{"id":12156,"date":"2011-01-04T11:50:08","date_gmt":"2011-01-04T16:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12156"},"modified":"2011-01-04T11:50:08","modified_gmt":"2011-01-04T16:50:08","slug":"betting-predictions-portland-trail-blazers-at-dallas-mavericks-western-conference-showdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/betting-predictions-portland-trail-blazers-at-dallas-mavericks-western-conference-showdown-12156\/","title":{"rendered":"Betting Predictions: Portland Trail Blazers at Dallas Mavericks Western Conference Showdown"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers at Dallas Mavericks
\nTuesday, 1\/4\/11, 8:30 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Dallas -4
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Dallas -4.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 185
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 184<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Dallas Mavericks have suffered some major injuries over the past week and now get set to host the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portland is starting to catch fire and has won two straight and six of eight heading into tonight\u2019s contest against Dallas.\u00a0 The Blazers defense has played a huge part in the team\u2019s recent run by holding four consecutive opponents to 95 or fewer points.\u00a0 \u201cOur chemistry has gotten better,\u201d said LaMarcus Aldridge.\u00a0 \u201cI think guys are really figuring out their roles.\u201d\u00a0 He will be called upon in a big way tonight due to averaging 21.8 points and 7.8 rebounds in the four meetings last year, while scoring 25.3 a night since last facing the Mavericks in a 103-98 road loss on December 15.\u00a0 Last year, the Trail Blazers won twice in Dallas for the first time since the 1998-99 season.\u00a0 The team had dropped 18 of 20 games versus the Mavericks before last year.\u00a0 Portland is 2-5-1 ATS versus the Southwest Division and currently an underdog on the NBA lines page.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers are one of only six teams in the league that have already played 19 road games.\u00a0 Portland\u2019s defense has allowed opponents to score 100 points just nine times all year.\u00a0 The unit allowed 103 points at Dallas on December 15, marking the first time an opponent hit the century mark in almost a month.\u00a0 In fact, the defense went 11 straight games without allowing 100 points before that particular contest.\u00a0 Each of Portland\u2019s first 12 wins came when holding opponents under 100 points.\u00a0 The Trail Blazers are allowing 89.1 points per game in wins and 100.7 points in losses.<\/p>\n

Dallas is 25-8 overall on the season and brings a 13-6 home mark into tonight\u2019s contest against a Western Conference rival.\u00a0 The Mavericks are 7-3 versus such opponents while playing inside the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas.\u00a0 The team may be without two of its top scorers on Tuesday, with Caron Butler out with a knee injury and Dirk Nowitzki still recovering from a sprained knee.\u00a0 Both players played a huge part in the earlier win this season over Portland by combining for 44 points.\u00a0 Dallas is 10-1-1 ATS versus teams with a winning record.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks have won 20 of the last 25 matchups with the Blazers and Nowitzki averaged 27.5 points and 8.8 rebounds against Portland last year.\u00a0 Dallas recorded a 104-95 win over Cleveland on Sunday, picking up the team\u2019s 18th victory in 22 games.\u00a0 The team committed just 10 turnovers in the win over the Cavaliers, marking the third straight game they recorded 12 or fewer turnovers.\u00a0 Reaching the century mark is critical for the squad\u2019s success this year, recording a 17-0 record when scoring 100-or-more points.\u00a0 The Mavericks were 35-7 when they scored at least 100 points in a game last season.<\/p>\n

Bettors will be interested in the Blazers being 4-1 ATS on one days rest, while the Mavericks are 1-4 ATS in the same situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers at Dallas Mavericks Tuesday, 1\/4\/11, 8:30 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Dallas -4 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Dallas -4.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 185 Current Total:\u00a0 184 Portland is starting to catch fire and has won two straight and six of eight heading into tonight\u2019s contest against Dallas.\u00a0 The Blazers defense has played a huge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3920,3564,19,20,3303,830,3693],"class_list":["post-12156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-american-airlines-center","tag-caron-butler","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-dirk-nowitzki","tag-lamarcus-aldridge","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156","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=12156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12157,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156\/revisions\/12157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}