The Portland Trail Blazers are struggling, but a matchup against the 26-38 New Orleans Pelicans offers them their most favorable matchup of a brutal five-game road trip. [ad-4468020]<\/p>\n
Portland (42-23) @ New Orleans (26-38)<\/strong> ATS Matchup Insight<\/a> | CP Insider Gambling Preview<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n For the first time all year, the Portland Trail Blazers have lost four games in a row. That\u2019s a huge testament to how dominant they were early in the year, but it\u2019s also a huge red flag with the playoffs right around the corner.<\/p>\n At this point, the Blazers have gone from fighting for a top-three seed to needing every win to retain any sort of home-court advantage.<\/p>\n To make matters worse, LaMarcus Aldridge is out for two games and Mo Williams is out for two weeks, leaving doubt in some people\u2019s minds as to whether or not this team will even make the postseason.<\/p>\n Simply put: The chances of this group falling out of the top eight are slim. However, there\u2019s a very real chance that it could get jumped in the standings by the Golden State Warriors, and even the Dallas Mavericks and Memphis Grizzlies if it\u2019s not careful.<\/p>\n It\u2019s do-or-die time for Rip City, meaning the Blazers must win every winnable game moving forward, including this one Friday night against the Pelicans. If the New Orleans Pelicans are smart, they\u2019ll swarm Damian Lillard from start to finish.<\/p>\n When LaMarcus Aldridge missed time following the All-Star Break, the point guard picked up his game to a season-high level and completely took over the offense. With Aldridge out again, he\u2019ll look to do the same, making him priority No. 1 for the New Orleans defense.<\/p>\n On offense, look for Anthony Davis to work his magic. Although the big man is clearly known for his defense at this point in his career\u2014he\u2019s averaging a league-best 2.93 blocks per night\u2014he\u2019s becoming a sound offensive player as well.<\/p>\n He\u2019s averaging 20.8 points on 52.3 percent shooting\u2014not to mention 10.2 rebounds with a PER of 26.62\u2014and he should be able to take full advantage of whomever Portland chooses to fill Aldridge\u2019s spot, whether that be Thomas Robinson or Dorell Wright.<\/p>\n The good news for New Orleans is that it has Portland at its lowest point of the season. The bad news is that the Blazers are now desperate, and their first players-only meeting of the year may have been what they needed to turn things around.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t expect this to be an easy win for Portland, but don\u2019t be shocked if the road team comes away with a much-needed victory.<\/p>\n Prediction: Portland 99 \u2013 New Orleans 97<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trail Blazers vs Pelicans NBA Betting Odds The Portland Trail Blazers are struggling, but a matchup against the 26-38 New Orleans Pelicans offers them their most favorable matchup of a brutal five-game road trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":72208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3904,61076,61056,8911,30501,61326,4754,50143,61327],"class_list":["post-73532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-pelicans","tag-portland","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portland-trail-blazers-vs-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-portland-vs-new-orleans","tag-trail-blazers","tag-trail-blazers-vs-pelicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/68"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73532"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73536,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73532\/revisions\/73536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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