NBA Odds – Cleveland Cavaliers at Portland Trail Blazers

Cleveland Cavaliers at Portland Trail Blazers (+2, 202.5 o/u)

Tonight, Lebron James and the 1-1 Cleveland Cavaliers visit the Moda Center in Portland to take on the 1-2 Trail Blazers (10:00 p.m. Eastern).

The Cavaliers haven’t played since Friday when they beat possibly their biggest challenger in the Eastern Conference, the Chicago Bulls. The Cavs pulled out a 114-108 victory in overtime at the United Center.

After a disappointing return to Cleveland against the Knicks, James looked like his old self against Chicago. LeBron had 36 points and four assist against the Bulls, while Kevin Love added 16 points and 16 rebounds.

One of the big issues for Cleveland in the early part of the season is their shooting from outside the paint. Against Chicago, they won despite shooting 2-of-20 outside the paint in the 2nd half and overtime, including 0-of-8 from three-point range. James and Irving bear the brunt of the blame for those stats, but both have proven themselves to be reliable outside shooters over the years, and should bounce back.

After beating the Thunder in their season opener (106-89), the Blazers have dropped their last two, losing to the Kings in Sacramento (103-94) and at home against the Golden State Warriors (95-90).  The Blazers have been having trouble containing their opponents’ go-to players, so far. Against the Kings, Rudy Gay dropped 40 points on Portland and, against the Warriors, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry combined for 50.

The job doesn’t get any easier tonight with the Big-3 coming to town.

The Cavaliers are currently two-point favorites away from home, and the over/under is at 202.5. While six of the last seven games in the series have gone Portland’s way, those were all non-LeBron games. As we’ve said before, you can throw recent Cleveland trends out the window this year.

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (Flickr) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)