NBA Betting – Portland Trail Blazers at Golden State Warriors
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Portland Trail Blazers at Golden State Warriors (-10, 210 o/u)
The Golden State Warriors (63-15, 35-2 Home) have already clinched the best record in the Western Conference. Tonight, they will try to sweep the season series against the Portland Trail Blazers (51-27, 19-19 Away) when they meet at ORACLE Arena in Oakland (10:30 PM Eastern).
Golden State has downed the Blazers 95-90 and 122-108 already this season, covering the spread both times.
“Golden State is a terrific team,” Blazers coach Terry Stotts said after their last loss against the Warriors. “They’re solid on both ends of the court, and they showed that. They were very good all night. They passed the ball well — they had 30 assists after three-quarters and 37 for the game. They kind of put on a clinic as far as how to share the ball.”
The Warriors will be happy to be back at home tonight; the team has lost its last two outings on the road to the Spurs (107-92) and Pelicans (103-100); it was the first time the team has lost back to back games since January 30. (They haven’t lost three games in a row all season.)
“In the second half, we weren’t ready for their desperation,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said about the defeat against the Pelicans. “The first five minutes of the third quarter is when we lost the game.”
Tonight’s game will be the first of four straight at home to close the year for the Warriors, who have lost just twice at ORACLE this season.
Portland, meanwhile, beat the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night (116-91), led by 24 points and 13 rebounds from LaMarcus Aldridge. They have won three of their last four and are have clinched home-court in the first round of the playoffs by claiming the Northwest Division title. The team can still improve its seeding, though, sitting just two games back of second-place Houston.
Given the Warriors’ general dominance at home on the year and the way they’ve handled Portland, consider Golden State laying the points (-10).
(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) “Stephen Curry” [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/]. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
