{"id":13409,"date":"2011-02-16T09:50:26","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T14:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=13409"},"modified":"2011-02-16T09:50:26","modified_gmt":"2011-02-16T14:50:26","slug":"rose-garden-party-new-orleans-hornets-at-portland-trail-blazers-free-nba-picks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/rose-garden-party-new-orleans-hornets-at-portland-trail-blazers-free-nba-picks-13409\/","title":{"rendered":"Rose Garden Party: New Orleans Hornets at Portland Trail Blazers Free NBA Picks"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Hornets at Portland Trail Blazers
\nWednesday, 2\/16\/11, 10:00 PM EDT
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 183
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 183<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The New Orleans Hornets are limping toward the All-Star break and face off against the Portland Trail Blazers Wednesday night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New Orleans can\u2019t wait for the All-Star break to get here due to dropping eight of its last 10 games, including a 102-89 road loss to Golden State Tuesday night.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t believe in excuses and I don\u2019t believe in rescues,\u201d said coach Monty Williams.\u00a0 \u201cIf guys want to keep their job, they\u2019re going to have to learn how to play in tough times like this.\u201d\u00a0 The Hornets are now 33-24 overall and have compiled a 7-11 mark on the road against Western Conference opponents.\u00a0 It\u2019s important for the team to hold opponents to under 100 points on any given night, as it\u2019s record is 4-16 when allowing foes to go over the century mark.\u00a0 New Orleans is 18-35 ATS versus Northwest division opponents the past three years and currently an underdog on the NBA lines page for tonight\u2019s contest.<\/p>\n

The Hornets defensive slide is alarming due to recent numbers, surrendering over 100 points in seven of the last 10 games.\u00a0 New Orleans has allowed an average of 99.9 during that stretch, even though its season average is 92.5.\u00a0 Many NBA experts believe the problems are magnified with the loss of center Emeka Okafor, who has been sidelined since the middle of the second game of this current 10-game stretch.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re scratching and clawing, trying to find ways to win games,\u201d guard Willie Green stated.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve got to find ways to get better and put two halve together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Portland is enjoying a season-high tying five-game winning streak and is being led by the outstanding play of forward LaMarcus Aldridge.\u00a0 He is averaging career highs of 22.1 points and 8.9 rebounds, but has gone even beyond that in scoring 31.2 points a night during the team\u2019s current streak.\u00a0 \u201cSince the announcement of the All-Stars, his play hasn\u2019t dropped off,\u201d said coach Nate McMillan.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s gotten even better.\u201d\u00a0 The team has done an incredible job in overcoming injuries to guard Brandon Roy and center Marcus Camby, going 9-4 without the duo.\u00a0 Portland is 1-5 ATS as a home favorite of 3.5 to 6 points this season.<\/p>\n

The Blazers have lost the last two meetings with the Hornets and the road team has won six of the last seven meetings in the series.\u00a0 Portland still hasn\u2019t dropped a season series versus New Orleans since the 2005-06 campaign.\u00a0 Offensively, the team has been dominating when shooting a higher percentage than its opponent, posting a 23-1 record in that situation.\u00a0 Portland is also second in the NBA shooting 80.4 percent at the line this season after setting a franchise record of 79 percent at the charity stripe last year.\u00a0 Both of those factors have come into play with the squad averaging 99.8 points per game in February and garnering a 6-2 record over that span.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Hornets due to their 8-3 ATS mark as a road underdog, while the Blazers are 1-5 ATS as a home favorite of this type.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New Orleans Hornets at Portland Trail Blazers Wednesday, 2\/16\/11, 10:00 PM EDT Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 183 Current Total:\u00a0 183 New Orleans can\u2019t wait for the All-Star break to get here due to dropping eight of its last 10 games, including a 102-89 road loss to Golden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[3594,3303,836,830,3914,3693],"class_list":["post-13409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-emeka-okafor","tag-lamarcus-aldridge","tag-new-orleans-hornets","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-rose-garden","tag-western-conference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13409","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=13409"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13411,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13409\/revisions\/13411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}