Following a massive road win at Houston in overtime, the Portland Trail Blazers head to San Antonio to finish off a 4-game road trip. With 3 wins in their last 5 games, the Blazers are finally showing signs of life, but that’s too little too late to get anything significant out of this season. This will be the 2nd meeting of the season, with each team winning a game, but unlike those 2 games this one will be played in San Antonio. Portland’s road form of 6-19 SU isn’t something to brag about, but they’ll be encouraged by their 4-1 ATS record in the last 5 meetings with San Antonio. They’ve also beaten this team 4 times in the last 6 head-to-head, but that’s still not enough for the oddsmakers to make them favorites here. All eyes will be on Scoot Henderson here as he faces off with Victor Wembanyama, the player that was selected ahead of him in the NBA draft. The rookie is averaging just 12.4 points per game this season and hasn’t really matched expectations.
Wemby, on the other hand, is putting up 20.4 points and 10.1 rebounds per game, and according to most analysts is the front runner for the Rookie of the Year award. However, his team is just 8-36 SU on the season and has 3 wins in 20 home games. Defense has been the biggest issue for this team, we just saw the OKC Thunder put up 140 points on them earlier in the week, while prior to that they got destroyed by Joel Embiid who had 70 points in a 133-123 defeat at Philadelphia. San Antonio did cover the spread in that game vs Philly, they’ve been a solid 9-3 ATS in their last 12 games which tells us they are keeping games close more often than not. Another factor to consider here is the Spurs’ record in home games vs Portland – they’ve won 15 of their last 20 such games at the Frost Bank Center, so maybe that can give them the edge here?
