After a grueling seven-game series vs the Nuggets, the Portland Trail Blazers head to Oakland to face the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 of the Western Conference final. The Blazers won their most recent game at Oracle Arena on December 27 but prior to that had lost 13 straight games at Oracle and failed to cover the spread in eight of them. The Warriors will be without Kevin Durant but are 4-1 SU in five games this season without the all-star.
The Warriors opened as 7.5-point faves with a total of 219.
Blazers vs Warriors Game Center
STANDOUT STATS
- Kevin Durant isn’t someone who is easily replaced in any lineup but the Warriors have shown over the years that they can make do without him. Durant has missed 41 games since he joined the team for the 2016-17 season and the Warriors are 31-10 SU and 22-16-3 ATS, including a massive Game 6 win in Houston last Friday.
- The Warriors came out firing in each Sportsbook quarter vs the Rockets and as a result were undefeated in the first-quarter spread. Golden State was 6-0 ATS in the first quarter in six games against Houston. The Blazers, on the other hand, have failed to cover the spread in the first quarter in their last three games.
- The Blazers’ scoring takes a massive dip in road games compared to playing at home. The Blazers are the highest-scoring team at home in the playoffs at 117.8 points per game (six games) but that number drops to 104.5 in six road games.
- Although they won their lone game in Golden State this season on December 27, the Blazers have not had a good history of playing at Oracle Arena. Prior to that win, Portland had lost 13 straight games in Oakland and only covered in five of those games. It’s also worth noting that Jusuf Nurkic had a monster performance in that December game with 27 points, 12 rebounds and four assists.
- Three-point shooting was not a strong suit for the Blazers when they faced the Nuggets in the previous round. In four road games vs the Nuggets, the Blazers shot 34-for-121 (28 percent) from behind the arc.
- The teams have met twice in the playoffs in the last three seasons. The Warriors knocked off the Blazers in five games in 2016 and swept them in the first round in 2017. This is the first time the Blazers have been to the Western Conference final since 2000.
- The total opened at 219 and Warriors games have tended to exceed that total. In nine of their 12 playoff games, the score has exceeded 220. That’s why it shouldn’t be a surprise that the OVER has hit in eight of Golden State’s 12 playoff games (average combined score: 230.3).
My Best Bet for Blazers vs Warriors
Warriors -3 First Quarter
I would also recommend taking the Warriors -4.5 in the first half and at -7.5 for the full game but this one feels like the safest pick because it’s the starters vs the starters and the Blazers can’t hang. The Warriors get to revert to the pre-Kevin Durant days where they don’t play as much iso-ball and employ a lot more screens and rolls to the basket to get Klay Thompson and Steph Curry more open looks.
The Blazers needed a superhuman effort from CJ McCollum just to advance past the Denver Nuggets and while I think he’s a great player, I expect Klay to shut him down and make guys like Evan Turner or Al-Farouq Aminu have to beat them.
