It took seven games, but the San Antonio Spurs made it past the Dallas Mavericks in Round 1 of the 2014 NBA playoffs, and now they have a date with the Portland Trail Blazers \u2013 the team who knocked off the Houston Rockets in six games.[ad-4468020]<\/p>\n
No. 5 Portland @ No. 1 San Antonio<\/strong>
\n Tuesday, May 6 9:30 PM ET (TNT)<\/strong>
\n AT&T Center<\/strong>
\n Spread: Spurs -6.5<\/strong>
\n Total: 205.5<\/strong>
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Portland<\/h3>\n
The Portland Trail Blazers sure know how to make things exciting.<\/p>\n
Not only did they average better than 111 points per game in the six-game series against the Houston Rockets, but they ended the series in walk-off fashion with a three-pointer from Damian Lillard \u2013 the point guard who is currently proving his status as an elite player in his first-ever playoff series.<\/p>\n
The question for Portland is this: Will it be able to handle San Antonio\u2019s defense. We all saw what it did against the Rockets, but Houston and San Antonio are very different ball clubs.<\/p>\n
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The Rockets are one of the worst perimeter defending teams in the Association, while San Antonio has been known for years as one of the best in the business on that end of the floor.<\/p>\n
All that said, Portland averaged 111 points per game against the Spurs in the regular season.<\/p>\n
What happens before the playoffs is far different from what happens this time of year, but it\u2019s still an indicator of what could happen if all the stars align for Portland.
\n[ad-6571516]<\/p>\nSan Antonio<\/h3>\n
Much will be spoken about San Antonio\u2019s defense versus Portland\u2019s offense in this one, but it\u2019s important to note that the Spurs aren\u2019t scrubs with the ball.<\/p>\n
The team averaged 105.4 points per game in the regular season, which was good enough for sixth in the NBA.<\/p>\n
The good news for San Antonio is that the Blazers are a subpar defensive unit at best. Despite winning the Round 1 series, Portland gave up more points than it scored to the Houston Rockets.<\/p>\n
The Spurs will look to play quickly, as to not allow Portland\u2019s defense time to set up, and Tony Parker in particular will look to have a field day against Lillard.<\/p>\n
Defensively, the Spurs will look to stop Lillard and LaMarcus Aldridge, but as we saw in Round 1, those tasks are easier said than done \u2013 if they can be done at all. The bigger issue will be stopping the role players.<\/p>\n
Nicolas Batum is inconsistent on offense, but capable of hitting from anywhere on the floor.<\/p>\n
What could be problematic is Wesley Matthews\u2019 ability in the post, as we saw what he could do in that sense against James Harden.<\/p>\n
Both teams will be presented with challenges, but San Antonio has two things going for it: home-court advantage and fewer mistakes.<\/p>\n
The Spurs don\u2019t rely on the three-point shot as heavily as the Blazers, meaning if they can contain Portland to a reasonable extent, it will come away with a win in Round 1.<\/p>\n
Prediction: San Antonio 107 \u2013 Portland 98<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Portland vs San Antonio Odds It took seven games, but the San Antonio Spurs made it past the Dallas Mavericks in Round 1 of the 2014 NBA playoffs, and now they have a date with the Portland Trail Blazers \u2013 the team who knocked off the Houston Rockets in six games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":68,"featured_media":74828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[61817,3779,49837,30501,11103,40827,4027,11097,1983],"class_list":["post-76699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-bet-nba-odds","tag-game-1","tag-nba-gambling-picks","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-portland-trail-blazers-vs-san-antonio-spurs","tag-portland-vs-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-trail-blazers-vs-spurs","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76699","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=76699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76702,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76699\/revisions\/76702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}