Unless these Golden State Warriors are truly the best team of all time, the Portland Trail Blazers belong in Friday’s NBA picks.
Portland Trail Blazers vs. Golden State Warriors
Friday, November 26, 2021- 10:00 PM EST at Chase Center
This can’t be real, can it? Not only do the Golden State Warriors (16-2 SU, 13-4-1 ATS) lead the overall NBA standings heading into the Thanksgiving break, they’re also playing better than any of their four-title winning teams from the ‘10s. Basketball-Reference has the Dubs at plus-11.98 on their Simple Rating System, ahead of the 2016-17 team (plus-11.35) that reclaimed the Larry O’Brien Trophy after adding Kevin Durant to the mix.
The thing is, Kevin Durant isn’t there anymore. And Klay Thompson hasn’t made his season debut yet. This makes me think this level of play isn’t sustainable for Golden State – and that the Portland Trail Blazers (10-9 SU, 8-10-1 ATS) are the right choice for your NBA picks when they visit the Chase Center this Friday.
Let There Be Range
Portland looks even better now that they’ve moved from +6 to +7 on the NBA odds board at Bovada (visit our Bovada Review), although the fact that it only took 20 minutes from the open for that line to start moving gives us pause. Early money is sharp money, right? Well, the projections at FiveThirtyEight only have Golden State winning by 4.5 points, even if Jeff Sagarin at The USA Today has the Warriors up by 7.83.
While we’re at it, ESPN recently trotted out a new and improved version of their Basketball Power Index, and they have Golden State’s chances of winning at 73.9 percent, which works out to –283 using your savior and mine, the BMR Odds Converter. That’s the same as a point spread of –6.5 according to Wizard of Odds. Overall, the range of these projections is tilted towards Portland, but again, maybe the Warriors have blown the bell curve with their hot start.
The Comedown
There’s no denying Golden State’s improvements on defense. They’re tops in the NBA at just 97.7 points allowed per 100 possessions; still, that’s 10 points (!) fewer than they gave up last year, and 7.1 points fewer than the Los Angeles Lakers, who finished first in this category. You have to go back to the 2015-16 San Antonio Spurs (96.6) before you find a stingier team. It’s less of a surprise to see the Dubs at No. 1 on offense, where they’ve scored 111.7 points per 100 possessions.
That’s up to just 2.9 points from the 2020-21 campaign. Steph Curry’s numbers thus far are consistent with last year’s, when he led the league in raw scoring at 2,015 points. Otto Porter (plus-2.6 BPM) and Nemanja Bjelica (plus-1.7 BPM) have been positive additions to the bench, as well.
Even here, though, we have to wonder if Golden State has overachieved. Gary Payton II (plus-5.4 BPM) is almost surely not going to maintain this level of play, provided he even suits up for this one – Payton is day-to-day after suffering a hernia. And surely we’ll see some more positive regression from Damian Lillard (plus-0.4 BPM), as he continues to shake off his early-season slump.
We’d normally buy that for a dollar, but let’s make it a smaller bet in case these Dubs are the real McCoy, and let’s wait until closer to tip-off in case the NBA lines keep giving Portland more points.
NBA Pick: Trail Blazers +6.5 (–105) with Bovada (visit our Bovada 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.
