{"id":10242,"date":"2010-11-04T11:00:21","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T16:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=10242"},"modified":"2010-11-04T10:43:47","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T15:43:47","slug":"oklahoma-city-thunder-at-portland-trail-blazers-betting-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/oklahoma-city-thunder-at-portland-trail-blazers-betting-predictions-10242\/","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers Betting Predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers
\nThursday, 11\/4\/10, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 191.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 193<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy leads the team in scoring and will host 2009-10 NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant tonight <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Oklahoma City has dropped two straight games after falling to the Los Angeles Clippers,\u00a0 107-92, at the Staples Center on Wednesday night.\u00a0 The Thunder struggled to shooting just 39.3 percent form the field and star forward Kevin Durant was even worse in connecting on 6 of 24 shots.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m the leader of this team,\u201d Durant commented.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure this out. Two games in a row, teams just did whatever they want to us.\u201d\u00a0 The club better step up its play with the schedule getting more difficult in the next couple weeks, as the team will be playing seven of eight against playoff-caliber teams.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to worry about ourselves,\u201d the All-Star forward stated.\u00a0 \u201cThat Utah game, our energy wasn\u2019t there at all.\u201d\u00a0 The team is 1-3 ATS this season and 96-76 ATS against the number the last three years.\u00a0 The NBA odds page has them getting five points on the road.<\/p>\n

The Thunder finishes off its first back-to-back of the season tonight after posting a 9-9 record on the first night and 8-10 mark on the following night in 2009-10.\u00a0 Durant will have to carry the offense tonight and has averaged 30.7 points in his last three games against the Blazers.\u00a0 Oklahoma City managed just one victory in last season\u2019s series, a 89-77 win at the Rose Garden over a Portland team playing without Roy.\u00a0 They were also fortunate to play the Blazers without Roy in a April 12 rematch, but was handed a 103-95 defeat.\u00a0 Playing away from home wasn\u2019t a difficult task for this team during last year, posting a 23-18 record, which exceeded the combined road win total for the prior two seasons (15).<\/p>\n

Portland accomplished its task of a winning road trip and now returns home to face a stiff challenge.\u00a0 The Trail Blazers captured three of four games on the trip that ended with a 90-76 win over the Milwaukee Bucks.\u00a0 \u201cA very good road trip for us,\u201d said head coach Nate McMillan.\u00a0 He knows his team must continue to improve if its going to challenge in the Western Conference and tonight\u2019s game is certainly an early measuring stick.\u00a0 \u201cWe have to keep improving,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 \u201cThe Thunder are going to be ready for us.\u201d\u00a0 Portland captured last year\u2019s series, 3-1, for the second straight season.\u00a0 Three of the four meetings were decided by single digits.\u00a0 The club is 49-39 ATS at home over the last three campaigns.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers were successful defending the Thunder\u2019s main stars, Durant and point guard Russell Westbrook in 2009-10.\u00a0 Portland held Durant to 36.1 percent shooting and 3.1 points below his season average, while forcing Westbrook into 5.3 turnovers per game.\u00a0 The team was incredibly efficient with the basketball last season in this matchup, committing seven fewer turnovers than Oklahoma City (65-58).\u00a0 Defensively, the team has held opponents to 95 points or less in four of five games in the early going.<\/p>\n

Bettors will find that the Thunder are 9-3 ATS in their last 12 games as a road underdog of 5.0 to 10.5 points, while the Blazers are 9-8 ATS as a home favorite of 3.5 to 6 points.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of exciting games ahead and the NBA handicappers at Maddux Sports are ready to deliver plenty of winning selections.\u00a0 After last nights 4-1 day, they are currently riding an 11-1 NBA pick run for their clients.\u00a0 Dont miss one more winner from the experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers Thursday, 11\/4\/10, 10:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 TNT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 191.5 Current Total:\u00a0 193 Oklahoma City has dropped two straight games after falling to the Los Angeles Clippers,\u00a0 107-92, at the Staples Center on Wednesday night.\u00a0 The Thunder struggled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[1366,1193,399,830,3693],"class_list":["post-10242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-brandon-roy","tag-kevin-durant","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10242"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10245,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10242\/revisions\/10245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}