{"id":12274,"date":"2011-01-07T17:44:53","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T22:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12274"},"modified":"2011-01-07T17:44:53","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T22:44:53","slug":"nba-handicapping-portland-trailblazers-at-minnesota-timberwolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-handicapping-portland-trailblazers-at-minnesota-timberwolves-12274\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Handicapping: Portland Trailblazers at Minnesota Timberwolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trailblazers AT Minnesota Timberwolves
\nJanuary 7th, 2011 at 8:00 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Porltand -3
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Portland -2.5
\nOpening Total: 200
\nCurrent Total: 199
\nOpening Moneyline: Portland -155 \/ Minnesota +135
\nCurrent Moneyline: Portland -145 \/ Minnesota +125<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Kevin Love is averaging an astounding 15.6 rebounds per game this year<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portland has been playing well recently, despite the absense of all-star shooting guard Brandon Roy, whose career is in serious peril after learning he has no meniscus in either knee.\u00a0 As winners of 7 of their last 10, the Blazers come into Minnesota tonight to take on one of the four worst teams in the league in the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have won just 9 of 36 games this year.\u00a0 They are only 2 games below .500 at home despite their .250 win percentage and Portland is a bad road team at 7-14, so it’s within reason that the underdog Wolves win tonight’s matchup and is indicated by NBA oddsmakers setting the opening line at only 3 points in Portland’s favor.<\/p>\n

Minnesota does a good job of scoring, the problem is that they do the worst job in the league at defending, giving up an astounding and absurd 108.6 points per game, rendering them with a -5.8 point differential.\u00a0 The Blazers, as one would expect from a near .500 team have a differential near zero of +0.4.\u00a0 Despite being horrible in nearly everything, the Timberwolves are oddly the best rebounding team in the league at 45.0 rebounds per game.\u00a0 It’s due largely in part to the fact that they have the league’s leading rebounder in Kevin Love, who is a good margin ahead of Dwight Howard for the top spot and had a 30-30 game earlier this year, for the first time in over 30 years in the NBA.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Portland’s last 6 games and they have won 7 of their last 10.\u00a0 They are 3-10, however, in their past 13 on the road and 5-9-1 ATS in their last 15 road games.\u00a0 They have won their last 5 against the Wolves and the total has gone OVER in 4 of their last 5 against Minnesota, as well.\u00a0 They have also won the last 5 meetings in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Minnesota is 5-18 over their past 23 games and 8-17 over their last 25 at home.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 6 at home and has gone OVER in 4 of their last 5 against the Blazers.\u00a0 They are 1-4 ATS in their last 5 against Portland, as well.<\/p>\n

Premier Matchup of the game:
\n
\nLaMarcus Aldridge vs Kevin Love<\/strong><\/p>\n

This matchup at power forward pits the best player of each team against one another.\u00a0 Aldridge has stepped up beautifully in the absense of Roy, and the Blazers have been decent in that stretch of time.\u00a0 Love is emerging as a true superstar on a horrible Timberwolves team and his contract expires at the end of this year, and he made it clear he is no lock to resign with the Wolves; he wants to win.\u00a0 Teams will definitely have to pay for the services of the versatile big man who is averaging 21.0 points per game and 15.6 rebounds, including 4.8 offensive rebounds a game.\u00a0 Moreover, he’s shooting 43.2% from three, an added bonus from a big man.\u00a0 Aldridge is a good scorer, but has absolutely no chance of keeping Love from having a big rebound game.\u00a0 If Love can have another monster game, the Wolves could have a decent shot at covering the spread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trailblazers AT Minnesota Timberwolves January 7th, 2011 at 8:00 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Porltand -3 Current Line:\u00a0 Portland -2.5 Opening Total: 200 Current Total: 199 Opening Moneyline: Portland -155 \/ Minnesota +135 Current Moneyline: Portland -145 \/ Minnesota +125 Portland has been playing well recently, despite the absense of all-star shooting guard Brandon Roy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":9292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[12,3303,677,2800],"class_list":["post-12274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-kevin-love","tag-lamarcus-aldridge","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-portland-trailblazers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12274","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\/40250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12274"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12276,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12274\/revisions\/12276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}