Portland Trail Blazers vs Detroit Pistons Betting Guide

Home, sweet home. Home is where the heart is. There’s no place like home. Pick a cliché. The Portland Trail Blazers are a magnificent 9-1 at the Moda Center and a putrid and puzzling 1-10 outside the building.

An 0-3 road trip dropped them from sixth to tenth in the Western Conference, but relief is here in the form of two four-game homestands sandwiched around a single road game at Golden State.

They’ll tip that stretch off against the 4-16 Detroit Pistons tonight, and we’re feeling confident that Chauncey Billups can pilot the Blazers past the team where he spent seven of his 17 years as an NBA player.

Let’s take a look at tonight’s lines and see if we can give as sound advice as we did yesterday:

Note: lines and odds are listed here as they stood at the time of writing, in this case about 10:00 am on Tuesday. By the time you’re able to place your wagers, those lines may have moved — especially if we were on the right track. Adjust your bets accordingly.

Portland Trail Blazers odds, point spread, moneyline, and over/under

WynnBet has the Blazers listed as 9.5 point favorites and -470 to win with an over/under of 112.5 points. The Pistons are +370 to win and their over/under is set at 103 points.

Nine and a half points is a huge spread in the NBA — the largest in the league tonight by a 3-pointer. But the Blazers have been two different teams this season, and the good one should be on the court tonight.

Portland’s terrible defense also gets a break tonight, as the Pistons have the second-least potent offense in the NBA this season, averaging just 99 points per game.

Portland may be without the services of Norman Powell for the second straight game, but if they can get an engaged Jusuf Nurkic and last year’s Robert Covington back for 20 minutes each, they’ll have no trouble with Detroit.

Expect this one to end in garbage time, and Portland’s last five players are head and shoulders better than Detroit’s, so give the 9.5 points without worrying about a late meaningless rally wiping that margin out.

I wouldn’t touch either moneyline, but if you’re feeling cheeky and think Damian Lillard and half the Blazers’ bench will test positive for COVID before tonight’s game, go ahead and throw a few dollars on Detroit to win. What can I say? +370 makes me greedy.

Lillard has been declared out for tonight’s game, supposedly due to abdominal pain load management — we’re not sure if that’s code for “ate too much turkey” or not — but expect the line to drop, and when it gets to seven you can consider the Blazers the safe bet again. And if Lillard’s sore belly turns out to be a mini-COVID outbreak and Little and Simons end up sitting out tonight as close contacts, I will be insufferable for weeks.

Portland averages 116.4 points per game at home (vs. less than 105 on the road) and the Pistons share the NBA’s defensive low-rent district with the Blazers, so I fully expect Portland to beat their 112.5 point over.

Gauging what to do with Detroit’s over/under means guessing whether Portland’s 29th-ranked defense can stop Detroit’s 29th-ranked offense.

But I’ve seen Portland play every minute of every game this season, and in that time they haven’t shown me they could stop Mother Superior and the Seven Sisters of the Blind’s JV squad from driving the lane at will, so I’ll step out on a tiny limb and go with Detroit over 103.

Picks: Portland +9.5 and over 112.5, Detroit over 103, game over 215.5

Blazers vs. Pistons Television and Radio

Tonight’s game tips off at 7:00 PM Pacific and can be seen in the Portland area on ROOT Sports and heard on AM 620.

Upcoming Blazers Matchups

Portland’s four game homestand continues Thursday against the San Antonio Spurs. They’ll face the Boston Celtics on Saturday before hosting the Los Angeles Clippers on Monday.