It’s time to flip the script.
After about 10 days of saying the Portland Trail Blazers are a balloon ready to pop, I’m ready to back the Blazers in Game 4 against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Wait, what?
That’s right. Things change and you have to adapt. I wrote about LeBron James and his frustrating track record of easing into a playoff series. Portland’s Game 1 win (and L.A.'s complacency) gave us a massive opportunity to bet the Lakers -200 to “rally back” and win the series.[[ad:athena]]
Naturally, the Lakers came out guns blazing in Game 2 and blasted the Blazers 111-88. It didn’t really feel that close either. In Game 3, Portland had one bad quarter and still almost covered the +7.5 point spread. So now we turn the page to what I like to call the “Kitchen Sink” scenario.
This is absolutely the biggest game of the entire series for Portland. They need to ramp up the energy, turn up the defensive pressure and pull out all the stops. Desperation is often everything in an NBA playoff series and teams that are trying to avoid that 3-1 hole are very dangerous.
It only helps that the public perception has clearly swung to the Lakers’ side because LeBron has appeared to finally flip that light switch. I hate to break it to you, but he’s in for a battle tonight. Luckily for me, I don’t need Portland to win the game – just need them to keep it close.
Betting splits for the first two games of the series showed upwards of 65 percent of the tickets on the Blazers. It evened out a little for Game 3 after the blowout (57% Blazers) and now the public is on the Lakers (59% tickets on LA) for Game 4. Yet the market still moved from Portland +7.5 to +7.
That’s right where I want to be.
I also thought long and hard about taking Damian Lillard‘s point prop over 33.5 points, but decided to pass. It feels better to bet on Portland to play collectively well as a group. Time to go dust off my old Clyde Drexler Rip City jersey.
Play on the Blazers +7.
