{"id":9985,"date":"2010-10-27T15:00:17","date_gmt":"2010-10-27T20:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=9985"},"modified":"2010-10-27T09:31:26","modified_gmt":"2010-10-27T14:31:26","slug":"pro-basketball-picks-portland-trail-blazers-at-los-angeles-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-basketball-picks-portland-trail-blazers-at-los-angeles-clippers-9985\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Basketball Picks: Portland Trail Blazers at Los Angeles Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers at Los Angeles Clippers
\nWednesday, 10\/27\/10, 10:30 PM EST; TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -2.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 193.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 192.5
\nCurrent Moneyline:\u00a0 Portland -140 \/ Los Angeles +120<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Los Angeles Clippers open up their season tonight and hope to break a four-year playoff drought<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Portland is set to begin a four-game road trip after kicking off its 2010-11 season with an\u00a0 impressive 106-92 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night.\u00a0 \u201cWe did a good job in the fourth quarter of settling down, taking away their 3-ball and making them try to beat us at the rim,\u201d said guard Brandon Roy.\u00a0 He led the Blazers with 24 points in the contest.\u00a0 The Blazers outscored the Suns 18-1 over the final 5:44 of the game to secure the victory.\u00a0 Head coach Nate McMillan was happy to pick up the win, but finds it strange that his team is starting a road trip on the back end of a back-to-back to start the year.\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ve got to play 82 and you\u2019ve got to play the schedule,\u201d he commented.\u00a0 The squad is 13-6 ATS as a road favorite of three points or less.\u00a0 Right now the NBA betting line has them as a 2.5 point road favorite.<\/p>\n

The Trail Blazers have won six of the past seven games and nine of the last 11 against the Clippers, including wins in five of six at the Staples Center.\u00a0 Portland won last season\u2019s series, 3-1, giving the team its third consecutive season series win.\u00a0 Both teams shot better than 50 percent from the field during least year\u2019s four-game series and the Blazers shot 40.4 percent from beyond the arc.\u00a0 Forward LaMarcus Aldridge led the team in averaging 18.7 points and 7.3 rebounds in this three games against the Clippers in 2009-10.\u00a0 McMillan\u2019s unit will face 22 back-to-back situations in 2010-11 after leading the NBA with a 15-4 mark in the second games of back-to-back sets last year.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles starts its season with high hopes after finishing with a 29-53 record and missing the playoffs for the 15th time in 17 seasons and fourth in a row.\u00a0 The Clippers are banking on rookie Blake Griffin to give them a lift after he sat out all of last season with a non-displaced stress fracture of the left patella.\u00a0 \u201cSitting out all year really gave me kind of a different perspective and it really put a fire inside of me,\u201d Griffin stated.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m really excited.\u201d\u00a0 He led the NBA in rebounding in the preseason with 12.3 boards per game and also was tops on the team in averaging 17.3 points per game in starting and playing in six exhibition games.\u00a0 The squad is 67-95 ATS over the last two seasons.<\/p>\n

The Clippers are 18-22 on Opening Night in their history and tonight will be the first time in two years that they don\u2019t open up against the Lakers.\u00a0 \u201cIt will start on the defensive end for us.\u00a0 We have to be kind of a scrappy, physical, dominant mentality type defensive team,\u201d said first-year head coach Vinny Del Negro.\u00a0 He owns a 2-0 coaching record on Opening Night, with both wins coming during his time in Chicago.\u00a0 Los Angeles finished the preseason with a 1-7 record and the roster boasts four rookies.<\/p>\n

Bettors will make note of the Blazers 36-16 ATS mark in their last 52 games playing on zero days rest, while the Clippers finished last season on a 4-1 ATS run as a home underdog.<\/p>\n

The NBA season started last night and your handicappers at Maddux Sports tipped it off with a perfect 3-0 night. \u00a0Don’t miss out on tonight’s action and start getting expert NBA picks today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Portland Trail Blazers at Los Angeles Clippers Wednesday, 10\/27\/10, 10:30 PM EST; TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Portland -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Portland -2.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 193.5 Current Total:\u00a0 192.5 Current Moneyline:\u00a0 Portland -140 \/ Los Angeles +120 Portland is set to begin a four-game road trip after kicking off its 2010-11 season with an\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":9302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,133],"tags":[749,3303,1371,3641,830,3624,189],"class_list":["post-9985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nba-handicapping","tag-blake-griffin","tag-lamarcus-aldridge","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nate-mcmillan","tag-portland-trail-blazers","tag-staples-center","tag-vinny-del-negro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985","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=9985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9987,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9985\/revisions\/9987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}