NBA Betting Odds: Los Angeles Clippers at Portland Trailblazers

Added on Jan 19, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

The final game on the NBA basketball betting slate for Thursday is a Western Conference game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Portland Trailblazers. The Clippers have been playing well lately, while Portland is trying to hold on to the final playoff spot in the West despite a devastating spate of injuries.

Los Angeles Clippers at Portland Trailblazers
January 20, 2011 7:35 PM Pacific

The Portland Trailblazers deserve a ton of credit–the team injury report has looked like “Saving Private Ryan” this season and it keeps getting worse. Greg Oden has already been lost for the season, free agent center Fabricio Oberto retired suddenly after being diagnosed with a structural defect in his heart, Brandon Roy has been hobbled by his knees all year and is now out indefinitely. The latest blow is a knee injury to defensive stalwart and all around character guy Marcus Camby, who is recovering from arthroscopic surgery. Despite a run of bad luck that would have had most teams packing it in for the season, the Blazers show up and fight every night. LaMarcus Aldridge has been called upon to pick up much of the offensive slack caused by Roy’s absence, and he’s responded with an All Star level campaign. Andre Miller continues to play with consummate professionalism despite persistant trade rumors and any number of lesser known players keep stepping up–guys like Wesley Matthews and Nicolas Batum.

At some point, however, a team can’t get buy on guts alone and this might be a spot for the Clippers to steal a road win in the Rose City. Blazers have dominated in head to head play at the Rose Garden–really dating back to when the team played at Memorial Coliseum. Since 1996, the Blazers are 22-5 SU at home though the ATS series is a 13-13 split. It’s no secret that the Clippers are the worst managed team in the NBA so whether they’ll be able to keep their nucleus together remains to be seen, but for now they’ve got an impressive array of young talent led by presumptive rookie of the year Blake Griffin who may be exceeding his lofty expectations. Los Angeles enters this contest on a 10-5 SU/9-6 ATS run. Blazers have won 10 of their last 16 which is downright heroic given their injury situation.

We fully expect Portland to show up and compete here–that’s just the way this team is built. As a Portland resident and Blazers’ ‘homer’ its hard not to appreciate the character of this current group of players after suffering through the infamous ‘JailBlazer’ years. Both teams played last night, but we look for the Clips to respond better to the situation given the youth of the team and how thinly spread the Portland roster is at the moment. To successfully bet on sports, you need to pick your spots and this sure looks like a spot for a Clippers win.

Bet Los Angeles Clippers +3′ over Portland Trailblazers