{"id":14582,"date":"2011-04-01T00:23:04","date_gmt":"2011-04-01T05:23:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=14582"},"modified":"2011-04-01T02:40:26","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T07:40:26","slug":"nba-northwest-division-betting-thunder-go-for-6th-straight-win-at-portland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nba-northwest-division-betting-thunder-go-for-6th-straight-win-at-portland-14582\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Northwest Division Betting: Thunder go for 6th straight win at Portland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers, Rose Garden, Portland, OR<\/strong>
\nFriday, April 1, 2011, 7:30 pm Eastern, TV:\u00a0 FSOK, CSNW<\/strong>
\nOpening Line: Blazers -2<\/strong>
\nCurrent Line: Blazers -2.5<\/strong>
\nOpening Total: 190.5<\/strong>
\nCurrent Total: 190.5<\/strong>
\nMoney Line: Blazers -140 \/ Thunder +120<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Trail
Kevin Durant and the Thunder has won five in a row and three straight against Portland.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Oklahoma City Thunder (50-24) will look to extend their five-game winning streak and beat the Portland Trail Blazers (43-32) for a fourth straight time on Friday in this Northwest Division matchup.\u00a0 The Thunder (-2.5) just completed their best month in team history at 14-2 and have an outside shot at the third seed in the Western Conference playoff race after Dallas lost on the road to the Los Angeles Lakers 109-92 Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City must play five of the next seven games on the road though starting in Portland, where the team has won in two of its last three trips.\u00a0 Two of the three meetings this season have been decided by two points or less, including a 107-106 overtime victory for the Thunder back on November 4.\u00a0 James Harden was instrumental in the win, as he converted a 3-point play in overtime that gave his team the lead for good.\u00a0 Harden finished with seven points in 25 minutes off the bench while Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant led the way with 28 points apiece.<\/p>\n

Harden came up big again on Wednesday in a 116-98 rout of Phoenix, scoring 22 points on 7 of 9 shooting from the field.\u00a0 Durant also had 22 points while Westbrook added 16 and dished out eight assists.\u00a0 Oklahoma City improved to 22-14 straight-up on the road with the victory and owns a five-game lead over Denver for the division lead.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers are in a much more competitive race for playoff positioning with the New Orleans Hornets and Memphis Grizzlies but also have a chance at the fifth seed.\u00a0 They are tied with the Hornets for sixth place, one game ahead of the Grizzlies and 2.5 behind the Denver Nuggets.<\/p>\n

Portland could have moved even closer to Denver but lost 95-91 at New Orleans on Wednesday to complete a three-game road trip at 1-2 both SU and against the spread.\u00a0 The first game of that trip was a 99-90 loss to the Thunder despite Gerald Wallace\u2019s season-high 40 points.\u00a0 Wallace has scored just 14 in each of the last two games and is nursing a hand injury.<\/p>\n

The OVER has cashed in three of the last four games for both teams along with three of the past four in the series.\u00a0 Oklahoma City is averaging 109.4 points in its last five games after failing to break the century mark in the previous three games.\u00a0 The Blazers have scored more than 100 points just once in their last six games.<\/p>\n

Now that you have read this NBA betting preview featuring the Blazers & Thunder, check out the NBA odds on this and all the games to compare the best lines at multiple sportsbooks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oklahoma City Thunder at Portland Trail Blazers, Rose Garden, Portland, OR Friday, April 1, 2011, 7:30 pm Eastern, TV:\u00a0 FSOK, CSNW Opening Line: Blazers -2 Current Line: Blazers -2.5 Opening Total: 190.5 Current Total: 190.5 Money Line: Blazers -140 \/ Thunder +120 The Oklahoma City Thunder (50-24) will look to extend their five-game winning streak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":5491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[4438,4439,1985,399,830,4440,4789],"class_list":["post-14582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-free-pro-basketball-pick","tag-nba-basketball-odds","tag-nba-picks","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-pro-basketball-betting","tag-thunder-blazers-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14582","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14582"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14598,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14582\/revisions\/14598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}