The Indiana Pacers and Portland Trail Blazers are both sus, so we’re putting the Under in our NBA picks for Friday’s matchup.
Indiana Pacers vs. Portland Trail Blazers
Friday, November 05, 2021 – 10:00 PM EDT at Moda Center
Be careful what you wish for. The Indiana Pacers weren’t happy with head coach Nate Bjorkgren last year; it was his first crack at the NBA level, and one of the first hires off the Nick Nurse coaching tree. Bjorkgren’s approach didn’t sit well with his players, so he was shown the door at the end of the regular season.
Wouldn’t you know it, Bjorkgren made it back to the Toronto Raptors as a consultant in time for training camp, and he was no doubt elated to help Nurse and the Raptors beat Indiana twice last week, SU and ATS. That’s a big reason why the Pacers are 3-6 (4-5 ATS) heading into Friday’s tilt with the Portland Trail Blazers – but with the Blazers (3-5 SU and ATS) also in a rut, maybe we shouldn’t just insta-fade Indiana as 4.5-point road faves on Bovada’s NBA odds board.
... We Came In?
Not that current Pacers head coach Rick Carlisle should be blamed for what’s going on in Circle City, any more than Bjorkgren’s predecessor, Nate McMillian, who was turfed after four consecutive first-round playoff exits. The problems in Indiana run much deeper than that. Their old-school roster design, anchored by 6-foot-11 Domantas Sabonis (plus-3.0 BPM) and Myles Turner (plus-4.7 BPM), just doesn’t mesh with the modern NBA, even if both players can hit the 3-ball when called upon.
Then you have all those injuries. Fortunately, Malcolm Brogdon (plus-2.5 BPM) only missed three games after tweaking his left hamstring during that first loss to Toronto, and Caris LeVert (minus-0.1 BPM last year) finally made his season debut during the second loss. The Pacers have won back-to-back games SU and ATS since then. This is fine?
Isn’t This Where...
We figured the Trail Blazers would be fine, too, when they hosted the Los Angeles Clippers last Friday. Surely Damian Lillard, who somehow found his way onto the NBA’s Top 75 list, would regress to the mean after starting the year 6-for-35 from long range. Yup: Lillard went 5-for-7 that night, and Portland won 111-92 as 3.5-point home faves on the closing NBA lines.
They’re 0-3 SU and ATS since that contest. It’s still a small sample size at eight games, but Lillard’s minus-4.0 BPM at Basketball Reference is up only slightly from minus-5.2 when the Clippers came to town. Maybe this roster just isn’t built for his talents – not with another pair of 6-foot-11 giants in Jusuf Nurkic (minus-0.1 BPM) and Cody Zeller (minus-2.5 BPM) at center, neither a threat from downtown.
With that in mind, let’s avoid the spread altogether for our NBA picks and hit the Under on that 224-point total at BetOnline. Both teams run the floor at a medium pace, helping the Under go 5-3 for Portland and 5-4 for Indiana; plus, the Blazers have a new head coach of their own to get used to in Chauncey Billups, brought in after four first-round playoff exits in five years under Terry Stotts. Be careful what you wish for.
NBA Pick: Under 224 (–110) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.
