Portland Trailblazers at New Orleans Hornets Betting Odds


Opening Betting Line : Trailblazers -1 / Hornets +1
Over/Under : 181.5

Time: 8 PM EST Wednesday March 30, 2011 on CST

These teams are both battling in the West to stay out of the 7th position so they would avoid playing the L.A. Lakers in the opening round of the playoffs. Portland is in 6th and New Orleans is in 7th, but they only trail the Blazers by 1 game. Both teams are 6-4 in their last 10 games and the Blazers are coming off a win while the Hornets are coming off a loss.

It will be hard for the Hornets to move up in the playoff picture since they lost leading scorer and 2nd leading rebounder David West for the season to a knee injury. Portland comes into this game with a lot of confidence, as they have beat the Spurs, who have the best record on the NBA, 2 times in the last 4 days.

In their last games the Blazers beat the Spurs 100-92 and the Hornets lost to the L.A. Lakers 102-84.

The Blazers have been a slightly better betting team on the season at 38-33-3 ATS and the Hornets at 35-37-2. The road team has covered the spread 6 times in the last 8 games between these 2 Western Conference rivals.

Hornets F Carl Landry (11.7 ppg 4.5 rpg) has stepped up with West out for the season, as he has averaged 21.5 ppg and 8 rpg in the 2 games he has been out. He will have to provide some offense tonight and especially play good D on Blazers F LeMarcus Aldridge (21.9 ppg 8.6 rpg).

Both teams are led by their defense, as each plays solid D, but neither is a high scoring team.

Blazers PG Andre Miller will need help on the perimeter tonight containing Chris Paul (16.3 ppg 9.8 assists per game). If Paul can get into the lane and score and dish out the Hornets will be tough to stop. Miller also has to take care of the rock since Paul ranks #1 in the league in steals per game.

Sine the Hornets are led by their D they must play better than they did in the loss to the Lakers giving up 102 points and allowing L.A. to shoot 48.2% from the floor.

The last time these 2 teams met it was in Portland in the middle of February and the Blazers won by 7 points.

Paul and Aldridge are the key guys for their teams, but they will need their supporting cast to help them out, especially on offense. The Blazers have upped their scoring since they brought in Gerald Wallace (15.6 ppg) from Charlotte.

In some other betting trends for this conference match up:

Portland is 8-3-1 ATS in their last 12 road games, 5-2-1 ATS in their last 8 games as a road favorite, and has an Over record of 5-2 in their last 7 games as a road favorite.

New Orleans is 3-8-1 ATS in their last 12 home games, 2-7-1 ATS in their last 10 home games against teams with a losing road record, and has an Under record of 11-5 in their last 16 games.

In the last 5 games between these 2 teams the total has gone Over 4 times.

Our Selection : We’re going to side with the home squad here. We expected the Hornets to get dominated on the glass without forward D. West (lost for the season). However, in the first two games without him they have done an adequate job. Getting this game at pick’em versus a team with a losing road record is always where our action will be.
Take New Orleans +1 at 5Dimes and get reduced juice on every bet!!


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