The Portland Trail Blazers have righted themselves from a rocky start and won four in a row to go to 10-8 on the season. Tonight they get a chance to avenge an opening night loss to the Sacramento Kings, but they’ll have to go to California’s capital city to do it.
After a surprising 5-4 start, the Kings have lost eight of their last nine, including four in a row. Their 4-5 road record and 2-8 mark at home make it evident they don’t really like playing in Sacramento all that much, and who could blame them?
Luke Walton is out as Kings coach, but their problems run much deeper than that. They have had trouble for years keeping young players engaged and happy, and now Tyrese Halliburton and De’Aaron Fox have to hear their names mentioned any time trade rumors pop up.
Meanwhile, Portland is coming off one of their best wins of the year, a 19-point trouncing of the Nikola Jokic-less Denver Nuggets behind 57 combined points from Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
Trail Blazers vs Kings Betting Lines: point spread, moneyline, and over/under
WynnBet has set the Blazers as two point favorites and set at -130 to win outright, with the Kings at +110. The over/under is set at 226.
I’m not sure what the oddsmakers there have been watching for the last 19 days, but the Blazers are 7-3 in that stretch while Sacramento has won just one of nine. McCollum has been fantastic all year, and Lillard is finally on track after a slow start.
Throw in steadily energetic performances from Nassir Little, Anfernee Simons, and Larry Nance, Jr., and the Blazers seem — at least in this moment — to be as hot as a team can get.
Meanwhile the Kings are sleepwalking through another year in which they have zero hope of making the playoffs in a stacked Western Conference, despite the consistent excellence of Harrison Barnes (19.3 PTS, 7.4 REB, 2.5 AST), electric play from Fox (19.9 PTS, 3.4 REB, 5.6 AST), and continued emergence of Richaun Holmes (14.4 PTS, 9.8 REB, 1 BLK).
Trail Blazers vs. Kings game prediction
Sacramento has also been puzzlingly and historically bad at home, so even calibrating for my mild homer-ism, two points seems like an absurd number for this game.
But Portland’s record on the road is a half game worse than Sacramento’s baffling 2-8 home mark. Those bizarre numbers can flummox even seasoned bettors, but it helps to try and judge which might be the bigger anomaly.
While Sacramento finishing the season with just eight home wins seems unlikely, I would bet both left arms and all of my unborn children that this Portland team manages to win more than five road games.
All of this leads me to believe that Portland rights their road woes (after all, there isn’t really much to distract them in Sacramento) and manages to cover the tiny two point spread.
The over/under is a much more difficult proposition. It’s set a few points higher than the combined average output of the two teams thus far this season, generally something that points me to the under.
The Blazers are also on their fifth back-to-back this month and facing a relatively disengaged Kings squad, so I can foresee some listless play late in this one.
All of that points to lower shooting percentages and lots of time for the end-of-the-benchers, so I’m going to go with the under.
Picks: Portland -2 at -110, Under 226
Trail Blazers vs. Kings Television and Radio
The game will be broadcast on Root Sports TV and KPOJ-AM 620 locally, and on NBA League Pass nationally. Start time is 7:00 PM Pacific.
Blazers Upcoming Games
Portland heads to the Bay Area to face the Western Conference leading Golden State Warriors on Friday and finishes up their three-game road trip with a visit to Utah on Monday. They’ll follow that up with four straight at home.