It’s way too early to panic but the Portland Trail Blazers are already 0-1 after a home loss to the Sacramento Kings. Despite that loss, the Blazers are still favorites against a Phoenix Suns team that will play their second game of a back-to-back tonight. So, what are the NBA odds telling us? Let’s find out!
Saturday, October 23, 2021 – 10:00 PM EDT at Moda Center
It’s way too early to panic but the Portland Trail Blazers are already 0-1 after a home loss to the Sacramento Kings. Despite that loss, the Blazers are still favorites against a Phoenix Suns team that will play their second game of a back-to-back road trip.
For Portland, they’ve struggled badly. Even in the preseason, they were losing. Last year was a disappointing season for the Blazers as well.
They were just 23-19 in the Western Conference and went just 20-16 at home. Meanwhile, Portland averaged 116.1 points per game but allowed 114.3 points per game. Now they’ll take on one of the best West teams in the Suns. Last year, the Suns didn’t meet their quest of winning a championship but were extremely close in doing so.
The Suns went 51-20 overall and shot nearly 50 percent from the field while shooting 38 percent from downtown. We can expect that to continue into this season after a big win against the Lakers, on the road, last night. In Portland’s first game against the Kings, they struggled defensively, allowing 119.2 points per 100 possessions and only turned the ball over 9.6 percent of the time while sending the Kings to the line mostly all game.
The Suns, on the other hand, will be aggressive and find a way to get to the line. Already, they’re ninth in the league when it comes to free throw rate through two games. Expect that to continue. On the other hand, Portland is always going to excel on the offensive end with CJ McCollum and Damian Lillard. McCollum scored 34 points last game while Lillard produced 11 assists.
The offense is going to be electric, they’ll just need to find ways to get stops on the defensive end. To start the season, the Suns have been an average defense. They’re forcing turnovers at 17.5 percent of the time, which is very solid but they’re also allowing 106.5 points per 100 possessions through their first two games.
It’s going to be hard picking against the Suns this season. This is a team that won over 50 games last year and is set to repeat that this year. The Blazers were never great at home and the defense has been pure garbage dating back to last year.
The Suns are more than capable of getting a couple of stops here and there and should be able to win the turnover battle while also taking better shots. I’d expect the Suns to rebound at a higher rate as well. Therefore, let’s take the Suns +2.5 on the road against Portland for our NBA pick tonight.
Don’t worry about this game being back-to-back. It’s going to be a long season but playing the first back-to-back of the season is going to be fine for this Suns team. They played a ton more games in the postseason too!
NBA Pick: Suns +2.5 (-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.