Portland Trail Blazers – Los Angeles Clippers Prediction & Odds
Game Details
- Portland Trail Blazers @ Los Angeles Clippers
- NBA regular season
- Date: 09/11/2021
- Start time: 10:00 PM ET
- STAPLES Center, Los Angeles
The third time’s the charm
A three-game Tuesday regular season NBA slate is headlined by this interesting matchup of two Western Conference contenders, the 5-5 Portland Trail Blazers and the 5-4 Los Angeles Clippers.
Despite us only being a few weeks into the season, these two squads have already met twice, with each of them winning one game. Let’s look into these first two games between the two and see what we find!
In the first matchup between these two games, the Blazers closed as 2.5-point underdogs on the betting line in Los Angeles. Portland had their worst shooting game of the season resulting in Lillard & Co. only hitting 22% of their shots from three-point range. Clippers came away with a commanding victory 116-86.
The second game was played in Portland and the market was showing the Blazers a lot of love, likely due to the first loss of Portland being bit of a fluky one (this is a team that is normally shooting the ball very well). We’ve seen a correction towards Portland, who closed as 3.5 to 4-point favorites on the betting line before tip-off. The Blazers proceeded to win 111-92 behind 25 points from Damian Lillard and 14-14 points from CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic.
Based on the market move between the two games and the result of the second game between these ball clubs, we would expect this spread to start moving towards Portland and eventually closing around 2-points.
Offense wins games
Contrary to the popular saying, we know that it isn’t defense but the offense is what winning games, and the Blazers have a lot of efficient offense. Portland is putting up the 5th-most points per possession in the league while holding the 4th highest effective field goal percentage as a team.
It is important to note that the Blazers also take good care of the ball with the 6th-lowest turnover rate in the league. The road team will also have a commanding advantage on the boards with Portland grading 12th in offensive- and 1st in defensive rebounding in the entire league (the Clippers are 28th and 25th).
The Clippers have huge problems on the offensive end of the ball. LA only puts up 106 points per 100 possessions (10th worst in the league), and LA is also outside of the top 15 in all the major offensive metrics our model is tracking.
Health & rest also help the road team
Besides the strong matchup for Portland, we have to mention that the Blazers will be playing this game on extra rest and that Portland has no players on their injured list. The home team LA Clippers are only playing on one day of rest and they will be without their starting power forward in Marcus Morris, who is dealing with a knee injury.
Pick: Portland Trail Blazers +3 -110 (1.91x) Bet365
This is a pretty easy pick to make. Portland has faced a tougher schedule in the early going and they are the team that our model grades as the better basketball team. With no injuries, a big rest advantage we are forced to take the points with the road team. Home court advantage is generally around 1-point in the NBA nowadays and there is no way, that the Clippers are a full 2-points better team than the Portland Trail Blazers.
Note: We would play Portland at +2.5 -110 (1.91x) or better and pass on the game if the spread moves to 2.
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