This is the tail end of a home-and-home back to back set between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Sacramento Kings. Last night, the Trail Blazers came up short in Sacramento, reversing the trends for both teams. It hurt, but now as much as if they would lose again, at home, so they should be ready to bounce back.
Kings at Trail Blazers
Spread: Portland -12.5 (-110) at BetDSI Sportsbook
Total: o/u 198 points (-110)
Changes lift the Kings to victory
Fresh of a 46-point defeat handed them by another poor team, the Sacramento Kings came out with red ears. Winning is not a priority for the rebuilding franchise, and yet, they can’t afford to be a laughingstock of the league either. Back home, they have not only put up a fight against the playoff-hopeful Portland Trail Blazers but managed to pull out a victory, 86-82.
Yes, it was not an exhilarating game. The Kings feature the worst point differential (minus-13.5). They also are scoring the second-fewest points (93.4 per game) and shooting the third-lowest field goal percentage (42.5). Their offense is not going to scare anyone, except the Kings’ fans on a bad sleep. None of this mattered against Portland. Still looking to find what’s working best for his team, coach Joerger changed the lineup and left Cauley-Stein on the bench, playing him almost exclusively further from the rim, in a power forward position. This lit a fire under WCS, who led the Kings with 22 points and 10 rebounds. A disappointing week from Bogdanovic, who is playing too tentatively for a starting shooting guard, forced the coach to drop him as well, so Hill, Temple, and Fox all started. The Kings won and the three guards were efficient enough, but it didn’t look too well out on the court. Instead of working together, they took turns with the playmaking duties, and neither of them settled into a comfortable rhythm. The bench outscored the starters once again, mostly due to good games from Koufos and Cauley-Stein who outscored starting frontcourt 32-3. The Kings shot 42.4 percent from the field and have hit only 4-of-14 three-point tries, but won as the Blazers couldn’t find the basket themselves.
Reserve guard Buddy Hield limped off the court midway through the fourth with a sprained right ankle and did not return. He’s been playing well for the Kings in wins, providing a scoring kick with the reserve unit, so he’ll be missed if this injury forces him to sit. Veteran Carter remains out, so with three guards starting, it’s leaving the Kings bench short on the outside players. Joerger could be inclined to trot out his team’s eighth starting combination in 16 games.
Place: Moda Center, Portland, Oregon
Date/Time: Saturday, November 18th, 2017. 10:00 PM ET
TV Coverage: NBCSNW, NBCSCA
The Blazers waste an opportunity to win three straight
Playing so many games close hurt the Blazers in Sacramento. Their inability to pull away from the inferior opposition is troubling and forces them into games decisions being made on who makes the big shot. On a night when no shots were falling for the Rip City, they couldn’t get one to drop to justify a big favorite badge.
Portland came in as the worst team in the NBA in getting points in transition, averaging about 4.5 points on fast breaks. They did not score a single fast-break point against the Kings, and these are usually the easy ones. Instead, they were forced into an ugly brick-athon where pull jumpers were only interrupted by turnovers. Damian Lillard led all scorers with 29 points, but he needed 25 shots to get there and did very little besides try to take any available shot out there. McCollum followed his lead, scoring 19 points with better efficiency, and yet he couldn’t find the range from three-point territory and offset his three assists by turning the ball over four times. Nurkic matched his turnovers total, fouled on defense and scored only 4 points on 2-of-7 shooting, and there was no kick from any of the reserves. The Blazers shot just 37 percent from the field and 28 percent from beyond the arc, while posting 13 assists and 18 turnovers in an offensive performance for campfire horror stories. On defense, the Blazers did a solid job running off the Kings from the three-point line. It was a good game plan as Sacramento don’t have any inside scoring game, ranking 26th in the league. However, the Blazers got outscored 28-44 in the lane and played only on par with one of the worst rebounding teams in the NBA.
Nurkic said after the game that he had been battling flu-like symptoms for the last three games, trying to explain how he turned a bad start to the season into something worse. Make of it what you will, but I don’t see him sitting out this rematch.
Sacramento Kings at Portland Trail Blazers Game Trends & Prediction
The Sacramento Kings are rarely helped by the added points, losing straight up as well as the against the spread too frequently for backers’ comfort. However, their poor offense didn’t play a decider last night, as they never once trail by as much as the spread was (+7), covering comfortably. It snapped three ATS losses, but they’ve also on a roll at home, going 3-0 against Philly, OKC and now Rip City. Overall, the Kings are losing the money, going 5-9-1 for the season. However, it all comes from their away games, where they are 1-7-1. They are 7-8 on the totals market (5-4 on the road), and the outcome are largely decided on how much points they give up. The defense holds up better at home – the Kings allow 49.8 percent field goals shooting and 40 percent on threes to their hosts this season.
The Blazers are 5-8-2 against the spread after last night’s ugly loss. Their arena was previously their zone of comfort, but are just 3-6-1 in 2017/18. The best bet on the Blazers games was the under, an outcome that had happened 11 times in the first 15 games, six times consecutively.
Admi-Rank: Let’s not overreact to one game. The Blazers are an average team in NBA and that’s where they are staying, for now, point up or down. The Kings may have won, but the basketball they’ve shown isn’t any better than the one that had landed them into the cellar.
Despite the loss last night, Portland has been dominant over the Kings and it extends a few seasons back. They’ve won two of three games last season and 11 of the last 15 games in the series. Don’t expect the Kings’ backcourt to outscore Portland’s duo of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, so the only way they can replicate the result from the first meeting would be to dominate on the inside. It’s not impossible but is unlikely. The Blazers should shoot a much better percentage even by playing the same bad offense, and Stotts will probably point out a few things after seeing the tape.
The books are not backing off from seeing the Blazers as a much better team, having them at a -12.5 points favorite. The total has shrunk to 198 points, only a slight adjustment to the closing total from last night. I’m going with -10.5 / 194 pair of fair numbers, not accounting for Hield status. As I believe his absence would hurt the visiting side, I’m not going to go after the spread bet, although it does appear to be the value side. I’m following the trend and going after the under. Yes, the game could be much different, but then again, we don’t need the total to stay in 160s. Both sides are having serious troubles scoring the ball and are playing slowly, so it’s a good wager I’m not going to miss out on.
My Pick: (no wager on the spread)
Total: Under 198 points (-110)
