There is no shortage of late evening NBA basketball this mid-November Wednesday.
The Blazers are a 3 point favorites on the NBA odds boards against the Raptors in Rip City, the Lakers are at home against the Golden State Warriors and are likely to be sizable favorites as well.
10 PM Eastern | Toronto Raptors Versus Portland Trail Blazers -3.0
The Portland Trail Blazers might be a little tired coming into this one. They played last night down in Sacramento before traveling back up to Portland to face the Raptors in the Moda Center.
The early lines opened with the Blazers listed as three-point favorites, but the public seems to be on the Toronto Raptors to cover that +3 number, at least as far as Tuesday evening is concerned. This is probably because the Raps have gotten the better of the Blazers in seven of the last ten meetings. And of those seven, two of the last three.
But let’s look at the stats comparison for so far this year, even if it isn’t a huge sample size.
The Raptors play decent ball offensively, putting up over 112 points per game on average, but that number takes are hard hit when they hit the road. It falls a hair more than five points down to 107 per game. Meanwhile, Portland is known for being a tough team to beat at home. Their 114.1 points per game improve to 116.75, placing them in the Top-10 home offenses in the league (No. 8).
Here lies the problem. Along with the Portland’s scoring getting better at home, their already butter-soft defense of 114.6 points allowed per game, also move up to a hair over 117 points per game. When we consider the Raptors stout road defense that is only allowing 102.83 points per game, the point differential becomes clear, and you might start to wonder why the Portland Trail Blazers are favored at all especially on a back to back after a road game. Perhaps it’s the 124 points they put up against the Hawks in their OT Moda Center win on Sunday?
Even with OG out for the Raptors, this is going to be a tough game for the Blazers to win. The Raps are going to get a day of rest between their matchup with the Clips and the Blazers are going to be playing on a back to back. They might win, but just barely, I would take the Raptors to cover the 3 point spread.
10 PM Eastern | Golden State Warriors Versus Los Angeles Lakers
The Golden State Warriors are reeling and getting Draymond Green back didn’t seem to help them against the Utah Jazz the other night. For the Lakers, they headed into Tuesday nights affair with the Suns with a 7-2 record and 6-3 against the point spread.
The Warriors are still capable of scoring but it’s like a role reversal of the previous years before it was the Lakers who could score at will but zero defensive presence. Now the Lakers have the No. 20 overall offense, but the No. 1 defense in the league.
It’s expected the Lakers to hold the Warriors to less than 100 points on Wednesday night and for the Lakers to go above their averages and put up over 110. This could very well end up being a double-digit stomping. No Curry, No Thompson, KD is gone and Shaun Livingston is no longer anchoring the GSW bench. The Warriors have no defensive identity. It might get a little better now that Dray is back. But in his 22 minutes against the Jazz, he only put up 4 points and 4 assists along with 7 rebounds that’s not enough to make a difference.
Take the Lakers to smash the Warriors.
