NBA: Indiana Pacers vs. Portland Trail Blazers Preview, Odds, Prediction

The Portland Trail Blazers want to keep a winning aura, but to do that, they need to beat the Indiana Pacers at home tonight. This is the second of back-to-back nights for the guests from Oregon, who played last night in Utah and won. Chauncey Billups’ boys had to travel, but their morale is high as they snapped a pretty negative streak. Indi struggled in the past few days, but we have to say that their schedule was extremely rough.

Preview

Indiana Pacers (112-10, +132) will play their fifth road game, and that’s a pretty rough situation for Rick Carlisle’s guys. Before this one, they had two in Los Angeles, beating the Lakers but losing to the Clippers, and after that, the Jazz stopped in Sacramento and, lastly, in Utah.

The game in Salt Lake saw the Pacers losing 139-119 and having one of the worst defensive nights ever. Indiana allowed the rivals to shoot 55.4% from the field, hit 15 threes, and have 47 boards, while they had 35.

What was incredible was to see the Pacers forcing 27 turnovers but getting nothing from it, and also committing 19 by themselves. Haliburton scored 14 points, Nembhard had 13 and 10 assists, and Miles Turner scored 18. Even in this event, the Pacers had seven players with a double-digit number of points, which shows their versatility in that area.

Portland Trail Blazers (12-11, -160) defeated the Jazz in Utah, unlike the Pacers. The final result of that game was 116-111 for the franchise from Oregon, with fantastic Anfernee Simmons having the time of his life and by far the best performance since he became a pro.

The youngster had 45 points, hitting seven threes in 12 attempts, overall shooting 15-for-25 from the field. The guy is officially becoming a superstar, and there is no debate about it. Jerami Grant had 33 buckets, 10-for-18 FG, and 11-for-14 from the free throw line.

Damian Lillard was out, and this was one of the rare wins for the Blazers without Dame because they had eight losses in nine contests before the one against the Jazzers. It’s still unknown whether he will play tonight, but it seems that the chances for his appearance are pretty high.

Head to Head Games

There were two H2H meetings between the Blazers and the Pacers last year, with each team getting one victory in those events. On November 5, the Blazers used their home-court edge, beating the Pacers 110-106. The hosts were better in Indiana as well, 129-98.

Prediction

From what we saw in previous games, the Blazers are focused only on offense, the same as the Pacers, whose team isn’t built for playing some high-intensity defense. To be honest, it’s not built for any kind of defense. Right now, the line for the total number of points is set at 232.5 buckets, and in our opinion, this should be over. And we are counting on seeing Lillard sitting on the bench while making this prediction. With him on the court, things will be even more efficient. Simply, with Dame involved, that’s 25 easy buckets, and more space for other teammates.

Pick: Over 232.5 points