the middle of February when it pounded Portland 111-88 as 8.5 point favorites. Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum went HAM in the first meeting to lead the Blazers to the win, but the lone constant in both contests was the Jazz dominating the paint. In the two meetings combined, Utah outscored the Blazers 108-66. That’s a huge area of concern for Portland entering this tilt unrested.
Free NBA ATS Picks
Utah is going to win the Northwest Division this season due in large part to it being able to protect its home court. Gordon Hayward and company have won 26 of their 38 played games in front of the hometown faithful. Though they only stand 18-18-2 against the spread in those contests, they hold too many advantages leading up to this game that makes it tough to want to back Portland as hot as they are. The Blazers will have to contend with the league’s best scoring defense on no rest, and they’ve been embarrassed in each of their last two visits to SLC losing by an average of 18 points per game. Lillard and McCollum were limited to a total of 31 points the last time these teams met up in this venue. Should that occur once again, Portland won’t have a shot.
NBA Odds: Utah 112 – Portland 95
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