{"id":12635,"date":"2011-01-20T16:04:55","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T21:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=12635"},"modified":"2011-01-20T16:04:55","modified_gmt":"2011-01-20T21:04:55","slug":"the-blake-griffin-show-continues-la-clippers-at-portland-trailblazers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/the-blake-griffin-show-continues-la-clippers-at-portland-trailblazers-12635\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blake Griffin Show Continues: LA Clippers at Portland Trailblazers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Clippers AT Portland Trailblazers
\nJan 20th, 2011 at 10:30 PM EST
\nOpening Line:\u00a0 Portland -4.5
\nCurrent Line:\u00a0 Portland -3.5
\nOpening Total: 195
\nCurrent Total: 195
\nOpening Moneyline:\u00a0 Port -155 \/ LAC +135
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Port -160 \/ LAC +135<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"
Blake Griffin has shed his suit to play some amazing basketball this year and had 35 against Utah last matchup.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Both teams enter tonight’s game with 3 game winning streaks.\u00a0 The Clippers, jokingly, were referred to as the most exciting bad basketball team in the league, but with their current play that “bad team” label may be disappearing.\u00a0 With a talented young nucleus of Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin, Clipper fans are beginning to exhibit the signs of hope, that is if owner Donald Sterling will spend the money necessary to actually build a contending basketball team; he hasn’t in the past.<\/p>\n

Griffin is looking like the favorite to win the rookie of the year award, and if you read my rookie of the year article in the offseason you would have dropped a bet on him doing just that.\u00a0 During his run of double doubles this year, he is averaging 25.4 points per game and 13.8 rebounds per game, and is sparking a lot of writers to question if he could become the best power forward ever to play the game.\u00a0 While that conversation may be a bit premature, he is certainly emerging as one of the best young players in the game and will showcase his awesome athleticism at the Dunk Contest in this year’s All Star weekend.<\/p>\n

Some betting trends:<\/p>\n

The Clippers are 6-1 SU in their last 7 gmaes and the total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 5 on the road.\u00a0 They are 3-16 SU in their last 19 on the road and 2-3-1 ATS in their last 6 on the road.\u00a0 They are 3-6 ATS in their last 9 against the Blazers and 1-8 SU in their last 9 against Portland.\u00a0\u00a0 The total has also gone OVER in 6 of their last 8 road games against Portland and they are 1-5 SU in their last 6 road games in the Rose Garden.<\/p>\n

Portland is 10-2 SU in their last 12 games at home.\u00a0 The total has gone OVER in 5 of their last 7 at home and they are 8-1 SU in their last 9 against the Clippers.<\/p>\n

Key Matchups:
\n
\nMarquee Matchup:\u00a0 Blake Griffin vs LaMarcus Aldridge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Both of these power forwards enter tonight’s game playing excellent basketball.\u00a0 Aldridge has stepped up in the absense of Roy to prove he is worth his weight in gold.\u00a0 He’s scored over 20 in 11 of his last 12 games and had 23 points and 9 rebounds last game in a 4 point win over Sacramento.\u00a0 His outside shooting will make Griffin step out on the court, but Griffin is a capable defender at any place on the court, so Aldridge won’t have the advantage he does against more cumbersome power forwards.\u00a0 Griffin recently had a 47 point 14 rebound game against Indiana in a 7 point Clipper win.\u00a0 Last game represented his first non-double double since November 17th, but it wasn’t as though he had a bad game.\u00a0 29 points, 6 assists, and 8 rebounds is a success by anyone’s standards and\u00a0 Griffin will look to start a new streak of double doubles tonight.\u00a0 He’s exceeded even the highest expectations and his athleticism could give Aldridge problems tonight as Aldridge is about average as far as leaping and speed goes.
\n
\nEric Gordon vs Wesley Matthews<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gordon represents the other half of the Clippers future and like Griffin he has been playing excellent.\u00a0 He’s averaging 23.9 points per game and 4.6 assists per game from the shooting guards position and is shooting a superb 46% from the floor.\u00a0 Matthews represented the big free agent signing for Portland this off season but few could have predicted he would be the scorer he has evolved into.\u00a0 He’s very inconsistent, but when he’s hot he’s great.\u00a0 Last game he had only 4 points, going 1 of 7 from the floor, but he’s scored 20 or more 14 times this season and over 30 three times.\u00a0\u00a0 If he can get hot, it will be a big challenge for Gordon as Matthews’ long wing span enables him to get off shots with ease.\u00a0 Most likely these two will more or less nuetralize one another, even if Gordon does have the edge in scoring based on season averages.<\/p>\n

Tonight’s game promises to be a good one.\u00a0 One of these teams’ winning streaks will come to an end, and the Clippers are starting to have playoff aspirations.\u00a0 If they can win this game and continue to play great basketball they may shock the NBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Clippers AT Portland Trailblazers Jan 20th, 2011 at 10:30 PM EST Opening Line:\u00a0 Portland -4.5 Current Line:\u00a0 Portland -3.5 Opening Total: 195 Current Total: 195 Opening Moneyline:\u00a0 Port -155 \/ LAC +135 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Port -160 \/ LAC +135 Both teams enter tonight’s game with 3 game winning streaks.\u00a0 The Clippers, jokingly, were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40250,"featured_media":7967,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[749,2933,3303,1371,2800,4088],"class_list":["post-12635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-blake-griffin","tag-eric-gordon","tag-lamarcus-aldridge","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-portland-trailblazers","tag-wesley-matthews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12635","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=12635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12637,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12635\/revisions\/12637"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}