Filip Tomic
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The all-star weekend festivities are finally over and the 2nd half of the NBA season gets underway tonight. We have the Golden State Warriors squaring off with the Portland Trail Blazers live on TNT at 10:00 pm ET, and I’ve prepared a same-game parlay in hopes of adding to my last two winners right before the all-star break.
Don’t forget to check our predictions on the side and total for the rest of Thursday’s 7-game slate.
Let’s dive in!
Portland Trail Blazers 1-10 win margin (+420)
Klay Thompson over 3.5 made threes (+140)
Justise Winslow over 7.5 rebounds (+108)
Parlay odds: +2188
Portland Trail Blazers 1-10 win margin (+420)
With 4 losses over their last 5 games, the Golden State Warriors have cooled off a bit, and now they face a Portland team that is on a 4-game winning streak despite trading away C.J. McCollum and not having their star player Damian Lillard due to injury. The Blazers also received some bad news last night with the news of Jusuf Nurkic missing at least a month with a foot injury, but with the way they’ve been playing lately, it might not make a difference here.
The Warriors are also without Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala, plus Stephen Curry didn’t get much rest over the weekend as he was in Cleveland for the all-star game. The Blazers have scored 120+ points in their last 2 games against Milwaukee and Memphis, so I wouldn’t be discounting them for this game that easily. They are more than capable of pulling off the upset here, so expect a close game.
Be sure to check out our full game preview for Golden State Warriors vs Portland Trail Blazers
Klay Thompson over 3.5 made threes (+140)
Unlike his back-court teammate Curry, Klay Thompson wasn’t in Cleveland this weekend so he had plenty of time to rest and to work on his game during this time off. He’s been in solid rhythm after coming back from injury and this month he is averaging 3.7 makes from three-point land which is an encouraging sign. His percentage is also up from 32.9% in January to 44% in February and against a team like Portland which ranks only 29th in the NBA when it comes to opponent three-point percentage, he should have a big game. The Blazers allow 37.2% of makes from beyond the arc, only the Detroit Pistons are worse than that. You can get great value in return if you back Klay to make at least 4 shots tonight.
Justise Winslow over 7.5 rebounds (+108)
Losing Jusuf Nurkic to a plantar fasciitis injury is a big blow to the long-term ambitions of the Portland Trail Blazers, and it’ll be interesting to see if they can hold on to their 2-game lead over the Spurs for the 10th seed in the West. Short-term though I don’t think they’ll have issues against the Warriors as they can just revert to playing fast in order to compensate for Nurkic’s absence. The Bosnian big man averages 11.1 boards per game for them, so I’d expect everyone else’s numbers to go up — Winslow included. For the month of February, he’s averaged 7.3 rebounds in 6 games for his new team and that was with Nurkic playing in all 6 games.
The Warriors aren’t exactly elite when it comes to rebounding — their opponents average 51.8 boards per game and that number has gone up to 54 per game over their last 3. In the loss against Denver they allowed 58 rebounds, and I think we’ll see a similar number for Portland in tonight’s game and Winslow should get at least 8 if that’s the case.
Make sure you also read our same game parlay for Boston Celtics vs Brooklyn Nets (+954 odds!)
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