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Vacation time for the NBA is over, and everyone is back to hating each other. Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns square off against Damian Lillard and the Portland Trail Blazers in each team's first matchup after the All-Star break on Thursday night. Here's the continuation of the odds and prediction series.
Both teams are coming into Thursday's showdown with solid momentum, each looking to build on ongoing win streaks: the Suns will try to close in on Utah to capture the number one seed in the West, while the Blazers are riding Damian Lillard's red hot hand to make a top-four bid come playoff time.
Let's look at the odds for this showdown of Western Conference heavyweights.
NBA Odds: Suns-Blazers Odds
Phoenix Suns: -4.5 (-113)
Portland Trail Blazers: +4.5 (-107)
Over/Under: 226 pts (-110)
Why The Blazers Could Cover The Spread
Two words: Dame Time.
Damian Lillard has been torching the league, scoring 29.8 points/game while flirting with a 50/40/90 season. Without primary supporting pieces CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic for much of the season thus far, Lillard has simply willed Portland to the West's top five and is making a legitimate MVP case this season.
Long story short, the Blazers go as he does. And he has been doing well.
You can never count out any team that Damian Lillard on to lose, much less not cover a spread. Lillard is getting up into the rarified air now of players that instill fear into their opponents whenever they touch the ball. And as for who he's playing against, unless Mikal Bridges stays glued to him all game (a tough task with Gary Trent, Melo, and Covington hovering in the wings), Dame offensively dominates the Suns' backcourt duo of Chris Paul (too big) and Booker (who doesn't play defense).
Dame's gravity is enough for any set of players around him to be dangerous. And with Portland's motors absolutely humming after a small streak of confidence-building wins, it is legitimately hard to bet against them in any matchup.
Why The Suns Could Cover The Spread
What a rude awakening the Blazers are about to have.
Sure, the Blazers could cover the spread. Sure, the concept of betting against Damian Lillard is the same thing as turning your back on a leopard and trusting that it might not eat you alive.
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But the fact of the matter is, basketball is a team sport. And the Blazers don't have the team to match up against Phoenix in an empty homecourt.
The Blazers have been encouraging thus far, especially recently, but just as they can beat any team, they can also lose to any team, with signature wins against Philly and the Lakers with Anthony Davis, but with ugly losses to teams like Washington, Orlando, and…Phoenix.
The Blazers have a lot of trouble with bigs and stars that can keep up with Lillard's scoring output, or that can at least check him for a time. The Suns fit that bill to a tee.
Devin Booker can easily keep up with Dame. Deandre Ayton has been a force inside, recording at least one block in all but four games since the beginning of February. He is also physically very able to stand up to Enes Kanter and stands to have a career night against Kanter's less-than-stellar defense.
Mikal Bridges is the platonic idea of a three-and-D player Dario Saric is still one of the best secondary playmakers in the league behind superstars like Porzingis and Nikola Jokic, and the Suns have a secret weapon: Chris Paul.
Chris Paul has never and will never dominate a scoreboard. His impact is felt, rather than seen. He is a complainer, and a whiner, and a scrapper, and is the perfect compliment to Booker's smooth shooting and playmaking. He is the floor general du jour of today's NBA, and more than that, he has the biggest killer mentality in the league since the late Kobe Bryant, RIP. The difference between last year's and this year's Suns all comes down to him.
Last year, if the Suns were sitting at the number two seed in the West, this is easily a trap game for them: a high-scoring, middle of the playoff hunt team with a lot less collective talent, that they've already beaten, and badly.
But Chris Paul is the type to knock someone else down and step on their neck in order to win. And these Suns follow his lead.
Final Prediction and Pick
These teams have already met once, and the results essentially played out as listed above. Booker can't be stopped by this team, and there isn't enough talent on Portland's roster without McCollum to draw Chris Paul and Mikal Bridges away from Lillard, leading to high scoring but very inefficient night. Kanter gets his as the only healthy true center on the Blazers, but gets eaten alive and picked apart by Ayton, Saric, and Frank Kaminsky.
And as stated above: before, the Suns would have taken their foot off the gas in this second matchup. Nowadays, Chris Paul won't let them.
FINAL PREDICTION: Phoenix Suns 125, Portland Trail Blazers 109 (PHX -4.5)
