NBA Betting Picks: Portland Trailblazers at Atlanta Hawks

Added on Mar 12, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NBA

Non conference NBA betting action on Saturday’s board as the Portland Trailblazers take on the Atlanta Hawks at Phillips Arena. Portland coming off a loss at Charlotte on Friday night, while Atlanta is coming off a lopsided road loss to the Chicago Bulls. The Blazers are tied for 6th in the Western Conference while Atlanta is in 5th place in the East just 2 1/2 games ahead of the 6th place New York Knicks and 3 games ahead of the hard charging Philadelphia 76ers.

Portland Trailblazers at Atlanta Hawks
March 12, 2011 4:35 PM Pacific

At risk of oversimplifying this matchup in one corner we’ve got the Portland Trailblazers who’ve fought tooth and nail all season despite a laundry list of injuries to their best players. In the other corner, we’ve got a chronically underachieving Atlanta Hawks team. The Hawks have talented players but they lack a certain something–on court leadership, intensity, focus or something. There may not be a team in the league that has ‘phoned in’ more games than this Hawks squad. That’s a marked contrast to Portland, who may turn in fewer substandard effort games over the course of the season than anyone else.

The Hawks are 3-7 SU in their last 10 games and are on a 5-11 ATS run. They’ve been a horrible home court investment this season with a 10-20 ATS record, are 9-16 ATS against opponents with winning records and 8-18 ATS against the Western Conference. They’re 0-2 SU/ATS this season as a home favorite of 3 or less. Atlanta has done well against Portland in recent years–they’re 4-1 SU/ATS in their last 5 games in the series including a win in late February at the Rose Garden. Portland was off a hard fought nationally televised win against Denver in their previous game, but it sets up well for us here. Not surprisingly for a team that you can usually count on for a solid effort, they’ve got a very good ATS record when seeking revenge for a home court loss going 7-4 SU/7-2-2 ATS this season. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, ’90% of this game is half mental’ and we’d much rather have our money on the team that turns in a better effort on a more consistent basis.

Bet Portland Trailblazers +1 over Atlanta Hawks