Article courtesy OddsShark (@OddsShark)
The Los Angeles Lakers are 1-5 straight up and 0-6 against the spread over their last six games. The Lakers will try to turn things around when they take on the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 2 of their best-of-seven series on Thursday night.
Los Angeles is a 6.5-point favorite on the NBA odds in Orlando at sportsbooks monitored by OddsShark.com. This was the same line in Game 1 when the Lakers lost 100-93 as 6.5-point favorites.
Trail Blazers vs Lakers | OddsShark Matchup Report
Anthony Davis had 28 points and 11 rebounds in Game 1. LeBron James recorded 23 points, 17 rebounds and 16 assists. But the rest of the team combined for just 51 points as the Lakers’ offensive woes in the NBA bubble continued.
A winning strategy for the Lakers obviously relies heavily on the play of Davis and James, but in the postseason the supporting cast is going to have to step up as well.
The Lakers fell to 3-6 SU and 1-8 ATS since the NBA’s return with the loss per the OddsShark NBA Database.
Damian Lillard looks like a man on a mission. The Trail Blazers point guard went 6-for-13 from three-point land and scored 34 points in Portland’s upset victory on Tuesday. Since returning to action in the NBA bubble, Lillard is averaging 37.2 points per game with a current four-game stretch in which he is averaging 47 points per game.
Portland is 5-0 SU and 3-2 ATS over its last five games and has all the momentum heading into Game 2.
Thursday night’s total is set at 229 points at online betting sites. The UNDER is 8-4 in Los Angeles’ last 12 games.
Without fans in the mix, momentum in this series is going to come from the players on the court instead of factors off of it. This should favor the Lakers, who are the higher-seeded team and the team with two of the top five players in the world in James and Davis.
But Portland’s performance in Game 1 does give legitimate cause for concern as the Trail Blazers are red hot and hopes that the Lakers would just “turn it on” didn’t come to fruition. The Lakers would love to squash these upset talks with a dominant performance in Game 2.
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