Portland Trail Blazers at Charlotte Hornets
Betting Preview
Get prepped
for NBA Sunday with our Trail Blazers-Hornets betting preview. Both teams are
better on the offensive side and love to shoot threes - this should be a fun
one.
The action
tips off at 7 PM EST. This is the second and final meeting between these two
teams this season. They last played on March 1, which Portland won 123-111, a
game consider the game of Melos. LaMelo Ball was the Hornets high-scorer with
30, and the Blazers’ Carmelo Anthony led Portland with 29.
Ball won’t be
playing, but let’s see how these teams match up six weeks later.
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Choice > NHL
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Portland
Trail Blazers: Stark Difference in Units
Portland is
comfortably in the playoff race amidst a strong Western Conference. Point guard
Damian Lillard is having another strong season, averaging over 28 points to go
along with 7.6 assists and 4.2 rebounds.
Fellow guard
CJ McCollum has been a solid number two option, averaging 23.7 points per game
on 45/40/85% shooting.
Portland is
far and away an offensively-oriented team. The Blazers rank ninth in the NBA in
total offense, while their defense is a bottom-five unit.
That type of
team lends itself to high-scoring games, and this contest against Charlotte
should be a similar story.
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Charlotte
Hornets: Threes Galore
Charlotte,
even with the loss of top rookie Ball, are squarely in the mix of a wide-open
Eastern conference.
Most sports
gamblers know that the Hornets identity lives behind the
arc, with their offense running through the three-point shot. Only six teams
make more threes per game than the Hornets.
Terry Rozier
leads the team in scoring, with 20.2 points per game. His scoring is aided by
his team-leading 8.2 three-point attempts per game. Fellow guard Devonte Graham
also shoots eight threes a game, averaging 14.0 points per game.go
The lineup is
rounded out by Gordon Hayward and Malik Monk, who both shoot over 40% from
deep.
The Hornets
offense as a whole comes in ranked 19th in the NBA, and their defense is ranked
18th.
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Clearly, the
Hornets are designed to score from deep, and it helps that the Blazers are 18th
defending the deep shot.
The pure
volume of threes from the Hornets side is enough to consider an over, along
with a few player props.
What further
validates betting on the over for this game is that Portland is even more
reliant on the deep shot. The Blazers rank second in the NBA in threes made.
While the Hornets are average at defending the three, it will be a challenge to
slow it down.
Game Pick:
Take the Over
Just as the
over hit back when these two teams met in March, a similar result can be
expected on Sunday.
Both offenses
have the advantage over the opposing defense, suggesting points will be
aplenty.
Any game with
two teams who prefer to chuck up threes is an enticing bet for an over, and
this game is no exception.
As of this
writing, the Blazers are 28-25 against over/unders, and the Hornets are
24-27-1.
Our last
article didn’t go as planned. See what we said in our Baylor
at Kansas free pick.
